An Unexpected Journey

As I may have mentioned in my last post I got home from my cross country road trip and was almost immediately offered a job as a nanny. And with that job proposal came the offer of a two week vacation. I mean who could say no?! It was an unexpected journey but an awesome one.

I left two weeks ago Monday. We started our travels, we as in Me, Dawn, and the two youngins, flying for six hours or so to Denver Colorado. I drove through there on my way back to Virginia but it was really cool to stop and see the area. We stayed the first night with Dawn's dad. Dawn's family is all really friendly and welcoming. That was awesome 'cause I was a little nervous to meet so many new people. 

The next day Dawn had a meeting in Garden of the God's so that is where we went. To say the least I sure saw a lot of nature on this trip. Seeing it all really makes me appreciate the world I live in and love God. I attempted to take a small hike with the kids but it was pretty hot and there wasn't really a stroller path. So that attempt was short lived. But hey the visitor center was cool. It had a "life size" dinosaur replica thing and tons of stuffed animals of what animals lived in that desert environment. It was pretty entertaining and the kids liked it. It was timed perfectly too because by the time the kids were bored Dawn was done with her meeting. 

We stayed in Colorado Springs that night and the following two days. Both days Dawn had conferences to go to with evenings off to do whatever we wanted. Woo! Day one was swimming and partying it up in a hotel room. And when Dawn got back we drove up to Pike's Peak.

That was a gorgeous drive. Clouds coming down the mountain.

And feeling like you were on top of the world. It's really weird being higher up than the clouds.

Cute picture with people I love. 

Shortly after we arrived the kids decided it was to cold and they wanted to be miserable. 

Such pretty clouds. I truly do love nature. 

Gazing off into the distance. You know gotta get those candids.

Seriously watching these kids is the best! They're super loving and kind towards me and not only that they're soooooooooo cute!

The second day I went to the Focus on the Family visitor center with the kids. That place was awesome. It had an awesome slide that went outside of the building and then ended up in the basement where they had several jungle gym structures for kids.  As well as several other activity rooms with a puppet stage and legos and all that cool stuff that kids love. 

That night we went shopping for wedding presents and baby shower gifts. That the actual main reason we went to Colorado. One sister of Dawn's was getting married and another was having a baby. That's always fun. I felt like a mom though. I kept seeing cute boy clothes that I wanted to get for Norbaby. Sometimes I think it's a curse being the oldest of nine and being so closely involved int their lives. But let's be honest it's a total blessing. 

We picked up Michael, Dawn's husband, after our shopping extravaganza and the next day we headed up to Grand Junction where the wedding was held. But first we had a nature adventure!

We stopped along the highway and saw this beautiful lake. I have no idea where we were or what this lake is called but it was so gorgeous. It was so clear and still. I wanted to swim in it but it was a tad cold. 

Apparently as a youngin Dawn would hike with her family to Hanging Lake. And so that's what we did. Keep in mind we have a 2 and 4 year old and she's 7 months pregnant. But we did it! 

This creek was pretty much a continuous waterfall down the mountain that followed us along the trail up. It was such a calming sound. 

3/4 of the way up we saw this amazing waterfall. Nature truly is amazing. I've seen pictures of things like this but it was amazing to see them in person. 

View from some outlook point. Look at those canyon walls. It was so amazing. 

And then we made it to the top! It was so beautiful. I've never been so tempted in all my life to go swimming in a body of water. It was clearer than the lake we saw earlier in the day and just so beautiful. I felt like the lake/waterfall belonged in Hawaii rather than in the mountains somewhere in Colorado. 

Cool stone steps.

"Waderfall!"

All of us together. Dawn's sister Faith came with us. She's a really fun person to hang with. It was nice having her tag along. 

I didn't take any pictures of Saturday. But it was filled of wedding prep and dinner/dance parties with pulled pork samiches. That was yummy and fun. I like me some dance parties!

