we’re happy to be in santa fe these days.  we usually make our annual trek later in the year, but chose to come early this time since our son will be arriving this summer.  it’s such a different scene here – we lived here for 4 years so you think it wouldn’t seem that foreign to us, but santa fe is a world of its own.  the pace, the accents, the architecture – the whole culture is noticeably different.  and today it is COLD and SNOWING.  fortunately, most of our days here have been drenched in glorious mountain sunshine.

we celebrated spring’s renewal this weekend with koruna’s first egg hunt.  i got hold of a natural egg dying recipe (thanks, belmer) and we tried it out.  we used turmeric, orange peels, beets, purple cabbage, chile powder, and more.

a lot of the eggs turned out brown, but we did get some lovely greens and yellows as well.  i’ll do some tweaking next year.

the old santa fe casa had all sorts of cool places to hide eggs.  we definitely had more fun hiding than koruna did finding.  she found maybe 3 and then was done.

it’s nice being on the other end – the parent end – of traditions.   we get to do with them as we please.  we incorporated one of ian’s family traditions this year:  we left a trail of pebbles outside of koruna’s door that led to a secret hiding place for her basket of goodies. (it was a trail of candy in ian’s day, but koruna doesn’t even know what candy is.)

it was the first time koruna has really participated in a holiday.  until now, the rituals and celebrations have really been for us.  i gotta admit that i didn’t even have a party for koruna’s 1st birthday – we just had a simple family breakfast.  i figured she didn’t care and would just be overwhelmed by any hoopla.  this year will be different, though.  i guess she still won’t remember her 2nd birthday party, but she’ll feel special on that day just like she did with her own pebble trail this weekend.  i reckon that feeling gets tucked away somewhere deep inside her whether she has a mental recollection of the day or not.