Santa Fe and Josefina's House

Over Spring Break we took a vacation to The Land of Enchantment!  I'm sure this statement brings to mind some beautiful, tropical location and you are feeling jealous that you too did not get to visit this enchanted land!  Well, you can stop feeling jealous because The Land of Enchantment is New Mexico!!  (I've always wondered why they call it that.)  We needed a location far enough away to feel like a vacation and close enough to home that we could easily drive there with an infant in tow.  Neither of us had been to Santa Fe and it fit the description above so we figured we'd try it out!  We spent the first half of the week in Santa Fe and then travelled farther south to Carlsbad for the last half of the week to visit family.  It was a much needed get-away and we all had a marvelous time!

The kids did great!  Although Alex didn't sleep ..... at all! :(

Santa Fe is an old, historic city and we enjoyed exploring some of it's old landmarks.....and eating some GREAT Mexican food!!

This little guy was a trooper!  Here is one of the rare occasions when his eyes were closed.

Sleepy babies.

It was warm enough while we were there to enjoy some time in the pool!

 

The highlight of our visit to Santa Fe was definitely visiting El Rancho de Las Golondrinas - aka: Josefina's House!!!!!  For those of you not living with a 7 year old little girl and, therefore, not familiar with all things American Girl, each of the historical American Girl doll characters has her own story.  Isabel's doll is Josefina.  She is a Mexican girl who lived in Santa Fe in the 1800's.  Each doll has a series of books and Josefina's books were written and illustrated from this very rancho!  They have a Josefina Tour and, since it was the off-season, our family enjoyed this tour with our own, private tour guide!!  Isabel thought she'd died and gone to heaven and the rest of us had a pretty good time too!

Our amazing tour guide!

Metate y mano.

Mortar and pestle.

The kids got to grind beans down to a powder just like Josefina!

Carding wool.

Hornos.

Ovens for baking bread.

This exact picture of the kitchen is in one of Josefina's books.

Gabe got a cowboy hat and a cork gun for being such a good sport! 

I was a horrible picture taker after we left Santa Fe and got no pictures of our visit with family.  Fortunately, we went back a month later and saw them again and I DID take pictures that time.  More on that visit to come!