And then Sunday was the Wedding. It was held at a fancy vineyard with a river in the back. That was fancy and fun. They had a dance party and delicious food. All the best parts of a wedding. 

Monday we traveled to Southern Utah.

We did Arches National Park and saw all the glory it beheld. It was kind of amazing to see how all these things were formed by nature. 

It was just so pretty in it's desert way.

Red and glorious.

It was fun being able to hang out with this amazing family and seeing such amazing sights. LOVED IT!

I did a whole lot of hiking and got in some kind of shape. So that was nice. 

There was some fun blue sand. I've never seen that before. 

Which made a fun combination with the red sand. 

There's the famous arch way off in the distance. But with two little kids that kind of hike is a little difficult. 

Tuesday we visited two national parks. We went to National Grand Reef and then to the Kolob Canyons, which is part of Zion National Park.  

The Reef was my favorite place to visit. There was a dry river bed called The Wash that had holes all in the canyon walls. It was so fun to climb inside and see how I fit. 

I mean look how cool this is.

You all should be jealous. Or you should take a family vacation and see it for yourself. It's totally worth it. 

Okay maybe by now you're getting bored of all these hole in the wall pictures but hey I think they're fun. So deal with it. 

Then we saw the Canyons. They were pretty amazing. The amount of greenery that grows on those cliff faces is absolutely amazing.  

And this was the view at the top of our hike. 

I seriously really enjoyed this mid part of the trip.

And the people who came with it. I seriously love this family so much. They're just so loving and fun! 

Wednesday we drove to Vegas.

I went there once with my family when we had our cross country road trip two years ago but we didn't really do anything.

So this trip was pretty awesome. We walked forever but we saw a ton of different hotels and places. 

Like what kind of hotel has a river running through it? So crazy.

And we stayed at Mandalay Bay and had an awesome view of the land below.

That place had an awesome pool so we hung out there the Monday before we headed out to Cali. (My parents have been making fun of me for calling it that so that's all I'm going to call it from now on. So there.)

This vacation was so much fun. Going to Colorado and driving up a mountain, going to Utah and seeing amazing rock structures, and then seeing Vegas. But going to Cali was by far my favorite part of the trip!

We stayed in West Hollywood the first day and that was really cool.

I walked around with the kids. Went to Trader Joes and got some food and just kind of explored the surrounding area around our apartment. 

Then we cooled our feet off in the pool until we got bored and then went to a cool park and chilled until Dawn was done with her meetings for the day. And then we headed to Venice Beach. Now that is where it's at! 

Cool chill vibed restaurants.

With vegetarian pizzas. (I didn't like that to much. I like my meat.)

But what I do love about good ol' L.A. is all the street art. 

It made the city so bright and just fun.

It's just so fun!

It made me love the city so much. It was so laid back and go with the flow. Just gonna say it was my kind of place. 

I might consider maybe living there for like a year or something. I really loved it so much. And I don't really know how to explain why.

Wow there really was a ton of street art.

I like to bore you with holes in canyon walls and wall art in Cali. 

We might be almost done....

Nope I lied.

"Protect yo Heart" I relate to this. 

Hey look an awesome bird.

And some kind of monster. 

But hey I think I got the love. Maybe. 

This mural was on the side of a building that was right next to our Air BnB. And may I mention that place was only a block away from the ocean. Pretty awesome stuff man. 

And this Mural was done in the early 90's and is somehow still in top condition. 

Yep still more street art.

Great advice.

There may or may not have been more but I thought I wouldn't torture you anymore. 

And here is my favorite part. The BEACH! I love the beach so much. Maybe a little to much. I got a bit burned and now my back might be paying for it. But hey you should see my arms. They are gorg.

The two days we were there at Venice Beach I spent most of my day by the water with the kids. That's another thing the water in Cali is so warm. It's not like VA where I feel like I'm going to get hypothermia or something.

Our second day there we went to the Santa Monica Pier.  

That was pretty cool. A bustling crowd of very obvious tourists. So fun man.

