We went camping with some friends over the weekend! We were there a total of 24 hours, yet managed to experience all of hot dog roasting, bocce ball, soccer, frisbee, buffalos, hiking, wild turkey gobblings, a potato sack race, playing in the dirt, smores, a really cold night’s sleep, and a solid game of cards. Don’t you love it when the weekend seems to last a lot longer than it should and it’s all jam packed with a lot of good stuff? I love weekends like that.
A few weeks ago we decided it would be really great to see our families. It had been three and a half months since we saw them, but with winter it just seemed A LOT longer. And we missed them! So we packed up the car on a Thursday, spent three days PACKED with beautiful family time and packed up again for a LONG ride back to ND–for a total of 31 hours in the car!
And it was so worth it! Sometimes family time just is.
Now we’re over here cooking up eggs and really wishing we were cooking up eggs at Grandma and Grandpa’s or playing with the kitties at Grammy and Grampy’s (Hyrum especially. He LOVES cats. He follows them around squealing “puppy!”) Somehow both kids ended up with the stomach flu on separate days while we were there (somehow that always happens) but it was STILL an awesome trip.
We had a beautiful drive through Utah, Idaho, and Montana, and we made sure to stop and “run through a field,” “stand in the snow,” and “sit by a river” (Ava’s relentless requests.)
I don’t think we’d be able to do so many road trips if our kids didn’t enjoy them too. But of course we all get a little stiff being in the car for so long, so we reeaally appreciate our quicks stops, especially Hyrum. He gets all sorts of excited.
We LOVE being with our families. We both come from big families, and we feel like we can never get enough togetherness with them.
So why do we live so far away!?
It’s interesting how that works. We feel like North Dakota is where we are supposed to be, for now. We love being out on our own, exploring new places and growing together as a little family of four. We love our life here, AND we love being with our family in other states. Eventually we would like to live near them, but for now we can be just as happy.
With that said, we had a BLAST with our families in Utah. We packed our days full of Christmas parties, potlucks, game nights, lunch dates, late night chats, downtown lights, charades, dodgeball, basketball, settlers, sledding, backyard ice skating, and a whole lot of togetherness. It was such a good trip.
We love road trips. We love the time together, the hotel stays, the snacks, and the views. We took the route from North Dakota through South Dakota and Wyoming, following the sunset and greeting the sunrise along windy roads and dusty white fields. We loved it.
And as you can probably tell, if we ever stopped for me to take a scenic picture, we would probably arrive hours later. So thanks to fast shutter speeds and car mates that don’t mind an occasional winter blast through the window, we can remember the pretty scenes that graced our windshield on our trip.