The Rest of Christmas

Well it's clearly been a while. I've had a little bit of drama going on in my life since I got back home to Houston, so I haven't had the time or found the motivation to blog. But as I sit watching "Swiss Family Robinson", I thought I'd catch up on my two weeks in ABQ.


The day after Christmas my Aunt Chris came from Phoenix to spend a week with all of us. It was absolutely wonderful to have her there, a little touch of the glorious Christmases we'd have with the whole extended family in Arizona. We mostly spent the whole two weeks doing absolutely nothing: sleeping in every morning, getting ourselves going for lunch, and then running to Costco and Target in the afternoons.


In the picture above, the boys were showing off the outfits their bears got for Christmas, and my mom brought out her teddy bear from her childhood as well.




And from bears to cats! This is the Cat-a-pult my Aunt Nancy gave to my dad. She sent it with Chris as a joke gift since Nancy adores cats and my dad can't stand them.



Chris will kill me for this picture, but doesn't she look like a Yenta? We had gone over to Melinda's one evening for dinner and Chris wanted to step outside for a bit with the boys, so she wrapped herself in a scarf she brought home from Russia.

Don't remember which day this lunch shot was taken. But we had gone to Twisters and my dad got his favorite shredded roast beef burrito, which as he says "puts out his low level grease light". You can see the grease dripping around his pinky as well as the corner of his mouth. He was in Heaven.

One of the evenings I met my good friends Marney & Will as well as Kendall & Jay at a Flying Star for dinner and dessert. It was so wonderful to see them and catch up. Marney & Will live in Temecula, CA, so it's a rarity when all five of us are back home in ABQ. But we got ourselves together and met and reminisced for four-and-a-half hours! We closed the place down!

And here's Kendall & Jay. Kendall and I have known each other since 5th grade, Marney since 6th grade. The three of us were The Triumverant all through high school. Jay and Will were very tolerant of us strolling down memory lane. But we all have lots of memories together as I've known Jay for 17 years and Will for 15.

TRADER JOES!!! I LOVE Trader Joes!! I wish, wish, wish we had it in Houston!!!

And this is my white trash sister! She took one of my mom's wigs and wore it backwards. What doesn't really show well is the amazing mullet in the back! HA!

And what's a blog post about ABQ without the required Dion's shot!? Man, I'm hungry as I type this. While I usually get pizza, this particular day I got the roast beef sandwich. And of course you have to dip it in the Greek dressing. (And yes, Marc Kutner, the dressing IS for the sandwich!)



Here's a shot technique I stole from Jenny and Lindsay Kutner. Melinda and the little boys had a blast doing this about 7 times until we got this one good shot!



For New Years Eve, my parents, aunt and I went back to the same restaurant we went to for Christmas Eve, Sandiagos. If I didn't type it an earlier post, it's my new favorite New Mexican restaurant. And just look at that view!



A fun festive atmosphere at Sandiagos!

And the view from our table of the city and valley below as the west glows goodnight.