As my feet wander more and more of the earth, I am always excited and grateful to return home to the warm red dirt and cold blue skies of New Mexico. Flying into New Mexico doesn’t look like much, unless you’re privy to its enchantment…

One of my favorite parts about coming home is definitely the CHILE!

This salsa is SOOOOOO HOT!!! But it’s damn delicious as well. You can’t stop eating it once you start! From El Parasol…(duh!) A little shameless (but congruent) sponsor placement…Thanks for all the support Hot Chillys…I love you in all forms…

Classic breakfast burrito at Tias Sofia’s in Santa Fe…State question that my grandfather actually petitioned as a legislator for 35 years…”Red or Green?” Me: Christmas (I started to take a bite when I realized I wanted a picture)

My visit was a complete surprise because it was only for 3 days and I knew I had to get North to see my brother and Estelle. Nonetheless, I managed to link up with 3 of my best friends for a night of (attempted) flamenco lessons from Jasper and hanging out with his infamous cross-eyed and drooling cat, Braveheart.

The next morning was sunny and beautiful…I took my family’s dog for a walk to check out the awesome view of Santa Fe from the Cross of the Martyrs. So many awesome memories from this spot!

Heading North…Good to see a patch of snow on the Santa Fe ski area! These mountains might look like hills but the altitude at this picture is about 8,000 feet…The top of the ski area is 12,000 feet! The old and beautiful Sangre de Cristo mountains…

Classic Norteño Iglesia…

Finally at the destination! Joey and Estelle’s Garlic & Mushroom Farm! A nice paint horse came to greet us…

watching the sunset

The Garlic Field…

The abode…

Awesome door!

You can’t go wrong with coconut, red chile, steak, and salt & pepper…Boeuf à l’Estelle!

My parents and I have nothing in common except that we both hate laughing and having a good time. Here we are doing some garlic prep…

  Good morning! Time to start work on the Mushroom grow house that Joey has designed!

My grandmother “Nona” stayed all warm and wrapped up in one of my mother’s beautiful quilts while she supervised!

Quick, take a picture it lasts longer! Me doing some manual labor building the framework…so much fun!

The framework…

My lovely grandparents and I out for a stroll in the garlic field…Nona & Papa are two of the greatest gifts of my life! Thank you for all I have learned from you…

Then we all cruised into Santa Fe for dinner at Tomasita’s! It was an unprecedented Bigbee-Smallwood event: everyone at dinner at the same table in the same restaurant! Guess I should come home for 3 day stints more often eh?

And of course, my two “little” brothers who are actually at least a foot taller than me. Matthew (right) is a baseball superhero and Chris just started his freshman year at UNM in Albuquerque. Taking it to Crushtown as I like to say!

All in all it was a fantastic trip and I’m so glad I got to see my whole family before the work season here in Alta gets into full swing. I came back to shred Alta the next day and start working as Brighton Chalet caretaker. Now if only we could get some snow….