And after the Pier we went to the 3rd Street Promenade. 

This was probably one of my favorite places we visited. Like within L.A. I mean.

There was so many street performers. It was so awesome!

It made me want to take my siblings and go street perform with my siblings. We'll see if that happens. Stay tuned.

Cool stuff man. I think the thing I loved about this trip was that I was able to have so many different experiences. Now that may sound cheesy but whatever. It's true. 

I said goodbye to L.A. on Saturday.

And then we headed to San Diego. We have some friends who used to live in our ward here in VA that moved to San Diego and we were able to stay and visit with them. So that was really cool.

I saw the San Diego Temple. That place is beautiful. Probably one of the most beautiful temple I've seen. It was just so white. 

We also visited the Mormon Battalion historical site and that was pretty cool to learn the actual history behind it. 

And our last day, Monday, we went to the Seal Beach. 

And there they are. The cute little seals.

It kind of smelled but hey it was still really cool.

I'm really sooooo thankful that I was invited on this trip. I had so much fun meeting people, traveling, and just seeing everything. It truly was so amazing. 

And now to see what happens next! Like who knows what the next adventure will be! I'm working on my mission papers and saving up money but that's really all that's going on at the current moment. So we'll see. Till next time! 

Cross Country Road Trip

It turns out when I'm involved in a ton of awesome conversations and visiting family and old friends I forget to take pictures. Blame me for being in the moment. 

I flew back to Utah and a couple days later, on the fourth, Dad and Townsend flew in. They spent only a couple days in Utah but we made it worth while. We had a rather large family reunion with my Judd relatives. Grandma, aunt, uncles, a lot of their kids, and grandkids. It was a bit crazy but it reminded me of when I was younger when we had those big crazy dinners twice a week. 

Good times man. One of the days we went to a carnival in American Fork. It was pretty fun and I probably had the best corn dog I've ever had. Do take into account that the only other corn dogs I've had are the ones from Costco. So not much competition. But it was still delicious. 

I also rode a ferris wheel for the first time with Townsend. It's not as exciting as one would hope. Maybe if I went on a bigger one like the one in National Harbor or in Seattle. I can say I did it though. So that's something.

It was a lot of fun spending those couple of days with my Dad's fam. We left the night of the big family reunion and drove through the night to Colorado. It's a good thing Dad's a pro night driver. Cause that was a really long drive. We spent the day with one of Dad's friends and his mom. I had met them before but I was like 1. But hey it was still cool getting to meet them again.

We drove through the night again till we made it to Grandpa Done's house. We got there at like 8 in the morning and we pretty much just crashed and slept for a good 5 hours or so. And then.......Let the trip within a trip begin! 

Grandpa drove us down to the Houston area and we saw our old family friends, the Martins. Now you'll have to excuse me. Before I go much farther. I didn't document this trip as well as I would've like so you'll just have to suffer through it. Anyway I haven't seen the Martins in like 13 years or so. I didn't know any of their younger kids but it was cool getting to see the parents and the kids I did remember. It brought back cool memories. We stayed at their house and had dinner with them at a pretty yummy pizza place and then ate blue bell ice cream and brownies. Guys that ice cream needs to hurry up and be sold nation wide. 'Cause dang it was good. They also taught us how to play a game called Nertz. That's a pretty intense game man. But also really fun. I can't imagine playing it with our family though. It'd get confusing fast. 

The next day we bowled and played skee ball with my Aunt Jenna and her boyfriend. It turns out the more I bowl the worse I get. I was doing really well getting a fair amount of strikes and spares the first game and then the second game I just utterly failed. It was horrible. We also went out to eat at Texas Road House with them for dinner. It was pretty delicious. Those rolls man. That was really fun to see my Aunt again. I haven't seen her in like two years since the last time we drove through. So that was really awesome. 

After dinner we drove to San Antonio. We got there kind of late but hey we wanted to see the river walk by moonlight so that's what we did. Who's gonna stop us?! We saw cool street performers underneath a bridge by the rivers edge. Very picturesque minus the pictures. Because I suck at taking pictures. 

