Holiday photo extravaganza

I seriously took about 142 photos in Albuquerque. Since the blogger site would probably collapse if I tried to upload them all on my little page, I will just post a few here and then post a link later on to the kodakgallery website (once I get them all up on that site).

Anyway....why was I in Albuquerque? My dad and Beth moved there last summer, so Christmas took place down in the southwest this year. I spent about nine days down there and had a great time. We did a lot of hiking -- they live one mile from the trail head of the foothills of Sandia Mtn. I also tried snowboarding for the first time, thanks to my brother-in-law Taylor for teaching me and being soooo patient. (Side note: I went for the second time last Saturday with Eric for his bday and felt like I was improving. I love it.) Other than outdoor activities, there was also a lot of eating, laughing, passing gas (Alyse, Beth...), driving through pretty scenery, exploring new cities and towns (Santa Fe and Madrid) and playing my new fav game (The New Yorker Game). I would highly recommend taking a trip down to New Mexico sometime. I want to go back in the summer time to see what it's like in the warmer months. During my stay, the temps varied from the 20s to the 50s, and the sun is very hot since it's in the high desert, so it warms you up pretty nicely even if it's cold. The top of the mountain is another story -- the night we took a tram up to the top, it was 8 degrees at the peak, with negative windchill and 40 mph winds. The pic below shows me looking like an eskimo and my dad pretending it's balmy and warm. I was prepared and thankful. He was cold and headed straight for the restaurant/bar located at the peak.

Here are some more pics:

Yup, it snows in New Mexico. It snowed the second night I was there, and it was so pretty. This is my dad and Beth's house -- it's smaller than it looks. Eric thought this was a mansion. It's a nice house, but definitely not that big. With 8 of us, we felt kind of cramped, or cozy. The desert plants look funny with snow on them, by the way.

The girls posing on top of a soda dam (sulfur spring is running beneath where we are standing, I believe). This was during our day of scenic driving, which also included some car sickness and bowel problems (people's names will not be included to protect the innocent...).

This was taken at Proex -- you know, using one of those fake screens... No, seriously, this is a REAL background. Beautiful.

The kids (minus Rob). We were all dressed up for church so they made us take a picture before we changed back into our sweatpants. :)

Me, Taylor and Stacy hiking around some volcanic rock that the Pueblo Indians once drew pictures on (to communicate? teach? play? we don't know). This was the day o' Petroglyphs. We also saw a roadrunner! Stacy chased it. I'm not kidding.

Jeff and Taylor snowboarding. Jeff was resting. Taylor was teaching.

Proof that I snowboarded. Taylor took us immediately to the green runs (skipped out on the bunny hill entirely), so I got really tired just going down one run. It took 1.5 hours to get down one run. I only got in three runs total in about 4 hours. My muscles would get so sore that I would stop/fall on purpose and sit there to rest. While resting, sometimes I would take some pics, like this one. I call it "Boots Overlooking a Mountain" or "Boots Over Santa Fe."