Thanksgiving Adventure!

Skipper and Sue came down for Thanksgiving this year. It's always fun to have family come down to visit. Here is the kitchen set up. Wished I would have taken pictures of all the yummy food and our thanksgiving day crew. So the crew consisted of the Skipper, Sue, Henry & Jana (Ty's really good friends), and Alex an intern down here at Sandia. Lots of good food and great company.

 The next day we went to Tent Rocks National Monument. This beauty came around due to the volcanoes way back in the day and the weather. I am glad we went but man it was WAY BUSY! had to wait 30-40 minutes to even get into the park....lots of people here on break with family. 

 So the trail takes you back into a canyon and this rad tree was there. The tree was huge and the roots were just cool. 

 Here we are entering the "narrow" part of the hike. This is also the beginning of the snow we encountered. Some snow but a lot of it was ice due to people tromping it down and then freezing.

Sue and the Skipper

This was the last part of the hike. Switch backs up the mountain side. Ty's folks decided that they would turn around and start making their way back due to the steep climb and all the ice. Ty and I were making our way pretty good and almost got to the end but the ranger turned us around because they would be closing soon. We asked how much further to the end....oh about 500 feet, BLAST! Then we had to go downhill on the ice. That took us a lot longer than going up. I mainly slid on my shoes and behind down the trail. A lot of people on the train caused us to slow down more too. 

We really enjoyed this hike and we are excited to hike it again when there is no snow so we can finish it. It was fun to have Ty's parents down and to celebrate Thanksgiving with them. We also did sealings at the temple of family history names that Sue brought down. Also we had fun playing games, eating great food, and of course basketball:) We LOVE when family comes to visit!!!!

Bandelier National Monument

This past Friday Ty had work off and I was blessed to be not scheduled due to lack of patients.....So we took this opportunity and ran! We have been wanting to see a lot of the sites NM has to offer and we have both heard that Bandelier was a must. So we booked a room in Pojaoque the night before with a great deal Ty found online for only half the price, BOOYA! Friday morning we took off and it took about 2 hours to drive to the monument. Love this area of NM. Up in the mountains with big trees and beautiful scenery, reminds me lots of home. The weather forecast didn't look the greatest so we prayed lots that we could see everything. Well we must have been doing something right because as we were leaving the rain and wind came.

 The visitors center

 Okay so NM had HUGE flooding in Sept and it really affected this area. They were playing a movie in the visitor center of the flooding river raging through here. Totally incredible.  So along with the Indian housing stuff I am putting the flooding stuff in here too.

 This is what the stream usually looks like:)

 Ty educating us about our Indian friends.

 So this rock looked like sandstone to me but in fact it is not. It is Volcanic ash.

 Going up the mountain side to see the homes they lived in.

 This place was totally fun because they let you play Indian. We got to climb up the ladders and act like indians.

 Here is Ty showing us how they Indians would have squatted over their potty holes. Thanks hon.

 This house is the big one on the block

 It had about 4-5 different rooms all connected.

 Looking at the structures we had previously walked through

 I asked sweetly for Ty to take a picture of me going up the ladder....awesome picture. Thanks Ty.

 This is pretty cool. The tiny holes you can see in the picture below and the one after that are where they had multiple level homes. From the looks of it some homes were 3 levels.

 Man can you imagine those huge beasts coming down during the flood, scary!

 This is the way to the long house. 2 long flights of ladders and one short one. By the time we got to the top we were a little bit out of breath. But lets be honest...that's about normal for me:)

 The awesome view from the top!

 So we had just gotten to the bottom and another couple was making their way up to the top. If you look real close you can see the guy in blue and the lady in pink.

 This was a drinking fountain.

 Now we are making our way to the waterfall. Beautiful trees and scenery!

 Off in the very far yonder you can see the Rio Grande.

 This fall was about 70 feet. Very pretty.

 So on our way up to Bandelier we went through Santa Fe. On our way home the next day we drove through Los Alamos and the Jemez mountains.

 One of the many bridges in Los Alamos.

 We even ran into snow, SNOW! Won't lie I was pretty nervous being on the side of a mtn and it being all snowy and icy. Man its been forever since I have been in snow. Bingo did awesome thanks to Ty and his superb driving.

It was a great get away. Excited to see what else NM has to offer us!