Santa Fe

Back in December, we took a trip with my family to Santa Fe.  We really enjoyed a relaxing few days walking around the beautiful, quaint little area where we stayed.  My family has always taken yearly family vacations which used to be in the summer, but since my brother and I have been out of the house and with different schedules, we started taking them over the holidays.  No one had ever been to Santa Fe, and we were not disappointed!

We stayed close to "the plaza" where a lot of the little shops are.  It had snowed the day before we arrived.

My handsome man.

We loved this picture of my dad.  Even though he looks kind of like he isn't enjoying himself, he really was :)

The outside of our hotel at night.  It was so pretty with all of the luminaries lit up.  The hotel restaurant also gave us decidedly the best meal of our lives.

My sweet mom.

One night on our way back to the hotel, we spotted this leather shop and had to try on their amazing hats.  Everything was ridiculously expensive, but made for some fun pictures.

The church next to our hotel was so pretty.  We went for the Sunday service.

This was the French Bakery that we actually ate at twice because it was so delicious and cute inside.  The crepes were so good!

We went to this antique shop, and I had to stop and smile at their "medical section" which included items such as "brain duster tablets" and your general "healing ointments".

We visted the Loretto Chapel, home of "The Miraculous Staircase."  The legend is that the chapel was built without adequate space for a staircase up to the choir loft, so the nuns prayed and a man showed up, built this amazing staircase, and then no one could ever find him again or has a record of who he was.  The architecture is actually a mystery, because there is no center beam to hold it up.  It is only held together with these wooden pegs between the steps.  Pretty interesting to see!

On our last day, we visited the town of Chimayo, which was straight out of the movie "Nacho Libre."  It had a very Mexican feel to it, complete with a beautiful and interesting little chapel that Mark had to duck his head to walk into.

It was such a fun trip!  Can't wait to figure out where we'll go next Christmas!