Santa Fe

For my birthday, Nick & I spent the night in Santa Fe. The kids were well taken care of by a fabulous babysitter who is home from college for the holidays. Nick was hoping to convince me that the only camera I need is my phone so all the pictures this weekend are from the iPhone 4S that he was testing.

Along the way, we stopped for lunch at the Greenside Cafe - one of the restaurants between  Albquerque & Santa Fe that Jessica saw on a restaurant tour. This was a fun restaurant - artichoke po'boy. The sauce (homemade in house) was wonderful - not too heavy at all.

We stayed in a hotel with a nice spa. Not as nice as the one Jessica & I visited last year, but it was still a very relaxing afternoon.

The hotel lobby was channelling a little Disney with this baked sculpture.

The rooms had a single shared balcony. The bags are farolitos (aka luminaries) and are my favorite New Mexican tradition.

I didn't eat much at lunch & was starving after our vigorous spa treatment so we stopped in the lobby for happy hour - DELICIOUS calamari.

Nick made dinner reservations at Cafe Pasqual's. I've been to Santa Fe four times and eaten at this restaurant the last three visits. Though seeing how much Nick enjoyed his dinner, I was happy we came here again. The lentil coconut soup was fabulous. 

I had the thai basil mussels. Unlike last year, the restaurant was surprisingly slow. Holly Hunter came in & sat at the community table that Jessica & I sat in last year. She was chatting up two little kids from the family seated next to her. That was our excitement for the evening.

It was a cold walk back to the hotel! But, Nick was invigorated by our discussion with our waiter - a self proclaimed ski bum. Taos & Santa Fe already have better ski conditions than last year. He's looking forward to getting in some ski days before the end of the year.

Every time we visit Santa Fe we worry about what we are supposed to be doing. It's such a popular tourist destination that we feel like we are missing the hot spots. It came to us at breakfast as we were sitting by a fireplace overlooking the old chapel sipping our coffee that eating & purposefully doing nothing is exactly what we love about Santa Fe.