The Travel Initiative: December 2014

As the big kick-off for The Travel Initiative, I am pleased to announce our Christmas Adventure.

DISNEY WORLD!!!  We looked into several possibilities for the Christmas season.  With Adam having 2 weeks off at Christmas, we thought it would be great to go out of town then.  Plus, it's close enough to our anniversary, that we're going to count it as our 1 Year Anniversary Celebratory Trip.

Before I hear all about how I'm obsessed with Disney, let me explain that Adam LOVES Disney too.  And that, in so many ways, this was the best trip for us at this time.  We have many other non-Disney-related trips in the preliminary planning stages.

It worked out that we are going to get the Disney Dining Plan for free while we are there.  This is a HUGE deal!  Eating out on vacation can be pricey, as everyone knows.  This dining plan is going to enable us to eat an much fancier restaurants than we otherwise would.  This was a big incentive for planning this particular trip.

We've booked our trip and have started making reservations for dining.  I'm super excited!  We're doing 8 days at the Disney World park.  And we're going to Harry Potter World for a day!  I can't wait!

Seriously we are both so excited!  We know it will be busy because it is Disney World at Christmas time, but I can't wait to experience all the magic!  And it will be a very happy way to celebrate the holiday together!

And it's a very exciting way for The Travel Initiative to get started!

Camping 2014

When I was growing up, we used to go camping with my grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.  We had many adventures at Flaming Gorge. I don't think any of us will ever forget the time we broke all the oars on the inaugural rafting trip with Pa's new raft.  It was pretty epic.

These are the kinds of adventures my family has been wanting to introduce to the new little ones.  Now that the oldest grandkids are 4, we decided to give it a try.  I mean, there will probably always be a baby we'll have to worry about.  And the sooner we introduce the kids to camping, the sooner they'll learn to love it.

So over the last few days, we embarked on our first camping adventure of the next generation.  We packed up and went to Currant Creek.  I'd say, for our first excursion, it was pretty successful.

We had to make sure we knew where to trash was.  We were in Bear Country!

 Little Adam is pretty adorable.

 Big Adam and Little Adam

 One of the best ways to entertain this girl is to get her to pose to have her picture taken.

 Their legs got "tired" a lot.

 When I take pictures, it means the world never sees me first thing in the morning whilst camping.  Unfortunately for Kristin and Kristie, that means everyone else is fair-game.

 Taylor prefers muffins over pancakes.  Silly.

 Grandma hangin' out at the Kids Table.

 Tyler got to come up for one of the nights.  But had to leave early to go to work.

Aunt Wendi is magic and can get Zoey to nap even in an awning on the beach of a lake.  She's so precious!

All-in-all, the kids were pretty good.  I mean, it's definitely different entertaining kids in the wild, without the fancy electronics and movies to plop them in front of.  But we found ways.  We went on lots of walks to explore.  And we played glow stick horseshoes (Aunt Wendi is always prepared).  There were plenty of snacks.  We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. And Aunt Wendi and Uncle Adam spent HOURS (seriously HOURS) telling stories of princesses and their princes and wicked witches.  And we fished.  Grandma and Grandpa brought up the canoe and pedal boat.  We even caught 3 fish, which Scott fried up for dinner Friday night.  They were pretty tasty!

The kids struggled a little the first night.  Sleeping in the tents was a bit rough for all of us.  But the 2nd day, they were so exhausted, there were very few incidents.  Even Baby Alyssa did pretty well.  To be honest, she was so good most of the time, I forgot she was there.  

It was a lot of work, and there was a lot of dirt and I'm super allergic to living things (and smoke from fires), but it was a lot of fun.  Hopefully it will be a tradition we keep up.