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3/06/2015

Solo Trip

I can count the number of times I have taken the kids on a trip without Dustin on one hand. He just has this way of calming everyone down and making every problem seem small, so I enjoy trips with him about a million times more. But truth be told, he doesn't have as much free time as I would like and the kids are getting big enough that it's time to start taking off on our own some more.

When my sister had to cancel her trip to Arizona, I knew we needed to come up with something fun to do on Spring Break. Luckily for me, my girlfriends had already planned a trip and let me tag along. So technically I wasn't even all that solo, but I'm taking baby steps here!

When we combine Molly and Meredith's family with mine, we create a perfect trifecta of children. Everyone has a friend which means way less work for the moms and really quiet car trips.
Our first stop was beautiful Sedona. We had packed picnic lunches and went hiking in the gorgeous red rocks.
 
The kids pretty much took off and we tried to keep track of them.

That night we headed up to Flagstaff to pick up our ski rentals and dinner at Five Guys.
 
While the moms tried to watch the BYU game, the kids were divided into rooms. The boys managed to make Molly's room look like a garbage dump in ten minutes while the girls burnt popcorn in the microwave in my room which smelled oh so divine.

We had two double beds and Nate slept on a blow up mattress. I thought I was so smart sharing a bed with the smallest one, until I remembered how much of a bed hog Luke was. He asked me to sing him a song to fall asleep, which then reduced him to tears (this is the kid who cries at Silent Night). But finally everyone fell asleep, which was good because I made everyone get up at 6 am the next morning.

The next day was SKI DAY!! I put 3 of the kids into ski lessons for the day, so that I could enjoy myself too. Luke ended up in a group with a 10 year old and Nate and Sadie had pretty much a private lesson where they skiied down black runs all afternoon.

 Ellie and Lindsay decided that they were big enough to ski around by themselves. EEK! Are we already to this point in life?
Molly, Meredith and I took off to do our own runs. It was pretty empty, so we got a bunch of runs in before it was time to wrap up for the end of the day. That was probably the most chaotic time of the day. Trying to find everyone was no easy task and they were all hungry and tired so if you can tell from the picture -- we're not all the happiest at the moment.
But all in all, it was a great trip and I'm so glad we went. We had disgusting Taco Bell for dinner and then made a sleepy drive home. I love my little family and it's kind of exciting to start stepping out on our own a little more.

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