Dreaming of a Summer Road Trip

One of my personal favorite parts of Christmas break was planning for this summer's Road Trip out West.  Admittedly, most of the planning had already been done over a year ago, before we knew we'd be moving, but that didn't make the planning any less fun.  Once we realized a relocation would be happening in the summer 2018, we decided that the timing probably wasn't right for an epic road trip out to Utah.  Never fear, though, because I saved all those plans in my handy dandy google doc itinerary, and with a few minor tweaks, we were able to plan out the entire route for this summer.

Several of my 40 Before 40 list will be checked off as we cruise out west for the second time, and I'm super pumped!  See the Grand Canyon?  Boom!  Attend a family reunion?  Double Boom!  Go camping, visit a beach, and build up my bumper sticker collection?  Boom, boom, and boom!  Hahahaha.  Thankfully, the kids are just as excited about our epic adventure.  :)

I had so much fun planning for this summer, that I got a little ahead of myself and started preliminary planning for the next few summers as well.  We've only got three more summers with our little family before kids start leaving the nest, so I want to make sure we cover as much of the country as possible!    We may be trekking out west for THIS summer, but for next summer, I'm thinking we'll hit up the MIDwest.  And THEN, for the summer of 2021 -- after Ethan has graduated high school and before he goes on his mission -- we've planned an epic road trip down the west coast, complete with a visit to the land of his birth.  We've never been back to Oregon since we moved when Ethan was 3 months old, and I thought it would be the PERFECT last road trip with our first born in the wilderness before he leaves home.

But all of that is WAY in the future.  For THIS summer (which Ethan tells me is 17 weeks away -- because yes, he is counting down the days for school to be out), we have the following to look forward to:

• Doing some graffiti at Cadillac Ranch 
• Old Town Albuquerque 
• Petrified Forest
• Grand Canyon
• Hiking at Zion's National Park
• Family reunion with MY siblings
• Bear Lake with Scott's family for his parent's 50th anniversary
• Bonneville Salt Flats {I've been trying to make this happen every time we've been to Utah for the last few years.  Maybe this will be the year it happens.  Hahahaha.}
• And visiting with good friends along our route

To finish the post off, I had to include some pictures of Isaac deep in dream land himself.  Hahaha.  It's always entertaining when I check on the kids at night and see the positions he falls asleep in.  

 {Obviously not Isaac, but Scott and I were laughing the other night at the stretched out "comfy" position Maxwell got himself into while sleeping in his little bed.}

{Clearly not slumbering, but this picture I managed to capture of Isaac this morning while driving Grace to school makes me laugh out loud every time I look at it.  Hahahaha.  Poor little lamb was so dazed and confused after waking up later than usual this morning.}