January 4, 2022

2021 IN REVIEW

What a year 2021 was…. So many good things and so much worry and disappointment. Just like in 2020 the best times were when we are together and I love that the most.

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January was quiet and cold but we still had some fun. Cannon spent most of the month doing online school but got to return in person at the end of the month. A highlight of the month was visiting the ice castles, I am so bummed they aren’t open this year.

February was looking up we got to go camping and enjoy Colorado Springs. We visited some new to us places in Colorado. We also started our adventure Wednesdays. Cannon had Wednesdays off of school so we made it our mission to go do something exciting like going to a new playground further from home or a hike.

March was one of my favorite months! We started adding some favorites back into our life like swimming at our local pool. We also got to go camping in Canyon City and it was so pretty. We celebrated St. Patricks Day and one year since we started this pandemic. We had the most fun on our spring break trip to Southern Utah, such a beautiful part of the world and lots of nights in the camper. We all loved it.

April was amazing because the weather started to warm up and we got to celebrate Easter with family.

We also got to celebrate Emerald turning three by taking a trip to Dinosaur Colorado and Rifle falls. We also made a special trip to the aquarium and had a small family party.

Cannon played another season of soccer.

We got to camp a lot in May including camping with friends and a trip to the Great Sand Dunes National Park.

Cannon finished his second year of preschool and we celebrated with an amazing trip to Ouray, Silverton and Telluride. This trip really was a dream and an amazing way to kick off summer!

In June we went to Steamboat Springs, visited the pool a lot and celebrated Cannon turning 5!

We celebrated the 4th of July in Aspen, this was another amazing trip! The Maroon Bells are truly stunning.

We also got to camp amongst some Mountain Goats near Breckenridge.

In August we made a quick camping trip up to Leadville and went hiking in Frisco.

Much too quickly it was time to get ready to go back to school. I will readily admit that I don’t love my kids being away at school but I do see how much they love it and grow. Summer for these years I have them will forever be my favorite.

Over Labor Day we took a long weekend to explore Gunnison, Crested Butte and The Black Canyon on the Gunnison National Park. This was another surprisingly awesome trip. I think this campsite was one of Cannon’s favorites!

We squeezed in another camping trip to Twin Lakes and Aspen in mid September so we could enjoy the fall colors.

A big highlight of the year was our big trip to Disneyland to kick off Halloween time and celebrate my birthday.

Cannon played his third season of soccer and Emmy got to play in her first season. Emmy was a little timid at first and wanted Cory out on the field with her but by the end she had made some friends and was excited to play.

We had so much fun celebrating and dressing up for Halloween.

We got to enjoy a very dry fall, lots of time outside and a trip to a ghost town in the mountains.

Christmas was so amazing we got to do so much more than we were able to in 2020. This year we celebrated early on December 18th so we could go out of town on our last big adventure of the year.

Our Christmas Cactus trip exploring New Mexico, Arizona and California was the best way to finish off an amazing year.

Looking back I can’t believe we were so lucky to have such amazing adventures together. While there have been stressful times and lots of things missed out on because of COVID, we were together and we made the best of it.

I am just so grateful. I am not sure we can top it in 2022 but we are going to try, and probably get back on a plane for the first time since 2019 🙂

2019 babies, the last time we were on a plane flying home from Germany.

January 3, 2022

Christmas Cactus – Day Fifteen – Home!

We woke up on our fifteenth day of our trip excited to get home! It had snowed the day before but we were hopeful for dry roads.

The drive is about seven hours without any stops or slowdowns. It obviously took us longer.

Luckily the kids are amazing in the car and didn’t really complain at all.

There were some icy bits that were stressful but we made through just fine.

There was lots of coffee stops.

We had a wonderful adventure but we are so so happy to be home.

January 2, 2022

Christmas Cactus – Day Fourteen – Albuquerque

This post could have also been titled a somewhat unfortunate day in Albuquerque. Again we would have liked to have gone home early but it was still snowing and we wanted to wait for clear roads. Originally we were excited for a day in Albuquerque because there were places we loved that we wanted to show the kids.

Unfortunately we missed in our planning that everything is closed on New Years Day. We really wanted to take the kids to see Botanic gardens that has a magical children’s garden. The zoo and aquarium are really good too but they were all closed. All the museums and the tram up the mountains were closed as well. We were super bummed, between the fire, snow and everything being closed it was not the way we wanted our trip to end.

We tried to rally but were mostly killing time until we could drive home. It was cold and there was some snow/rain mix but we went to a playground anyway.

I am always impressed by these kids resilience and how they always find the fun.

We also made our way down to Old Town.

My parents gave me some money for Christmas so I could buy something to remember our trip. I really wanted to get a Turquoise ring and had been looking for most of our trip. I finally found the perfect one while in Albuquerque.

We brought back pizza to have in our hotel room and worked a little on packing up to head home the next day.

We now want to return to Albuquerque to visit what we missed and probably go to the Balloon Fiesta.

