New Mexico Visit

We flew to Albuquerque on Feb 9th.

(love his face)

(rio grande)

Once we landed we visited a property management company that we had been in communication with and went to see a house we saw online. It was right on the golf course and we loved it. We weren't sure about the pet policy and the property manager said she would check with the owner and get back with us. We looked at 14 houses in 2 days. The last 3 houses we looked at on Friday we loved. We still hadn't heard back on the first house, but we had to make a choice, so we chose another one we loved just as much. We submitted the application and deposit and turned in all the paperwork we could while we were there.

(our house)

On Saturday we spent the day driving around to each of Ryan's branches. We also drove up to Santa Fe, Espanola, and Taos.



When we got to the airport on Sunday the flight was overbooked. We had the chance to take a voucher but I just wanted to go home. After waiting a few minutes I decided it would be ok to take another flight but it was too late. Oh well.

We got some great recommendations from friends about places to eat. We had some very good food. The city has wonderful food. We're excited about that. We ate at Garcia's Kitchen, Standard Diner (Food Network), Blake's Lotaburger and Dion's.

(squash with quinoa)

Funny note: there are so many Walgreens and CVS there. Literally they are both at every intersection. I wonder if people use it to grocery shop.

(cute little houses)

We really enjoyed our time there. It was sunny and warm and we got to drive around and see a lot of the state. The temple is beautiful.

We had heard Rio Rancho was a nice city so originally we looked there for a house, but we found that it was so far away from everything. Once we started looking in Albuquerque we found our home, so I'm glad we did some more searching. Albuquerque is basically split into quadrants. NW, NE, SW, SE. I-25 runs North and South and I-40 runs East and West.

Albuquerque is one of the oldest cities in America. Land wise, Albuquerque is a little bigger than SLC and has about 1200 more people. It's definitely a desert, most people have no grass, just rocks or dirt. The homes and neighborhoods remind me a little of Las Vegas or St George. All the houses are neutral colors and they're all stucco. No brick or siding anywhere. Albuquerque has a higher elevation than SLC so even though it's farther South, it still get's snow. They had to de-ice our airplane Sunday before we left because it was starting to snow.

We only saw one LDS Chapel as we were driving around but that's only because we knew where it was. Our chapel is just a few blocks from our home. There are only about 11 chapels in the whole city. VERY different from Utah. Lots of work to be done!

*We arrived in ABQ last night. I have lots more to post soon*