Land of Enchantment- Part 3

Photo-heavy post ahead! Our New Mexico trip was a few months ago at this point, but we saw such awesome sights that I still really want to post some photos. So these photos are from two consecutive days we spent in New Mexico, mostly around the historic town/area of La Mesilla, and El Paso, Texas, pretty much just doing some fun touristy things!

Adventures in the Land of Enchantment- Part 2

Our first full day in NM was filled with trying new things. Since it had been a long time (years) since I had visited the area, there were a lot of things I wanted to do and see during our recent visit. I was also in my very early twenties on my last visit and am now in my late twenties, so I (and my interests) have changed a lot and I wanted to see and do things that my parents weren't necessarily going to take me to do when I was a kid! Things such as...

Gambling! And horse racing! Haha.

Adventures in the Land of Enchantment- Part 1

After lots of LIFE happening for the past couple of years, I'm back ya'll! I am looking forward to writing a bit about some of the experiences I have lived recently, but until that post gets fleshed out, how about some photos of a recent trip?!?!

Caught in a tourist trap

We (Me and the Mr.) joined my family on a trip to New Mexico for the New Year to visit my dad's familia. I hadn't been since 2007, so I was super excited to be back to explore the area that I had told Eddie so much about. I just hoped it would live up to my stories! Since this side of my family lives so far away, Eddie had only just recently met a couple of them at our wedding. He was definitely looking forward to seeing me, my dad, and my family all interact with one another on my dad's home turf. (Side note- Eddie was a psychology major, so he loves that sort of stuff. Seeing how people interact and how it influences their personalities and who they are.) I have very fond memories of spending summers in the Las Cruces, NM/El Paso, TX area as well as a New Year's Eve here and there, made even more fun since Jan. 1st is my dad's birthday. 

Dia de los Muertos/Day of the Dead- Celebrations and Sugar Skulls Part 2

The Dia de los Muertos event at the Hollywood Forever cemetery was one of the coolest cultural events I have ever been to. There were AMAZING altars built and assembled by awesomely creative people, delicious food, vendors vending tons of things I wanted to buy, and some sweet artwork as well.

I am definitely planning to attend this event again next year. And we will for sure be going back a bit wiser on how to best navigate the whole thing. We live about 45 minutes to an hour away from Hollywood, and we left our apartment at about 6:15pm. We didn't make it inside of the cemetery until about 9pm. We got a little bit of traffic on the freeway, but where it really got crazy was probably a quarter of a mile from our exit. It took about a half an hour just to make it to the stop light at the exit. The traffic on the main street in front of the cemetery was NUTS. By the time we made it through that mess, we still had to cruise for a parking spot, which was about a mile away from the venue. SOOOOO... next year, I think we'll leave a lot earlier in the afternoon, approach the location from a different exit, and purchase our tickets in advance. We had meant to buy our tickets online before we left, but sales had closed the day of.

Despite all of the craziness, we had SUCH a good time! Let's check out some sweet photos now...