January 1, 2022

Christmas Cactus – Day Thirteen – Tucson -> Albuquerque + New Years Eve

First off Happy New Year!!

We spent most of the day driving to Albuquerque. We would have driven straight home to be near our friends but there was a lot of snow and icy interstates.

There aren’t many places to camp near Albuquerque and we aren’t huge fans of RV parks so we opted for a hotel instead.

When we arrived to Albuquerque we checked into the hotel and dropped the trailer in the parking lot. We then went to the store to grab some goodies for the evening to celebrate New Years Eve. We got sparkling cider, champagne, treats and a new game to play.

We got take out from one of our favorite restaurants from when we lived in Albuquerque. We watched a movie then a countdown on Netflix and we were all asleep before midnight.

We hope you had a wonderful and safe New Years Eve!!!

December 31, 2021

Christmas Cactus – Day Twelve – Saguaro National Park

I was so looking forward to visiting Saguaro National Park, seeing all of these towering Cacti was amazing.

We loved learning about the environment and the kids participated in the jr ranger program.

We did a short hike around the visitors center before getting back in our car and driving out into the park.

Our first stop was to hike up to an overlook to see some petroglyphs.

Our next stop was for lunch.

They had very nice tables to eat at with an overlook. We had packed a picnic in the morning, our little lunch boxes were well used again on this trip.

We then drove around the rest of the scenic loop. We decided that we wanted one last hike as a storm was rolling in.

This was when messages started rolling in from friends and family. Our neighborhood and my parents’ was in a pre evacuation zone because of a fire in our area. This was the start of the Marshall Fire that devastated neighborhoods near us.

We really wanted to leave and drive home immediately to be there to help friends that were evacuated from their homes and to grab important things from our home. We did feel comfort that we were dafe and everything important was with us (each other). Our dog Humphry was safe at my brothers home far from the fire.

Friends and family were sending us pictures of what they could see from their homes. We really wanted to pack up and head home as that is where our hearts were but (luckily) a snow storm was coming in that night and we didn’t want to pull our trailer into a storm. The snow was good as it put out the fire.

The views were scary but we were lucky and our neighbors didn’t have to evacuate.

We were very worried for our friends that were evacuated and for Cory’s office that was also in an evacuation zone.

December 30, 2021

Christmas Cactus – Day Eleven – Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum

I was so so excited to go to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. I visited once years ago while at a conference and loved it. When we planned our trip to Arizona and we planned some time in Tucson I knew we had to go.

The exhibits here are amazing. It’s a mix of botanic garden and zoo and so well done. The cave exhibit is so fun and the views and spectacular.

We loved the cactus gardens.

The kids loved the Sting Ray touch pool.

We had the best time.

We spent the entire day exploring the museum and had to hurry to our campsite before it got dark.

December 29, 2021

Christmas Cactus – Day Ten – Sonoran Desert National Monument

We woke up early ready to hit the road again!

The kids climbed the rocks behind our campsite while I packed up the trailer.

They did help me check under the car and trailer.

We did drive through the Sonoran Desert National Monument, it was fun to see the landscape change as we drove.

We got to our campsite right before sunset.

It was a beautiful evening. We made dinner, a camp fire and roasted marshmallows. Not bad for late December.

Dinner by campfire light.

December 28, 2021

Christmas Cactus – Day Nine – Joshua Tree National Park

We had a full day to explore Joshua Tree National so we started with the Visitors Center.

We got maps and found a few short hikes that we wanted to do.

Our first stop was at hidden valley where we did a fun hike and lots of rock scrambling. We took our time, drove the rest of the big loop and went back to our campsite for lunch.

We then went back to explore the area around skull rock, it was very busy so we observed it from a distance.

We did the Discovery Trail, made by kids for kids. It was a fun little hike.

The Joshua Trees here are huge and amazing. It’s something you have to see in person.

It is magic here! We made it back to camp made dinner and enjoyed our last night. We would have loved more time (as we always say) it’s a sight to be seen.

December 27, 2021

Christmas Cactus – Day Eight – Anaheim -> Joshua Tree

The eighth of our trip was mostly about chores and driving out of LA. We took advantage of the laundry facilities at the hotel we were staying at so we would have clean clothes for the second half of our trip. We packed our things back into our travel trailer and started heading back east. We also stopped at a couple grocery stores to restock our cabinets.

We were so excited when we got to Joshua Tree, our campsite was actually in the national park and it was amazing! We loved our site tucked into the rocks. Cannon said he liked it better than Disneyland so I probably won’t ever be able to talk Cory into going back.

We ALL want to go back and spend more time in Joshua Tree.

We didn’t have time to really explore the park since we drove in late in the day but we have the full day tomorrow.

After a few nights in a hotel in the city it was nice to be back out and camping.

December 26, 2021

Christmas Day in Disney’s California Adventure

It was raining on Christmas day but as the video shows the kids just danced through it, they were having so much fun.

We had considered just spending both days in Disneyland and that would have been amazing but we decided we wanted to see California Adventure decorated for the holidays as well. Both Parks were not very busy which was very nice.