Sunday, April 16, 2017

Spring Break catch up #1

We got home from our epic road-trip Spring Break a few hours ago and I realized that I didn't get my laptop out even once during the whole week. Which means that I have about 200 pictures and 10 fun-filled days to catch up on!

Our trip was awesome. We drove to our hometown to see the family that lives back there. Some we hadn't seen since Averson was a year old! We left after school on Friday and made it a full 8 hours before we stopped for the night. Our kids were ROCK STARS in the car. I did a few things different this year that I think really helped. The first was controlling access to water bottles. We got there dehydrated, but only had to stop once for a bathroom break. I got each kid a suction cup shower basket that they stuck to their window and used to corral snacks, headphones, dry erase markers, etc. My car is much cleaner for it. We also packed a huge variety of snacks which saved us from hitting drive-thrus. 

And away we go!

At a rest stop in Utah. We stop here every year (it's in the middle of NOWHERE) and it's always crazy windy, so we pretend that we're flying.

I thought this shirt was so clever for roadtripping with all of my people. Then C pointed out at the continental breakfast that you couldn't see the "tail" part of "cocktail," which totally explains the looks I was getting at the Best Western in Utah. 
I love airbnb's for family vacations so, so much. For the price of a mid-range hotel room, I don't have to share a room with my kids OR spend $40 on a breakfast no one eats. However, there is a bit of risk that the house won't live up to my expectations. Both of our houses on this trip were amazing and totally exceeded what we were expecting. Our house in Durango was so much bigger than I thought it would be, and it was super cute and funky. The kids's room had an awesome loft and the master was enormous. I posted pictures of it on Facebook and my sister starting asking oddly specific questions like "Is there a porch to the left of the kitchen?" Turns out that she had friends who used to live in this house (small town fun!) We finally figured it out when I asked, "was there a kill room in the basement?" The basement in this house was literally carved out of the rocks with a painted, hand-poured concrete floor. The kids loved the pingpong table. I loved that there were no obvious blood stains.

Isn't it cute?!
 We do a picture of all the cousins at the old time photo place every time we go back and luckily my niece reminded us this year. The kids did a great job of picking costumes and not throwing a fit about who got the prettiest necklace/scratchiest dress/coolest gun (first time for everything) and just as they were getting started with the pictures we were interrupted by a persistent alarm-y sound. After further investigation, the photographer figured out that it was a fire alarm. All the buildings are connected, so even if the shop wasn't on fire it didn't mean we were clear (or that we could turn off the alarm.) So the kids got to evacuate in all of their finery AND they got to see a firetruck. There were much shenanigans while we waited for the all clear. Once we got it though, the firemen agreed to jump in for a shot.


Abba and the grandbabies recovering from the adventure. 
 Another tradition I didn't remember was getting pulled over for speeding. Seriously. Every. Single. Year. At least this year I got off with a warning.

There's so much more to catch up on, but I don't want to break the blog with too many pictures. Also, I totally didn't plan right and I have to go to work tomorrow, which kind of blows. 

2 comments:

  1. ha! cocktail shirt!

    LOVE the shower basket idea-- totally stealing this.

    I have outlawed all snacks but licorice in our new car, and I so agree with the dehydration. #MOTY

    ReplyDelete
  2. The fireman picture SLAYED me. Hysterical. What good sports!

    Also, ditto on the dehydration. And I want a cock shirt.

    ReplyDelete