And then by the light of day we saw the Alamo. And now I can say I remember it. 

We went to the river walk and walked the loop. 

Saw some cool bridges and cool boats. Probably the American version of Venice. 

Townsend rocking that pony. Be jelly.

We had lunch on the river walk and it was delicious. Like so good. It was tex-mex respectively. 

During lunch we talked to mom and the kids. Here's dad talking to Norbaby. Isn't he the cutest?! 

After lunch we went to the movies. Saw Spider Man in I-Max. That was awesome! Spider Man is like my favorite super hero movie. Just a lot more funny moments and less action. My type of movie. After the movie we drove to Austin and had dinner with Uncle Kyle and his girlfriend. That was a really good visit. 

From there we drove up back to Trophy club were Grandpa Done is staying. We got back kind of late so went to bed when we got home. That morning we chilled and went swimming in the pool grandpa had in his back yard. That was really fun. And then later that night we went to dinner with my uncle Troy and his girlfriend Aegis. That was really fun. After dinner Aegis was performing in a band she was in so we went to her concert. She was amazing. She sung and played the harmonica. It was so impressive. I wish i could do it.

This was after the first set. We like her. 

That was our last night with grandpa. So that was kind of sad. The next morning we took off and arrived in Texarkana around lunch time. We hung out with Johanna and her husband. It was really good seeing them again. I sure do love them. Anyway we went to a delicious bbq place and I got me some brisket! Pretty dang delicious man! This picture was hanging up at the bbq place and I just felt like it perfectly portrayed mothers life. 

They're supposed to come visit in September sometime and I really hope that all works out. It'd be so much fun! 

After our visit with Jo we drove to Birmingham and stayed the night there and then we woke early the next morning and made our way to North Carolina. We had dinner with our old buddy Terrill. It was really good to see him again. We haven't seen him in like two years so it's been a while. We went to a place called cookout that had really delicious food that was also really cheap. We should get them in VA. That's all I'm saying. 

After our visit with Terrill and a good nights sleep we finished our road trip and got home around 4 in the afternoon. I sure was happy to get home. At least to sleep in my own bed. The kids were all excited to see us but more so for the gifts we brought. Hotel paper cups, shampoos, and soaps! My dad's version of a gift can be pretty interesting sometimes. Literally every trip he takes that's what he brings home for us. It's fun. 

I was really glad I was able to take this trip. That I was able to see most of my Judd relatives, visit old family friends, and see my Grandpa Done and all that side of the family. It was just really cool to have all those conversations and really get to know those people. It was cool to get to know them instead of just staring at them warily as a kid. 

It was awesome to see how much people love my mom, dad, and the rest of the family. But especially mom. People seem to think she's a saint. Probably because of the cancer. Or probably because she actually is. 

My favorite though was being able to spend time with Dad and Townsend and have cool conversations with them about everything. Spiritual things, relationship things, mission things, funny things, random things, etc. Especially since I'll be on a mission here soon enough and won't be able to see Dad for 18 months and Townsend for even longer because he'll be on his mission when I get back. So that's kind of sad. 

I've got my Spain trip bonding time with mom and my road trip with Dad and Townsend and now I need to focus on the middle people. We'll see what I end up doing with them. 

Now for other news...... I got a job as a Nanny again and I'll be going on vacation with them for two weeks. Be jelly. It won't all be vacay though. I'm going to be watching her kids while she's in meetings and at conferences for 5 of the 14 days but hey that's not bad at all. And I''ll get to see Colorado and all the nature it beholds and go to her sisters wedding while we're out there. Then I'm going to southern Utah to see arches and canyons and all the nature there. And lastly to the beach! To Cali I'll go! I think I'm most excited for that. I really love the ocean man. It's probably one of my most favorite places. And then back to home to continue saving money for the mission. 

So my next blog post will probably be of that amazing adventure. Till next time!