We are road trip warriors!  We did a 1500 mile road trip to go visit my brother and be there for their newest son’s baby blessing.  It’s a long drive down to Albuquerque, and we didn’t really want to do the same stretch of road twice, so we devised an awesome loop.  First stop St. George, second stop Grand Canyon, third stop Albuquerque, and then back home.

The big question was how would the girls do with so much driving.  We are happy to report that they did remarkably well.  Check out this sweet setup Ashley has!  The headphones actually weren’t that much of a hit, but my sleek black iPad mini in the hot pink bumper case sure was.  She got to watch lots and lots of movies!  Eliza was a trooper.  We stopped to take breaks every couple of hours, and overall she was awesome.

She got to go swimming for the first time.  It was 2 years ago in St. George that Ashley got to go swimming for the first time as well.

Leg 2, St. George to the Grand Canyon.  Oh Darbus, you’ve been so good to us.  She did an admirable job on the trip.

These red cliffs are on the road in between Jacob Lake and Marble Canyon.  If you are ever going between St. George and the Grand Canyon, I’d highly recommend taking this route.  It was like driving through the Cars movie.

Here we are on a lunch break at the Navajo bridge.  When you’re driving along, you don’t even realize that the Colorado river is right next to you in a deep canyon.  You can’t even tell until you’re right next to it.

And here we are!  At the Grand Canyon!  I’ve wanted to come and see it for many years now, and we finally had the chance.  It was everything I’d imagined and more.  Pictures just don’t do it justice.  However, out of all of them, I think the panoramas come the closest.  Make sure to click on them to see them with more detail.

Leg 3, on to Albuquerque.  We made a pit stop in Flagstaff Az and couldn’t help stopping at the Dog Haus to get a chili dog.

And after many more hours of driving through less scenic roads, we arrived in Albuquerque.  It was lots of fun to see the cousins and the family.  The baby blessing went very well.  We had lots of good food to eat.  Ashley got to practice sharing toys.  It was great.

Leg 4, the road home.  This was the 9 hour day, plus two stops.  Lots of driving.  Everything went well and we made it back home in good condition.  It’s a bit of a squeeze to get in the back seat with the girls, but once you’re in, it’s not too bad.  I love my girls!

It’s already the end of February.  It’s crazy how fast time flies and how fast the girls are growing up.  Sometimes though, the individual days can seem to drag on, especially in the winter as cabin fever sets in.  One of the cabin fever remedies for the girls has been the Draper Aquarium.  Kathryn got a season pass and they’ve enjoyed going several times.

Eliza seems to agree that it’s a great idea to head to the aquarium!

As another cabin fever remedy, we’ve been going down to St. George around Valentine’s day for the last several years.  It’s been fun to get out of the typical winter inversion and get some sunshine and warmer air.  This year, with the big road trip coming up soon, we were in town for the weekend.  We decided that instead of heading South, we’d head up in elevation to get out of the inversion.  We dropped off the girls as Grandma Suzie’s house and headed up to Alta for a half day ski trip.  It was so amazing.  It was actually 55 degrees at the base of the mountain, and 45 degrees on the peak, with really no wind.  So in the end, we got our Valentine’s Day warm weather and sunshine…up on the mountain.  The snow wasn’t that fresh, but since it was so warm, it was nice and soft.  It was a fantastic day skiing.

And this is the inversion.  So sad to head back into the pea soup.

One evening, we made a batch of sugar cookies.  One of the cool things is that we 3D printed all of the cookie cutters.  I’d made some a while ago for Ashley to use with her play dough.  This particular night, Kathryn was wishing for a bigger heart cutter to make our main cookies.  I headed down stairs, found a model online, tweaked it a little, and 45 minutes later we had our own heart cookie cutter.  I really like having a 3D printer at home.  So cool.

Valentine’s Day candlelight dinner and chicken alfredo pasta in honor of our first Valentine’s day together.

Eliza is growing up fast.  Her little personality is starting to develop.  She’s also starting to outgrow lots more clothes.  She’s been a little angel.

Thanks Grandma Suzie for all you do to help out with the girls

This week Kathryn had her TSO concert.  That meant rehearsal on Thursday and the concert on Friday and Saturday.  We aren’t quite ready to have baby sitters with Eliza, so that meant I got to hang out with the girls all three nights.  We had lots of fun being chill, watching movies, taking baths, playing pretend, reading books, eating snacks, and anything else we could think of.

On Friday, we dropped Kathryn off at her concert since they have a pre concert rehearsal so she needed to be there pretty early.  Afterwards, we drove up American Fork canyon to the end of both forks.  We caught a beautiful view of the backside of Temp just around dusk.

Kathryn said the concert went well.  I was sad to miss it, but happy to be able to help and have some good daddy daughter time.  That’s all for now.  Happy leap year bonus day tomorrow.

 

We’ve been having a great time this winter.  Here are some of the highlights.

Seeing James and Erica and Hunter over Christmas break.

Fun night out with Kathryn’s parents.

Birthday dinner for Kathryn.

Our amazing baby girl!

Chillin

Being cute.

Being gangster cute.

Huge snowman.

More cute

Provo City Center Temple open house.

Guru’s

Even more cute.  This girl just won’t cut it out