Vacations Archives

I’ve been keeping a secret from you.

I haven’t been keeping it because there’s some awesome secret blog thing going on. I haven’t been keeping it because of my fears of an ax murder showing up at my door. No, I was keeping it because I was afraid someone might come over and try to steal my furniture.

A few weeks ago, Tom and I took a trip – ALONE – to celebrate our 10 year wedding anniversary. We hadn’t taken a vacation without the kids since Zack was born (over 8 years ago), and we where thrilled to have some time to ourselves. We all flew to Florida, handed Zack and Emma over to my parents, and boarded a cruise ship to the Southern Caribbean.

To say that we had the time of our lives would be an understatement. We ate more than we should have, drank WAY more than we should have, met new friends from all over the world and saw some of the most beautiful islands imaginable. Over our 8 night cruise, we visited Grand Turk, Dominican Republic, Curaçao and Aruba, as well as had 3 total days “at sea” where we didn’t get off the ship.

The time away was perfect to rest, relax and recharge. In fact, one day at sea, we woke up at noon. NOON! And we didn’t even realize we had slept that late until we looked at the clock. Do you know the last time I’ve slept until noon? It definitely hasn’t been my last 8 “mommy” years, I can tell you!

Without free and fast phone or Internet, I thought that I might explode. What if my blog went down? It did, and we were able to fix it using the 75-cents a minute satellite Internet access (Tom is fast!). What if my Facebook page went crazy? It didn’t. What if someone started tweeting that they hate me? They didn’t (and I probably took my “what ifs” to an insane level, huh?). At any rate, I survived it, and I loved not being so connected. It was really good for my soul.

But you can take a phone and computer away from a Blogger, but you can never take her camera. I took tons of pictures of the gorgeous scenery in the islands.

Of course, I did.

Willemstad, Curaço

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Y’all. The SNAP! Conference was AH-MAY-ZING and my little Utah vacation was fantastic! I had such a great time catching up with old friends and meeting new ones. I learned so much new stuff about blogging that it was like drinking from a fire hose. I’m still trying to process and collect what I learned – including that my mind is WAY more scattered than most bloggers.

This was my first trip to Utah, though, so I really had no idea what to expect. I absolutely fell in love with this state. Honestly, I’d love to go back sometime and take a little Utah vacation with my family. If you’ve never been to Utah, here are some things that I learned while I was there.

Five Things You Should Know Before Your Utah Vacation

1. Utah is ridiculously gorgeous. Seriously. As we were flying into Salt Lake City, I was chatting with some friends on the plane. I turned to look out the window and a sound like, “OH EM GEE LOOK LOOK MOUNTAINS SNOW GAH!” came out of my mouth. It was super spastic and all of the Utah residents around me busted out laughing. I’m a Texas girl, so me getting to see mountains was like a kid in a candy shop.

Driving down the interstate from Salt Lake to Lehi for the conference, I just couldn’t quit saying how much I loved it. I’m pretty sure my friends Beckie, Melissa and Jamie were so glad to get out of the car once we arrived. The conference was at Thanksgiving Point and took place during their annual tulip festival. So, we literally had gorgeous scenery from the top of the sky down to the ground.

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Color Palettes Inspired by Dream Vacations

Five Things to Know Before You Go on a Utah Vacation

Five Things You Should Know Before Your Utah Vacation