4th of July

The main reason we traveled to New Mexico was to celebrate the 4th of July birthdays. I was born on not only the 4th of July, but also on my Papa's birthday. The night of the 4th, my parents always have a big BBQ, with plenty of cake and ice cream to celebrate with. Greg and I try to take off on little adventures during the day. Last year, we went on a Breaking Bad tour and visited a bunch of filming locations of the show.

This year, we played Tourist and went for a ride on the Sandia Peak Tram. Its a 2.7 mile long cable stretching from the base of the mountain to the summit, and takes about 15 minutes to ascend the mountain. The views are amazing and you can see almost all of Albuquerque while suspended high above the city. When you reach the top, you are at an elevation of over 10,000 feet. During the summer its cool and breezy and a nice change from the hotter temperatures at the base, and as you can imagine, its cold and snowy during the winter. Since the fire danger is too high this summer, the backside of the mountain, ski area chair lifts and hiking trails were all closed.

Once we were done on the Tram (and stopped for frozen yogurt) we headed back to my parent's house to get ready for the BBQ. All of our family and a few friends stopped by for dinner and cake. The weather was perfect and only started to rain at the very end of the night. Kennedy stayed up the latest she has even stayed up, and I found her devouring chocolate cake at nearly 10:00pm.

I had such a fun (and exhausting) birthday and ended the day looking forward to celebrating Kennedy's birthday in the morning.

Top of the Tram. 

High above the Sandia Mountains. 

Firecracker Princess

Kennedy loves to play dress up, and most recently, wedding. 

 Happy birthday to us.