After-Christmas Vacation

As soon as our Christmas celebration was over, we headed for Albuquerque (dropping my Mom at my sister's along the way).

Before Scot and I became parents, we swore we wouldn't have a DVD player in the car. Our kids would play roadtrip games and talk and sing songs, just like we did on family road trips when we were kids. Right. Add that to the list of things we renegged on when we had actual kids. Riley and Asher were both enthralled by the movies, and that was enough to keep Scot and I happy. We have learned that Asher is not a good road-tripper, so anything that would keep him from fussing was okay in our book.

The family visited the River of Lights at the botanical gardens. It was an impressive display, in spite of the VERY cold weather.

As seems to be the case with a lot of our travel plans, the agenda for this vacation centered around all the places we wanted to eat while we were in town. At the top of the list was Rudy's. Our favorite BBQ place in Austin has a location in Abq!

We had to get a photo of Asher and Bernie hanging out at the window, since the scene was so adorably similar to this photo of Riley when she was 9 months old.

In between eating and driving, we had a great time hanging out with family. Riley couldn't get enough of her aunties. She jammed with Papa and learned that Grandmommy is a nurse, but she doesn't give people "pokes." And Landon (and Shana's iPod) helped Riley become more tech-savvy than her parents.