So not only did we move everything we own into a house that wasn’t quite finished, we also took 2 back to back vacations right after that. I’d love to complain about how disorganized my life is right now, but it’s hard to do that when you know it’s pretty much your own darn fault. lol! Ok, so it’s not entirely our fault, but I really have no right to complain about moving and vacationing, right? Now that I have that off my chest, how about I just share some of our fun travel experiences?
You know what’s kind of crazy? Packing for a trip while you are unpacking boxes. I wondered why I was bothering to transfer stuff to a suitcase. It seems like I should have just brought a box.
We flew to Albuquerque, New Mexico for part 2 of the wedding celebrations for my youngest brother. Because he lived in New Mexico for all of his high school and some of his college years, he wanted to do a small open house reception there. Delta is the only airline that does direct flights to Albuquerque and the planes they use for that route are always pretty small. For those of you keeping track at home, you will remember that I have a lot of anxiety over flying. It doesn’t help that my travel buddy has even more flying anxiety than I do. But check us out here on the plane:
We are smiling because we are medicated. True story. It helped a lot.
It’s been an unusual year for my family with this wedding. I’ve actually seen my parents every month for 3 months in a row now. It was still nice to get to visit them. I love going to New Mexico and the scenery there is always amazing.
My parents have a beautiful home and it’s always fun to see what new decorating projects my Mom has been working on. She’s very creative.
The open house was lovely and so many nice people came. We decorated the tables with flower bouquets from Trader Joe’s.
My mom even thought to pick up some green cardstock (makes a Scrapbook Lady proud!) and we used them as “chargers” under the flower vases in the middle of the tables. We used tea lights and Hershey kisses to dress it up a bit. It was simple, but very pretty.
It was a great event!
We flew back home on a Sunday afternoon and then turned around and left on Tuesday morning for our annual vacation with my husband’s family. We stay in timeshare condos and I cook all the dinners so I had to meal plan and grocery shop for 6 dinners (for 11 people) in one day. We also had to unpack from Albuquerque (while we were still unpacking our house) and then pack again for a trip to Bear Lake. This time I really did just throw some of our stuff into boxes. We also used a few suitcases. We drove through Evanston, Wyoming to get to Bear Lake (seems strange to drive to another state just to go somewhere in your own state). When we stopped in Randolph, Utah for some gas, Alex started to have a meltdown because he thought we had reached our destination. He couldn’t believe we were going to vacation “out in the middle of nowhere!” My apologies to any residents of Randolph, but he just didn’t think this was vacation worthy.
He felt significantly better when we actually pulled into Garden City, Utah and saw that we would be staying very close to the actual lake. It was beautiful!
I loved taking pictures of the lake and also snapping photos of all the bear carvings around town. So fun to stay in a place with a theme – great for scrapbooking!
We went to the beach.
We ate raspberry shakes (Bear Lake is famous for their raspberries).
We went back and forth between Idaho and Utah since the lake is on the border of both states.
We saw a hilarious production at the Pickleville Playhouse. Such big talent in a tiny little town! If you ever get to go to Bear Lake, be sure to stop by. We saw Juanito Bandito Rides Again and we all laughed until our sides hurt.
We also had a great time riding ATVs. I drove a RZR with Alex as my passenger. Even though I was with a bunch of hotshots who had ridden many times, I held my own, which is pretty cool since it was only my second time on an ATV!
We pretty much just had a great time. It was especially fun that we got to hang out with family. The only cousins my kids have are on my husband’s side and they are quite a bit younger. This year was probably the best year for all the cousins to hang out together now that they are a bit older. They really had fun together!
We finally had to say goodbye to our vacation and come home and face all of our boxes. Now it’s time to get serious and really get settled. I’m disorganized and overwhelmed, but also very grateful for a new house and many wonderful travel experiences. I’m hoping to finally get into some sort of rhythm again and also to get back to a more regular blogging schedule. Thanks for being patient with me over the last month – it’s been a crazy one!

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