One of the reasons we went to New Mexico, was to hang with this beautiful family!  Mark and his wife Melanie went to college with Brett at UNM. We had so much fun with these guys on our trip!  The last time we were out there Priya was 20 months old, and Julia was 5.  They were inseparable.  :)  It was so cool after all these years (and adding 5 kids!) seeing them all play and get along so well.

Of course we had to do a mini-family session with them while visiting.  Here they are!  Melanie, Gracie-2, Mark, Alicia-9, Julia-14.

Gracie was just not feeling this picture thing….she was kinda done with it from the beginning to tell you the truth :-)  The ONLY thing that made her happy, was playing with rocks.  Sooooo, she played with rocks for a while!

Julia had grown up so much.  Last time we were here she was 5!!  Now she is a beautiful, sweet as could be, teenager.

Like I said, ROCKS were IT!  ;)

Daddy, trying to make Gracie laugh!

Alicia is a total sweetie pie.

Brett sneaking up on Gracie.  This photo is too cute.

A couple minutes later, this was the scene.  Mark and Mel weren’t laughing, but Brett loved this real-life action shot he got. I feel like I should put a disclaimer here: We are only posting this shot because they are our close friends- this type of thing actually happens from time-to-time on shoots , but you would never know from the blog ;-)    As it turned out Gracie wasn’t feeling very well…..but MAN they will have an awesome photo to show her someday!!!!

Mark, a great daddy, calms his girl down with some drawing.

Now she’s HAPPY!! (Alicia, you’re too cute.)

We headed out towards their house and saw this gorgeous  scene off the highway with the Sangre de Cristo mountains in the back.  We had to stop!!

Mark and Mel, I LOVE this one!!!

Brett was cracking me up.

This is their adobe home, THAT MARK BUILT!!  How amazing is that?

One of my favorite things is the kiva fireplace in the kitchen.  So awesome.

Brett took this shot without us knowing, as we were hanging out after dinner.  We LOVED their kitchen with the exposed vigas. That is Gabe in the lower left trying to find the cat I think.  ;)

Much love to the “H” family!  We miss you guys and hope to see you again soon!!!

The Z’s

I am quite certain that New Mexico is one of my most favorite places.  I can’t describe how wonderful it is….why I feel like I connect with everything that it offers, but I do.  And I can thank my husband for introducing me.  When we were first married (as youngsters), he took me to NM to show me where he went to school at UNM, and introduced me to dear friends.  I was 20 years old and eight months pregnant with Priya at the time.  We drove all around New Mexico, along with parts of Nevada and Arizona.  I was completely, utterly, MADLY in love.  I had a little 35mm camera and I STILL have the only image that I took of a mountain (while driving), in a little 3×5 frame in my kitchen.  The photo is not that good (frankly it’s pretty bad), but when I look at it the memories flood back.  We went back to New Mexico when Priya was nearly two years old, but we hadn’t been back since.

When planning where we would take our family vacation this year, New Mexico made it to the top of the list!!  We flew in to Albuquerque, but rented a house in Santa Fe. Our flight brought us in late at night, so our hour drive to our home felt so mysterious. You couldn’t see much of anything, yet knew that you were surrounded by gorgeous mountains, and miles of painted landscape.

The home where we stayed did not have clocks, and every bed faced the East.  There weren’t curtains on our bedroom windows, so the first few days we woke with the sun (until we got used to it).  It was so cool seeing the sun come up that first day, brilliantly revealing what we would call home for the next week.

It felt magical.

Our whole family ran outside.  We did what we all do. We took pictures.

Here’s Priya, perched high on our home’s adobe wall.

Once the sun was up the kids and I went exploring the land around the house, with PJ’s on.  That’s how we roll on vacation.  ;)

We had a day overlap with our good friend Matt (right) from Columbus, OH.  Amery (middle) is one of Brett’s UNM college friends.  Both friends met us the night we came in. They got to hang with us and experience our magical morning!

Then Gabe and I had most of the day to ourselves while Brett took Matt into Albuquerque.  The sun came out and warmed us….so we took advantage of those chaise loungers. We read books, talked about the mountains, and had some nice bonding time.  It was the prefect start to our vacation!

The next day we went into the town of Santa Fe, and headed up the mountain.

I had hoped we would hit the right time for the Aspens to be changing for fall, and alas, WE DID.

WE WERE BLOWN AWAY.

It looked like a giant rainbow across the mountainside.  AMAZING.

I actually had to yell at my children, “Quit taking PHOTOS!!”

The next day the kids did some exploring in the “back yard”…..

…….but what MADE their day was that Uncle Jason arrived!

We invited friends over, and had a fiesta that night!  New Mexico is famous for their Green Chili, so Brett tried making Green Chili Stew.  It was deeeelicous.

Brett and his college friends did a little facebook stalking together.  Good times.  :)

And that’s a quick summary of our first 3 days.  We have more. It gets even better.  :)