I've gained a fresh outlook on life over this past month and have stopped stressing over plans that don't perfectly work out. This year has been overwhelming as far as finances go and my worry of us not being able to get away this year always left a lump in my throat just thinking about it. I had planned a Heber/Park City vacation for us so that we could at least get out of the house for a couple days. Leading up to the week before our vacation I knew that it wouldn't be financially feasible to carry my plan out and I knew we needed to cancel it. I was deeply sad as I went through and canceled our hotel reservation. I don't know why vacations are so important to me but they are. When I think of my childhood I feel so blessed that my parents made family vacations a yearly tradition. I think the bonds that are created when exploring new surroundings as a family are invaluable. It doesn't matter where the destination is to me. This year I had planned our little vacation inside Utah just like last year except we'd just be about an hour away. I felt like it would be easier to stay closer to home with two very young babies still. Anyway, I was more than just a little sad but I tried to hide it from Danny and the kids. Danny knew I was making a sacrifice by canceling our trip so he decided that he would still take the scheduled vacation days off and talked me into doing a staycation. This is somewhat of a sacrifice on his part as well because he's usually stressed out if he misses school when he feels he could be there instead. I wasn't super into the idea at first for financial reasons but Danny came up with free ideas and we decided to go ahead with this new plan. Our staycation turned out to be a lot of fun and the kids didn't know any different. These last three days have been heaven with my little crew.
Day 1: I called my dad the night before and asked if we could all go together to Thanksgiving Point with his membership pass. He was happy to do that with us and we had a lot of fun there. We decided to spend the day at the Children's Curiosity Museum. Addie and Hudson had both been there before when they went with my parents on a little grandparent date but this was the first time for Danny, me, Grant and of course the babies. It was a good time. We also got our first full family picture. When my dad heard that we didn't have one still he insisted on taking our picture.
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| Maze |
Day 2: We started our day by visiting Grandma Great. She's still one of the best people I know and her place is our family favorite. It's always good to see her and be in her presence. We enjoyed lunch and then went to the Provo trail walk. We love this location. It's right along the Provo River and the kids love looking for butterflies and dragonflies. This time we ended up with some kind of beetle. Before going home we stopped and the got the boys some needed haircuts.
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| Picture of Rylee during out quick lunch break at Grandma Great's. |
Day 3: Addie's favorite day. In our original Heber/Park City vacation plans we had set aside today to hang out at the reservoir all day and we decided to keep that agenda the same. We were surprised to see how low the water was this year. It's been a couple years since we've done this but last time the water was so full and reached all the way to the parking lot. This time we had to hike down a little hill that is no longer underwater like in year's past. It was pretty rocky and very windy but we made it work. We made a little makeshift tent for the babies since we weren't close to the cabanas like we thought we would be. We also sent out an open invitation to Danny's family if anyone wanted to join us and we got three people. Dave, Jaina and Jackson. Jackson brought his little boat and the kids all loved that. Addie's most favorite part of the whole day was saying she swam across the lake. She totally did. She had her floaties on but she went from one side to the opposite side. Danny tried to swim along side her and had to be picked up by Jackson's boat. Addie insisted on still staying in the water and held on to the rope to return back to where the rest of us were. She had so much fun. Once we were home that night Danny and I became aware just how sunburned we both got. Danny definitely got the worst of it and will have a tender back for the next couple days.
We had to wake the babies up ourselves so that we wouldn't be late leaving the house for the reservoir.
Quinn
Rylee
Rylee
Quinn
Jaina and Jackson
Finally found some soft sand.
The best part about doing a staycation this year besides it being practically free was the fact that we were able to put all the kids to bed in their normal rooms and at our normal bedtime. I love hotels and always will but attempting it this year with five young kids and two of them being infants still could have been more work than it was worth. I don't think anyone has any complaints about this week except I'm sure the babies would have preferred to nap in their cribs instead of on the go but they still did amazing and didn't show any signs of being overstimulated. I'm happy Danny suggested a staycation instead of me giving up on a vacation all together.
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