MISSED A WHITE CHRISTMAS BUT THE NEW YEAR CAME THROUGH ....

A grand Christmas was had by all.
A whole passel of Rob's rello's on his Mum's side converged on Taos, New Mexico for a family catch up and showering the kids with loot.
It's about a 7 hour drive from here, we left town about 4pm, after Rob got off work and hit the road.

Yay, for geeky nieces and awesome aunts

The dogs travel well, and at least now pet friendly hotels are becoming more popular.
Taos is a nice little place, smaller than Santa Fe but with the same flat roofed mud pueblo architecture. Lots of art galleries, south western goodies and a very nommy Mocha.
The days were quite warm with no snow on the ground.

Releasing the Sky Lantern. No fire restrictions here. Taos.

We were very well fed by Andy and Janie, who has a great house outside of Taos overlooking the Sangre de Cristo (Blood of Christ) mountains.

Christmas Day walkies.

On Boxing Day we went snowboarding. Taos Ski Valley is a lot bigger and varied than AZ Snowbowl. I had fun doing my thing while the uber boarders went off looking for more steep bits to throw themselves down.

Boarding at Taos

It was also Sallie (Rob's Mum) birthday and her sisters had arranged a hot spring soak and dinner at Ojo Caleinte. So after we left the snowy slopes we drove down, put on our swimmers for a nice hot soak at the natural springs, followed by dinner. It was tough let me tell you.

Christmas Chilli, Taos

While wandering around Taos, we found a shop selling old manuscripts, map, drawings etc. We spent a long time in there looking at all the cool old (expensive) stuff and talking to the owner. We bought a piece. A 1914 First Edition print of a Kay Nielsen from the fairy tale "East Of The Sun, West Of The Moon". There were several and it was hard to pick which one to buy. His drawings are exquisite.

No sooner had he whistled....

We finally chose the bird caller, and I put it onto the framers today.

We drove back to Flagstaff on Monday.
By Thursday we had 3 feet of snow and all roads in and out of Flagstaff were shut for a time.
New Years Eve, we braved the freezing freezeness to watch the 10pm Pine Cone drop then hurried back inside.
We have had record lows the last few nights getting well below -20 celcius. Thank the gods for central heating.

My fav dog picture. Roo, getting the smackdown on Darwin (for once). They love the snow.