Our Trip to Albuquerque!

We have been talking about going to Albuquerque to visit Tara for a really long time and we finally made it happen this summer!

We drove there in one day. Stopped in Moab for lunch at Wendy's and then hiked to Wilson's arch. 

So pretty!

I had to take this one of Mckinley trying to hide and stay out of the way of my picture.

Made another stop at 4 corners. The kids were really excited to be able to be in 4 states at once. We had no idea what to expect though. This was a lot bigger deal than I thought. We didn't know we would have to pay like $40 to get in. But I think it was worth it! It was pretty cool.

Stopped in Farmington for dinner at Taco Bell and then made it to Tara and Gary's that evening. So fun to see them and their house!

The kids crashed all together in the family room, leaving beds unslept in because they all wanted to be together. 

Our first stop was the Albuquerque Zoo. It was a really cool zoo. We had a great time!

It was hot, but the zoo had so many fun animals to see! And Tara got us all in for free.

So fun to see hippos again since we haven't had them at our zoo for a long long time. Hippos were my favorite animal to see at the zoo when I was a kid.

There was a two week old baby gorilla that was so stinking adorable. We watched the mom nurse it and then walk around holding it. It was amazing.

We drove up to the top of a mountain with absolutely incredible views. It was really fun.

Such a pretty drive too.

Then that evening Tara and Gary took us to an Isotopes baseball game with dinner. We had a great time and the kids stayed home and had pizza and watched a movie.

The next day Gary took us to Top Golf. It was the first time for most of our family and we had so much fun!

Went straight from there to the Natural History Museum and had fun exploring there and watching a 3D movie.

After that we went to Old Town Albuquerque and got some great pics of very "new mexican" scenes.

Dion's for dinner. I mean, we really packed the fun in! It was suuuuuch a great trip. And Dion's is absolutely delicious.

Beautiful sunset as we left dinner.

Headed to the temple. Gary's company does the landscaping at the Albuquerque Temple.

Sunday was pretty chill. Went to church with them and just chilled at home most of the day.

Tara took us to a fun park that evening.

Gary put up a tent for Maisie and Ava to sleep in. We were originally going to spend a couple of our nights there in a hotel but the kids were having so much fun together they didn't want to leave so we ended up staying all 5 nights at Tara and Gary's house.

Tara and I took the kids on a fun easy hike on Monday morning while Brandon and Gary went to the office.

It was really pretty and lots of fun.

Then we went to go play in the Rio Grande river. It was quite the adventure trekking through the jungle to get there, but it was so much fun playing in that water! It wasn't even cold. The day was super hot so the water just felt great and I think the kids could have played for hours and hours longer but Brandon was stranded at Gary's office so we eventually left to go get him.

Before we left the river we went to this spot where we got to see a bunch of turtles. We fed them popcorn ha ha.

The girls wanted to take a bath together to clean up from being in the river.

Then that night we headed to Monroe's for dinner to have some authentic new mexican food. It was absolutely delicious, especially the sopapillas.

The kids played outside in the evening and ended up getting completely eaten alive by mosquitoes.

On our way back home we stopped by the Farmington temple to see Gary's crew putting in the landscaping.

Poor Ava gets attacked by mosquitoes and the bites turn into big welts. Poor thing had to be like this the entire drive home till we could get some anti itch cream.

Seriously such a fun trip and one of the highlights of our summer!! So glad we could go!