RSS

It's an adventure. Our family of five is taking a year off from... the normal. Less work. More travel. Even (gasp!) homeschooling! We invite you to come along with us as we head West. Then on to Europe. Even grand times at home in between! Our goals: Rest. Connect. Experience. We hope to grow closer as a family and gain a deeper appreciation of all that God is, does, gives. Scaled back commitments. Scaled up adventure. Come along with us as the story unfolds!

Winding down

9/25/2011 10:03:00 PM |

Sixteen days.  That's how long we've been away from home.  So now we're getting ready to wind down this part of our adventure year.  We're looking forward being back home Monday evening.  We've had a relaxing few days hanging out with my brother and his family in California.  Before getting to their house, we spent a couple of nights in Las Vegas so that we could see the Hoover Dam.   It was hot, hot, hot!  Our car thermometer registered the outside temperature as 104 at one point!

In front of the huge turbines at Hoover Dam


We loved seeing the dam, but arriving in Las Vegas was a bit jarring, after spending so much time in National Parks and small towns.  We stayed at Excalibur in Vegas, and the kids were amazed at all the sights and sounds!  Don't worry, no sights that were too risque, since Excalibur is one of the more family friendly places to stay.  The two highlights of the hotel for the kids were the cool water slide at the pool and the amazing breakfast buffet.  The buffet was pricey, but we wanted to treat the kids, and we had actually spent less on food for the whole trip than we had planned.  Probably the less said about the buffet, the better, but I should tell you that the kids had a couple desserts after their meals (keep in mind this was BREAKFAST!).  Oh, and another highlight of Las Vegas was eating dinner at the Rainforest Cafe!  That was so fun.  The restaurant is set up as a jungle, and about every 30 minutes, there's a "storm," and all the animals make noise!
Please don't judge us for this picture.  We promise to not continue this behavior at home!
Justin coming down the water slide.  The kids continually went down the slide for almost two hours!
We left Las Vegas Friday morning, and we've been at my brother's place for the weekend.  It's been so nice to be in a house, and to be able to stay for three nights in one place!  Plus, it's just been great to see family and just hang out.  When we pulled in to my brother's place, the first thing he said was, "Hey, we thought we'd go on a hike and have a picnic for dinner, and maybe we can find a cool canyon somewhere!"  Haha!   That's my brother!

Fun time with the cousins in the hot tub and pool


Some closing reflections on our trip:

I've loved it!  I felt like we were in a family bubble, where it's just us, and that felt special.  Everyone got a long a lot better than I thought we might.  That's not to say that there were no fights, but overall everyone did well.  I loved seeing the kids interact with each other and have little inside jokes with each other.  

As for the parks, we asked the kids (and ourselves) which parks we liked best, and here's what everyone said:
Anna:  Yellowstone, because we saw the most animals there
Justin:  Yellowstone, and maybe Grand Teton, because of the animals, and the geysers of course!
Daniel:  Yellowstone, because of the animals, and because it was so pretty
Kevin: Yellowstone (sensing a theme here!), because there was such variety in the park - waterfalls, geysers, mountains, it seemed like it had everything
Kelly:  sorry to break the theme, but Capitol Reef, because I was so surprised by the beauty of it.  Also, I loved our walk through the canyon, when it was just our family, and the kids seemed so free and excited as they explored.  I liked Yellowstone too :).

I'm not sure when we'll post again.  Kevin might post one more time, we'll see.

Thanks for following our journey with us!   Check back in the spring when we'll be in Europe for two to three months!










  • Digg
  • Del.icio.us
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • RSS
Posted by Kelly

5 comments:

Steve Beaver said...

Awesome! I loved traveling with you through your posts. Thanks for taking the time to do that. I'm sure there were times when it was a burden. But it was very much appreciated.

And thanks for the inspiration by doing something so out of the "norm" for the year and kicking it off in such a great way! Looking forward to hearing about more adventures as they happen.

Just one question:

How many desserts did Kevin have at that breakfast buffet?!?

September 26, 2011 at 10:51 AM
Katy said...

And a follow up to Steve's question, was that Anna's giant cup of coffee too?

September 26, 2011 at 12:00 PM
Valerie said...

We can't wait to see you this weekend to hear about it all in person. Get home safely - you were missed!

September 26, 2011 at 1:02 PM
KimV said...

So glad you all had such an amazing trip. It was so fun and inspiring to read. Looking forward to having you back in town.

September 27, 2011 at 9:27 AM
Becky Hoover said...

Wow! Thanks for writing it all down. What great memories for your family!

September 27, 2011 at 11:02 PM

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)