Santa Fe, New Mexico

PICTURE OVERLOAD
Over the Fourth of July weekend, we went with our friends the Torres family to Santa Fe, New Mexico.  This is the second year we have vacationed with them over the Fourth of July!  It was an amazing trip!  We headed down to Santa Fe on July 3rd.  When we got to Santa Fe, we checked into the hotel and got ready to go swimming!  The kids were so excited to go swimming!  After swimming we came back to the room and ordered pizza from a local pizza place.  It was really good, but really slow!

 And then these three cuties crashed!

The first full day in Santa Fe was the Fourth of July.  We went to El Rancho de las Golondrinas. This place was a lot of fun!  This place dates back to the 1700s and the early Spanish Colonists.  They had lots of things to see and do and taste!  We went on a guided tour and then explored by ourselves.

 This is in the center of the placita house structure.  The placita is a house that is built in a square with a courtyard in the middle.  It is built to protect the people that live there.  It is not just a place for one family.  There can be a whole village living in the placita.  

 These ovens make some very yummy bread!

 The Chapel in the placita

 This was one of the family sleeping areas.  They also had a place to cook here.

 The placita "store"

 The kids and TJ got a little unruly!

 Pretending to grind the corn into flour

 Hard at work

 Sampling his hard work!

 After we left the Rancho, we went to watch Despicable Me 2.  After the movie, we went to dinner and then to the fireworks.  The kids had fun running around while we waited for the fireworks to start.  We were all really glad we got to see fireworks this year!  Last year we didn't get to see any because of all the fires.

 Playing tackle! 

 Chasing eachother

 And then we broke out the glow sticks.  The kids had fun with these!

The next day we went to Taos Pueblo.  We stopped in Taos for lunch and then went to the Pueblo.  I have to say this was a little disappointing.  We had to drive an hour and a half, pay to get in and pay to take pictures.  When we got in, all you could do was buy things the Native had made.  Nothing set up to represent what life was like.  No one demonstrating their skills.  You couldn't go into the Pueblo.  A little disappointing after the Rancho.  It was beautiful though.  So I spent a little more than $.50/picture.  I could have taken more, but they all would have looked the same. 

 When we got back from Taos, the kids and TJ went swimming as I slept.  Then we went to dinner.

The final day in Santa Fe we spent in downtown Santa Fe.  It was really cool.  Very different from every city I have ever been in.  We had a great time walking around and seeing the old churches and other buildings.

 The Loretto Chapel is famous for this stair case.  The Catholic people believe that it was built by Joseph the carpenter.  They say that the nuns had been praying during the construction of the church.  A man showed up, built the stair case and then disappeared. 

 This is the oldest house in the United States

 We stopped at the State Capital

 At lunch Lily made a pair of glasses and wore them around!

Santa Fe was a great place to visit!  We had a great time with our friends!  I cant wait to see where we go next!

Visit from the Gray Girls!

Three of TJ's sisters went on a road trip after the youngest, Cassie, graduated from high school!  First they headed down to Texas to visit TJ's sister Marci.  Then they came up to Colorado to visit us!  We even got to have Marci come up from Texas for the weekend!  We had a lot of fun with them!  We love when they come and visit us!  Lily enjoyed having Aunt Allie do her hair and lots of extra attention from all her Aunts!  Logan was also loving all the attention from his Aunts!  We had fun going to Pirates Cove (a local water park), walking around downtown, going to a Rockies baseball game, playing games and just having fun together!  We hope they come again soon!

 We all had to try a different flavor of Root beer at Rocket Fizz!

 These two love riding the bus downtown.

 Logan's first Major League Baseball game!  He didn't quite make it through the game, but he enjoyed most of it! 

TJ turns the big 30!

June 7th TJ turned 30!  We celebrated by having a BBQ!  We had friends and most of TJ's siblings over to help us celebrate!  It was really fun to have TJ's siblings come into town to visit and share TJ's birthday with us!  We had a lot of really yummy food and some fun yard games!  It was great to have so many people around to help make TJ's big day a special one!  We love you so much TJ!

 I love that Logan copied Thomas and Marci and crawled around the back yard!

 Yes, I made TJ do the grilling for his own party.  He said he would do it and he enjoys grilling!  We had four different marinated chicken skewers.  All of which were very tasty!

 Instead of traditional birthday cake, I made TJ two cheesecakes! 

 His siblings that were able to come play with us!  Marci, Allie, Cassie, and Tiff.  Uncle Collin was there is spirit!

Thanks everyone for coming!  Thanks Allie for taking pictures for me and sending them to me!  You are awesome!