Well, I hinted that there were more travels on the way with my Arizona post. Of course none of that was planned until the day before we were to come home from Arizona. I can't really explain it, there is always a bit of sadness when a trip is wrapping up and it is time to come home. But this was a lot more than that. We genuinely, no way no how wanted to come back home. Our state was shutting back down and we had pretty much been prohibited from spending Thanksgiving with any other families and it just hasn't been feeling like home. I don't know if we are just in a funk because of the times or if there is more to this feeling that we are working through, but we are open to exploring our options and praying about where we belong. But all we knew in that moment is that we didn't want to come home and we are in a position right now where we don't have to be! The night before we were to fly home from Arizona we stayed up really late researching options. In an ideal world we would have stayed in Arizona and then slowly made our way home, but the cost of a rental car was outrageous so Peter suggested that we come home, get our own car and then hit the road again. Unfortunately we lost a week of travel time because of that but we were still able to squeeze in two weeks of fun!
In Arizona we discovered that the kids were really good travelers in the car so we thought that a road trip was very doable. We also knew that Peter has an insane amount of flexibility with the work from home environment and homeschooling would be pretty easy to do while traveling too. So the only barriers on our journey were making sure that we stayed put during the week so Peter could work and the kids could complete their school. We also got bit by a bug to explore our National Parks. So we started looking at locations close enough to drive to in a reasonably short amount of time, but also places that had some National Parks to explore on the weekends and wouldn't be completely shut down for winter. And thus we arrived on Utah.
So we were home for a quick week to pack and get snow tires and hit the road! We found a VRBO around Salt Lake City and hit the road dark and early on Saturday morning. We knew we were asking a whole lot of the kids by driving a whopping 11 hours in the car to get to Salt Lake City but our kids were total champions and did awesome! They slept the first leg, watched some movies and spent a lot of time playing the license plate game and listening to Christmas music. It was dark when we left home and it was dark when we pulled into our VRBO but there was no fighting and even Miss Ayla did so amazing with only two stops on the way!
Bye Bye Oregon
Dining restrictions make it difficult to stop for breaks but we made due
Desperate times, once she got too worn out in the car she got her very first introduction to sing along songs.
To help with the "Are we there yet?" I put stickers on the roof to help count down the hours!
Utah on the Horizon at sunset!
We had a day to do a little bit of exploring before we started the work week. We decided to head up to Park City to see a little bit of snow and since we had visited the Olympic Park in Whistler a few years back we thought it would be fun to see the Olympic Park there.
The kids love ANY snow they can find!
Then back to the house to warm up with hot chocolate and coloring
We celebrated Ayla's very first Birthday in this tiny rental house (as I shared before) and we also celebrated Thanksgiving in that tiny kitchen. And you know what? We had a blast! This kitchen was NOT equipped to cook an entire Thanksgiving dinner but we had lots of laughs and really enjoyed ourselves as we prepared this meal for our family in a house that didn't even have a dining room!
And then we took our traditional Bingo for candy on the road with us
Ayla begged Mom and Dad to win her Kit Kats
It was a fun and memorable Thanksgiving with our adorable little family! We were so thankful to be together and have this special time together!
The next morning we did a little version of our elf breakfast to ring in the Christmas season! Yet again, nothing fancy but it still seemed perfect!
And then we were off to explore The Great Salt Lake! It was only about 15 minutes from the house so it was an easy little excursion before we left the area.
We did not expect bison in the area so that was a fun little surprise
Our first week was off to a great start and we knew the very best was yet to come! Week 2 definitely did not disappoint!
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