Today Sierra Vista Elders and staff got to enjoy root beer float day with the Elders and Hermana’s from the Latter-Day Saints Church group. This group of talented young men and women come every Tuesday and share the gift of music and companionship with Sierra Vista Elders. The joy that friendship, music, and ice cream can bring, is immeasurable!

These three lovely ladies, Carol Valdez from Sierra Vista, Yolanda Rodriguez and Ruth Dennis from Vista Hermosa, just attended a workshop on fall prevention, We always make sure that safety is a priority at all three of our homes, and are constantly having our awesome staff stay current on the best practices. To see more of what these ladies learned about in their workshop, click on the photo above!

The Las Cruces area Agency on Aging and Long Term Services Ombusdman Division has exceptional volunteers who visit homes to be available to elders, their families, and yes even staff.  The Arbors has been assigned Mr. William “Bill” Patterson.  The State Ombudsman Program is a Resident’s Right’s advocacy agency.  We have welcomed  Bill to our home for more than 5 years. We are so thankful for the time he spends with us!

The Arbors hosted our families for a question and answer seminar with RX Innovations Pharmacist Kevin Collier. Kevin was available to discuss several topics regarding elders medication. Co-pays, refunds, elder's right to choose their pharmacy, and State Mandated quarterly consulting to name a few.  We are pleased to Welcome RX Innovations and their services to our lovely home!

Join us at our monthly Alzheimer's Learning Circle where you will find support and education for individuals who have loved ones with memory issues or other dementias. Our facilitators are experienced, compassionate and are certified dementia practitioners. The learning circle is open to the public and welcomes everyone.

Please join us monthly at:

• Santa Fe - Sierra Vista location on the 3rd Thursday at noon at 402 East Rodeo Road, in the front office. For more information, call 505-986-9696
• Las Cruces - The Arbors location on the 4th Wednesday at 3pm at 3731 Del Rey Boulevard, in the courtyard. For more information, call 575-382-5200

At our three homes we love to get everyone involved when preparing meals. Our Elders enjoy having responsibility and being part of the process of planning and prepping our home cooked meals. Our Elders, caregivers, and even our Executive Directors get involved in putting love and care into the food that they serve. The open feel of the kitchen is welcoming and inviting, and gives everyone a sense of being at home in their own kitchen. The delicious smells of food fill the air each day and it truly feels like a loving home.

Wow, 20 years already! Vista Living Care just celebrated twenty years of providing excellent, loving care for their elders.
The staff, elders, children of caregivers, friends, and family came together to celebrate the release of Mindful Dementia Care, a book written by our very own Ruth Dennis.  The party was held in the beautiful outdoor area of Vista Hermosa, one of our two homes in Santa Fe, New Mexico. We had many special guests in attendance including Luke Nachtrab, the owner of Vista Living Care, and his sweet family. Luke's two daughters can be seen in the photos dancing with some of our elders, and his son hitting a pinata. In addition to comments on their 20 year history and Mindful Dementia Care, Luke thanked the care partners for their loving work sharing that "you are the heartbeat of the company". Also, Martha performed her very special award winning song "Fade Away", written about her mother-in-law Sylvia who lives in our Sierra Vista home. 
The party was filled with love, laughter, live music, and even a pinata filled with candy! 
Everyone enjoyed homemade appetizers that were prepared and planned by our lovely caregivers, staff, and Executive Directors. 
Ruth Dennis read a moving passage from her book. To get your own copy of Mindful Dementia Care, click the button below.

Vista Hermosa & Sierra Vista aren't only homes to our elders, but also home to many unique pets! Along with our turtles, chickens, and birds, we are also home to a few rambunctious goats and a very sweet dog. These pets bring lots of joy and excitement to each home and give the elders a sense of responsibility as they care for the pets each day.

​​Dedicated to the countless number of elders, families, friends, and neighbors near and far who have walked this journey with us over the past twenty years, from lovely Santa Fe, Las Cruces, and throughout our great state of New Mexico, from Ohio, and from the Netherlands, Britain, and Colombia,  who have entrusted us to walk through this forest with them. We have shared laughs, tears, stories, and great food in our lovely homes.

Sierra Vista Alzheimer’s Community was the first assisted living in the great state of New Mexico to be inducted into the Eden Alternative Registry. Eden Alternative is an international movement dedicated to truly changing the culture of how we care for our elders.  In essence, is the honor society for long-term care dedicated to transforming the culture of care; being a part of this registry makes a public statement about our commitment to the journey of change.

The newest team member of the Sierra Vista Family is James Pingel also known as Jim, or to our elders “that nice young man.”

Jim comes to us from a background that didn’t deal with health care but felt it was time for a change he said there was a calling to make a difference in the lives of those around him. That is exactly what he does he brings a smile to the faces of elders with his stories and songs and acting monologues.  He in no way is shy to doing what he needs to do to get an elder laughing and enjoying that moment of their day.

