Santa Fe Weekend

Allen's mom had some timeshare points that were expiring this month and she asked if we wanted to use them. Of course we jumped at the chance and booked a 2 day getaway in Santa Fe for this past weekend. We went up Thursday night and then spent Friday and Saturday playing. It was a great weekend and much needed family time as this month has been really crazy for us. The resort we stayed at was beautiful and embodied the southwestern cultural perfectly.

Friday morning we spent walking all through downtown Santa Fe. It's a really cool city with lots of unique shopping and museums and artsy sites throughout. I stayed at the resort with Emery so she could squeeze in a short nap while the kids hunted for a souvenir. They ended up in a rock/fossil shop and everyone picked something to remember our trip.

After shopping we headed to Bobcat Bite to get one of their famous Green Chile cheeseburgers. This HOLE IN THE WALL place has been featured on lots of travel/food shows and it did not disappoint. Yummiest burger ever!

After lunch we drove up to Los Alamos to go ice skating. We heard about their outdoor rink that is nestled in a little valley. It was gorgeous! Allen sat with Emery while I skated with the older kids for over 2 hours! They would have gone longer but it was getting really cold and my ankles were sore. We had a blast though and all three kids got much more comfortable on the ice.
By the end of our time the older kids were no longer using the skate helpers but they helped a lot and Addison loved using her and got pretty fast and comfortable with it.
It was very interesting to see the National Labs which were nearby and had an incredible amount of security. Made us wonder what exactly they work on in there! From there we headed off to dinner and then back to the resort to watch movies (Allen and I watched Moneyball after the kiddos went to bed and it was fantastic!)

Saturday morning we had another leisure breakfast and then drove over to the state capital to walk around. We ended up staying for a long time because there was no one there but everything was unlocked to see. There was incredible art all throughout the capital that the kids loved seeing.

In the state Senate chamber. We ended up being able to go down to the floor and walk around but I didn't want to push my luck by taking more pictures.
We headed over to the lone outlet mall in NM on our way out of town and picked up a few things and started home in the early afternoon. We stopped at a Mormon Battalion monument that is about halfway between Santa Fe and ABQ. We have seen the signs a bunch of times but never stopped before. My kids loved reading the story along with the monument and were familiar with the story since they love 17 Miracles.
It was a great weekend to be together as a family and explore our own little neck of the woods. We've been to Santa Fe before but never spent much time exploring the culture very much. Allen and I would love to make a couples weekend out of it sometime since there were a ton of fun adult-type things to do up there. We're really hoping to do some serious exploring of NM this year before we wrap up our time here and this was a great way to start off.

Big thanks to Allen's mom for the use of her timeshare!!