Traveling Together - Steamboat Springs

Vernal was nice and the Dinosaur Inn had a good breakfast, but we were anxious to get on our way to Steamboat Springs.

Much of Colorado looks like Utah except they seem to have more water. It only took us about 3 and a half more hours before we saw the first houses of Steamboat Springs and shortly after that we were all checked into our condo.

The kids were anxious to try out the hot tub, so as soon as we got unpacked, Curly, Baby Doll, and I put on our suits.

The hot tub was warm but small and the Hallmark channel Condo Christmas we were hoping for included only man-made snow. So my sweetie sent Curly and me to Wal-Mart. 

We bought jammies for the kids and a small tree and decorations to make our own Condo Christmas. 

Decorating was SO much fun!!

When they were finished, it finally felt like Condo Christmas. After they went to bed, we put 3 pretty packages under the tree, one for each child.

Can't wait to open them!!

Traveling Together - Vernal

People are starting to say to me, "You're always traveling..." and it does seem like a theme of our almost two years of COVID. A couple of months ago, our travel club had a flash sale and we grabbed a condo for a week in Steamboat Springs, Colorado for a hundred bucks. The condo was good for 6 of us... but wait, I'm getting ahead of myself.

While a lot of people were heading out to do a little Black Friday shopping, I was madly folding laundry, cleaning up from Thanksgiving dinner, and packing suitcases and food. We were trying to get away around 10:00 AM. It was a little scary traveling with Grandpa since he had another kidney stone removed last week, but the drive to Vernal was only about 3 hours and we wanted to get there before dark.

They had a Christmas Festival going on in Vernal and the kids were excited for some of the activities.

My sweetie got a lot of 2nd looks with his cute little elf! He has been growing out his beard since Labor Day and as you know, he looks like the real deal.

This ice sculpture was cool... ok, cold, really. We got free popcorn and hot chocolate from the missionaries.

Baby Doll went down this huge slide.

She even tried ice skating!!

This is the bravest thing Curly did...

We all loved the light parade.

It ended with fireworks, all within walking distance of our hotel. 

Such a great day...a little cold...but awesome.

Traveling Together - Going Home

Our last day with our sweet Drama Queen was spent mostly driving home from Mesquite. It was a beautiful clear day.

We made the drive home as quickly as possible. We had planned to get as much of the family together as we could before Drama Queen climbs on that plane to go back to New Jersey.

We planned ahead so dinner would be individual pizzas. 

It actually turned out to be a little harder than we thought...

But it was lots of fun!

Traveling Together - Game Over

Sorry for the delay in our story. Saturday's games were at 3:30, that's right, both games were at the same time. Thankfully, they were on fields #3 and #4.

Since we had a lot of time, we decided to go bowling. 

It was so much fun!

After bowling, we got hot dogs for lunch and then headed back to our rooms until it was time to leave for football.

Burrito's team trounced their opponents and they took 3rď place. Curly's team decided that winning wasn't the goal and they moved kids around to pretty much any position they wanted to play. 

It was a great way to end the season! Some of the kids wanted to swim after the game, but the pool was SO cold.

So we went back to the room and did spa night.

Such a great way to end our trip!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving Day!

It all started with (lots of cooking first!) our traditional Charlie Brown Thanksgiving lunch with those at home and Bossy's family. My sweetie played a very grateful Peppermint Patty by saying all the crazy lines from the movie and then that it was "perfect."

I got the turkey in late and we lingered over the noon meal; it was just nice to be together. I am so grateful for my family.

Curly played football with his coach and some friends, but he was back by noon. 

Of course all he wanted to do was play more football, so some of us went outside and played flies up. I was "it" most of the time because I don't mind throwing, but I hate getting jostled by my rather competitive children and grandchildren.

The turkey was SO slow cooking (turns out we had a faulty turkey timer), that our original 4:00 time was stretched to 5:30. Literally everything was on the table and we were just waiting for it to pop. Finally, my sweetie got out his meat thermometer and the turkey was more than done.

We had planned a special call with both of our missionaries and our girls back east at 6:00 our time, so we had to rush dinner a little and even then we were still eating when they called. 

Gratitude was the subject of their lesson for today. It was so awesome to see their beautiful faces on messenger. Our only child missing for the day was Prima Donna who has stepped away from the family for a season. She has also changed her name to Zephyr and her core identity. "They" is her desired pronoun now, but I didn't want you to be confused by that today. I am so grateful that Zephyr is my child and an important part of our family. Hopefully it won't be too long before I can see their beautiful face again too. Each and every one of my children have grown up to be amazing people.

I hope you were all surrounded by family and friends, either on a zoom call or in person. Baby Doll is excited to tell you all that she got her first Covid vaccine!

And Scout made her first pie (all by herself).

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Birthday, Scout!!

I'm sorry, I have to interrupt our little trip by telling you about Scout's 16th birthday. Her friends from her Young Women group decorated our front door.

But it was a school day, so the party didn’t really start until around 4:00.

Since the water was too cold for swimming in Mesquite (oops, spoiler!), we decided to have a pool party.

Beauty and The Beast brought their boys over, and Gamer brought all of his boys since Bossy had to work.

We had tons of fun with all the littles, but we could only stay until 6:00 since Baby Doll had dance and it's almost recital time.

We headed back to the house for a delicious bowl of chili that my sweetie made while we were gone.

Then it was a delicious tres leches cake with 16 beautiful candles.

Yum!! A quick trip to Sodalicious before we picked up Baby Doll and then a fun hour and a half of volleyball. 

One of my favorite parts was listening to her sing at the top of her lungs as we drove home.

Happy Sweet 16, Scout! Love you so much.💕

Traveling Together - Mesquite

Friday was a morning game for Burrito, and after being in three timezones in less than 48 hours, my body was struggling to adjust. Good thing Burrito's wasn't. He plays both offensive and defensive line and they needed him!

Even though he played his heart out, they didn't manage to pull off the win.

Curly had another evening game, so we had some time to visit the cafe for Taco's birthday celebration. 

Then we hung out in the courtyard for a while.

Curly's game was pretty awful. The officials were terrible. They wouldn't do anything about some obvious targeting and Herriman went after our best wide receiver until they broke his collarbone. Our other amazing wide receiver was also injured. It was just sad. Hopefully, tomorrow's games where both our boys play for 3rd place in their divisions will be better.

Traveling Together - On Our Way

We stayed up late talking with the kids and sharing stories of our trip. Thankfully, Drama Queen had nearly everything purchased, packed, and ready to go for our next adventure. We were off at 11:00 AM the next morning for Curly's football tournament in Mesquite.

Travel was steady and the roads were busy. At every gas stop, we saw groups of boys obviously heading the same way we were. Near Paragonah, traffic was nearly at a standstill. About a dozen cars ahead of us, a minivan caught fire.

Fortunately,  it looked like all passengers were able to get out safely as we cautiously made our was passed.

As we neared St George,  the sunset was amazing!

It kept getting deeper and more red as we traveled on. It was 4 1/2 hours from home to Mesquite and Curly had weigh-ins and a game to play at 9:00 PM.

Finally, we arrived. Curly had ridden down with his coach and he was waiting anxiously for us to check in. Most of the team was staying at the same hotel.

The game started at 10:00 PM Utah time, but none of our boys looked a bit tired. 

They played well and won their first game! Oh, did I mention that Bossy and her kids were here too? Burrito was playing with his team as well, but their first game was not until Friday morning.

It was a great day for football and for us.