New Mexico New Year

This year my older brother Jimmie and his family were kind enough to let me spend the holidays with them. I arrived just in time for all the Christmas eve festivities. Every year Alexis makes an amazing traditional dinner of Swedish meatballs and pulla, lumpa, broccoli salad, green beans, and rice pudding with sweet soup. It is so delicious I swear I gain like ten pounds just thinking about all that homemade yummy goodness. Okay now that I am done drooling I can continue. After dinner we opened our customary one present, Catherine and I both got Christmas pajamas. Then it was off to bed..... okay Catherine went to bed and Santa and his elves slaved for an hour or so putting together an awesome play kitchen for the "little chef".

Once all the presents were out and the stockings were stuffed it was finally bed time. In the morning Catherine and I were woken up so we could check out our stockings and Catherine could see her play kitchen. I think she was really excited about the kitchen but not very excited to be woken up in the morning. After we had a breakfast it was time to open all the gifts. Catherine had fun getting presents for everyone and opening all of her loot, although she did get pretty tired near the end but who can blame her she had the most presents under the tree by far. I got everything on my list this year except one thing..... Nathan. It was so nice to spend Christmas with family but I definitely missed having him around.
After recovering from all the Christmas excitement we went sledding on Saturday up in the mountains near the small town of Cloudcroft, NM. It was really cold but a ton of fun. Catherine had more fun eating the snow then sledding but Jimmie, Alexis, and I had a lot of fun. I haven't been sledding in years, I forgot how much fun it could be and how little control you have on those flying saucers. After Catherine got too cold to sled we headed back to Cloudcroft and went window shopping and had a yummy lunch at a little restaurant.


Jimmie had to work part of the week leading up to the new year so Alexis, Catherine, and I just hung out. We went to the library to get some new books, went grocery shopping, made yummy dinners, and hung out around the house. I had a lot of fun with Catherine reading books, playing with puzzles, and of course playing with her new kitchen. Jimmie was able to get the 30th off so we headed up to a quirky little town called Truth or Consequence, NM. Yep, this town is named after a game show. It was named Hot Springs until 1950 and those hot springs are the reason we went. After checking out the Geronimo Museum and eating lunch at a cute little Italian restaurant we headed off to the hot springs. The town has 10 hot springs most are connected to hotels and most are indoors. We wanted to go to a outdoor public pool so we picked River Bend Hot Springs with pools located right on the banks of the Rio Grande. We had so much fun hanging out in the hot pools, Catherine thought that they were the greatest and loved "swimming" around the pools, which really consisted of walking on her toes across the bottom of the pool. The weather was perfect and the water was so relaxing. I can't wait to take Nathan to the Hot Springs, although we might try out one of the private pools.

To ring in the new year Jimmie, Alexis, and I pretty much just hung out and watched the ball drop on TV and drank some sparkling cider. That weekend we went to the Toy Train Depot in Alamogordo. It was really neat and Catherine LOVED all the trains.

We even got to go on a little train ride around the park near the Train Depot it was a lot of fun. We also went to the Alamogordo Zoo which was fun. We got to feed the swans, geese, and ducks, we saw a family of capibara, otters, a cougar, and tons of other animals. For such a small zoo, they really do have a lot of animals and for the most part you can see them out in their enclosures. Alexis and I also managed to paint their living room wall. I haven't painted anything in a really long time but it was a ton of fun and easier than I thought. It took us two nights to do but I think it looks great.

This past week we haven't done too much we have pretty much just hung around the house. Alexis and I went shopping and got some great deals on some super cute jeans and sweaters. We went on base and took Catherine to an indoor playground for kids under 5, and checked out what the BX had to offer which wasn't much although we did have fun playing with the hula hoops.
I am so glad that I came down to visit for the holidays. These last two weeks have been busy yet relaxing at the same time. I have had so much fun visiting with Jimmie and Alexis, and I absolutely adore Catherine and love just hanging out reading books and all the goofy things she says and does. I am sad to have to say good bye but at the same time I am excited about all the things that lay ahead.