We talk a lot about the engagement of our Elders here at Sierra Vista and how important that they feel connected and while we did it well before Jim joined us, we do it even better now with his energy and we are grateful to the love and care that Jim gives when he for the 100th time answers the same question or is followed around from room to room as he busily tries to keep all elders at different stages in their disease active and engaged. So when you come by for a tour don’t be surprised if he pulls you into song or dance as you walk by that is just the fun-loving guy he is.

This month is National Glaucoma month and we are happy to offer a caregiver tip for those who are mildly or even severely visually impaired. Not only glaucoma can affect vision, but cataracts, head injuries and even age affect vision.   Our wonderful caregiver Ivonne understands that if her elder has Alzheimer's there is a possibility he or she may either refuse to wear their glasses, misplace his or her glasses, break his or her glasses, or perhaps glasses don't improve vision at all.  Through hard work and training Ivonne understands the concept of cognitive blindness as well.  Meaning, the elder has no physiological impairment but due to the dementia cannot "see" what we need them to see (speaking figuratively).  She will find projects for the elder that don't require reading rather, Ivonne will find projects where they can use other senses to feel like they're contributing to a project.  Folding, stuffing envelopes, or handing over a sheet of paper. 

Vista Hermosa celebrated the Holidays with respect for Santa Fe’s ancient Christian traditions including a live Nativity.  Yolanda our Director in training, brought her sons; Ivan and Ernesto who portrayed St. Joseph and one of the three kings or wise men.  Estefani our lovely caregiver’s children played Mary and a second king, while Laura’s son Joshua was the third king.  Bonfires lit the way as many invited guests gathered.  Our friend and neighbor Connie, a native of Picuris Pueblo, shared stories of growing up at Picuris with bonfires on Christmas Eve and was enamored that we would have roaring bonfires.  Our elders, their families and our wonderful Vista Hermosa friends and neighbors ate delicious traditional foods, listened to live music, danced and shared the special friendship of Christmas, Winter Solstice, Kwanza, and Hanukkah! Our beautiful antique menorah was lit each night for Hanukah, followed by delicious latkes.

It is the time of year to count the angels we all have in our lives and remember how much kindness there is out there.  It is a true blessing to be surrounded by the ladies in this picture.  The caregivers at Vista Hermosa are a special group of hardworking, creative, intelligent and exceptionally loving women.  Each one of them brings something special to the work they do every day. It can be too easy to see the darkness in this world and too easy to forget to be grateful for the angels in our midst. Our caregivers, elders, families and friends all give light and life to our small part of this world. Thank you. Muchas gracias.  Much love and many prayers to every one of you.

Alfred celebrated his 94 years young birthday with pizza, family, friends and dancing.  Alfred is always there to share a smile, dance to good music and make everyone feel welcome.  His daughters Dani and Tracy both inherited his warm personality and generous spirit, surprising our Vista Hermosa elders with pizzas and cake.  This was served with Hermosa’s homemade horchata.  Happy 94th Birthday, Alfred!

The annual ugly Christmas sweater party is a favorite at the Arbors!

Our youngest Elder at Sierra celebrates her 53 birthday with us. Here she is shown with her wonderful caring parents who came to celebrate this beautiful day with their daughter.

Each of our Elders come from such amazing backgrounds and each one has a story of what brought them to where they are today. Despite the tragedy many days here at Sierra are filled with laughter and enjoyment from so many simple pleasures of daily living. We are reminded daily not only how quickly life can change but also that in the important thing in life is not found in our wealth and accumulation of objects but rather it is the love and caring of those that surround you in times of sorrow and in times of joy that truly matters and brings us the greatest joy in life.

We also celebrated Ms. Lonnie’s 92nd Birthday this month. She was very surprised and so happy with her flowers and cake.

We just celebrated Dr. Raymond Willem’s 82nd birthday with  a beautiful cake made by his wife.

At Vista Living Care we celebrate life and pride ourselves in making each and every one of our elders feel special.

Vista Hermosa elders worked on beautiful handmade cards that were mailed to their children this past week. Irene, Lucy M and Lucy Romero, Joan and Virginia all created cards with handmade paper, drawings and origami paper. These cards are a creative way to express love, appreciation and connection. The process of picking color, texture and pattern becomes a conversation.
Our elders are also helping take this idea on the road for the Hospice Education Day on November 10th .

Vista hermosa will be sponsoring an open art workshop focused on cardmaking as communication and meditative journaling. We are thankful to Ambercare Hospice and coming Home connections for inviting us to bring our creative space to the day long education, comfort and support of our Santa Fe
community.

We welcome All our trick or treaters, children and grandchildren to visit Vista Hermosa on Halloween at 3:45pm after school to trick or treat.
Candy, Drinks and snacks will be served to all; Princesses, ghouls, superheroes and Goblins.

Please come in costume!