We took our summer trip to Florida at the end of July. This year Daddy drove down with us. Unfortunately he didn’t get to stay long, but we were thrilled to have him for the time we did. The girls traveled well on this trip with the exception of Emily coming down with something on the way home which gave her carsickness-like symptoms. We did get lucky and get them to sleep at the same time on the way down. On the way home they alternated naps.

Emily’s "almost" home photo and smile. These were the photos we sent Daddy to tell him we were almost home. Everyone was excited to see Daddy.

Julia was all comfy watching a movie as the sun went down. We tried to race the sun and get home before it went to bed, but as we were counting the red lights through town the sun beat us.

We celebrated Mama and Daddy’s Anniversary with a family weekend away to the Opryland Hotel. Celebrating our anniversary with our kids was a lot of fun this year. Emily is old enough to understand what an anniversary means and loves the idea of celebrating her parents wedding. The joys of girls!

– a room with a view! a climate controlled balcony is awesome on a super hot weekend when four people share a room.

Emily has a general love of hotels and wants to run one later in life so we thought taking her to such a unique hotel would be fun. She was a bit overwhelmed and it will be interesting to see what her long term thoughts are on it. She loved following the different trails of the garden and watching the "dancing" water show. We were always watching out for brides and grooms too. Being Memorial Day weekend there were a lot weddings going on at the hotel.

We saw a wedding set up in the gazebo earlier in the weekend and thought it would be fun to get Emily’s photo in the same spot. For the whole weekend Emily was a bit more willing to let us take her photo. Julia’s favorite things this weekend were coloring on the balcony in our room, throwing coins into fountains, and jumping into the pool over and over again.

We enjoyed riding the boat and learning a few new facts about the hotel. Another interest that Emily has is about any natural disaster or weather anomaly. In 2010 Nashville had severe flooding of the Cumberland River which flooded the Opryland Hotel. After riding the boat all Emily wanted to discuss was the flood and the hotel.

Daddy and his girls strolling on one of the many trails.

We took a walk around the state capitol building and checked out the statues and the burial place of a president. We now know James K Polk was buried at the state capitol. We also visited the State Museum and enjoyed a little local history and some air conditioning.

The girls and Mama went camping and had some time to play at the beach. The weather was warm, the ocean cool, the breeze pleasant, and the giggles perfect. Thank you Grandma for taking photos so that Mama could just play.

Just some shots from the fun beach play.

No words can say more than Emily’s face already is saying.

So intent, Julia what are you studying?

Dylan being busy. Lots of sand digging – lots of fun!

What a ham! Natalie was SO great with all of the kids.

Everything is so new and fresh for Elizabeth. Even her crying face is cute.

This was the first trip to the Great Sand Dunes for Mama and the girls and Daddy’s second visit. The visitor center was fantastic and had kid friendly exhibits about sand dunes, magnetic sands, lightning, and frogs. They had a video that explained why the huge sand dunes exist in the middle of Colorado. The dunes are deceptively large as you hike out to them; they just grow bigger before your eyes.

We hiked out to the first dune and played on the back steep side for an hour. We would have liked to hike further, but the girls had all the fun they needed on that one dune. The girls practiced their rolling downhill technique. Mama ran down and rolled down too. We could only talk Daddy into running down the dune once. When we left we had sand everywhere. The girls loved seeing all the sand we poured out of their shoes.

I love food. This is a fact. In the years of travel with my family as I grew up, we would enjoy food from all over America. There is a problem that comes with travel cuisine. When you go home you can’t get the different foods you find that you love. Therefore, when we travel we have to include food as an activity. This is never more true than with a trip to the Southwest where we get our favorite Mexican food. When we travel to New Mexico and Colorado we hunt down sopapillas.

The trick to finding good sopapillas is to ask locals for the best locations. This trip we found out that restaurants are now stuffing them with taco toppings, but the best way to eat them is to fill them with honey. We found two places that served great sopapillas in the areas we were visiting. Restaurants used to serve them in baskets before meals like some do with tortilla chips. The best we could find were that some restaurants served them as dessert and you could buy more individual sopapillas. The ones we ate made our fingers sticky, cut the spicy kick from our mouths, and made our stomachs full. The biggest disappointment was that Julia didn’t fall in love with them. She tried one bite both times, but passed on the sweet dessert. Emily could manage one each time.

Robby’s family traveled to northern New Mexico when he was a child and their family discovered a favorite restaurant in Taos. We had to stop and try it out. After hearing the stories repeated over and over we were sure that it would struggle to measure up to the hype. We are pleased to say that both their Mexican food was fantastic but so were their sopapillas. The girls tried the Mexican French Toast which was Uncle Doug’s favorite thing to eat there at age three.

Emily eating her Mexican French Toast, which was cinnamon nut bread made into French Toast. Sounded pretty good.

The drive into Mesa Verde was beautiful. The skies were clear and we could see long distances from the overlooks. One of the places we stopped on the drive was at the fire tower. We took the short hike and enjoyed the views while the girls loved the flag pole. We love how exciting “ordinary” things are to the girls.

The swearing in ceremony. Emily talked about the things the Ranger had told her at her ceremony for days.

At the visitor center, Emily got her first Jr. Ranger booklet to complete. She enjoyed doing the activities with us and absolutely loved being sworn in as a Jr. Ranger later. She was so proud of her badge. We tried to avoid this program on this trip, because it was a little too involved for Julia. She was a bit disappointed to get left out. It won’t be long until she can keep up with the questions and activities.

Julia doing all the climbing hard work all by herself.

Our Jr. Ranger checking out the area for things her Bingo card was missing.

Happy Hikers!

After watching a short video about the people of Mesa Verde we took the Spruce Tree House self guided tour. We only took the kid backpack for the half mile hike into a canyon to the ancient dwellings. Emily played a Bingo game out of her Jr. Ranger guide as we did the hike. At the ruins we were able to climb into a kiva on a ladder and explore. I was so proud of the girls. They didn’t need any help on the ladder and were brave to climb into a dark hole without seeing the bottom. Amazingly, Emily did the whole hike by herself. At the bottom we wondered if we shouldn’t have brought the stroller, but we didn’t need it. She hiked out faster than the rest of us. What a big girl!

After the hike we enjoyed a sunny picnic and then drove other area roads while the girls napped. We have mastered the overlook-kid swap so that we can go on with sightseeing despite naps. The number of dwellings at the park are pretty unbelievable. I appreciate not having to live on the side of a cliff and having to use hand holds to climb down for basic needs like food and water.