I’ve gotten quite a bit behind on keeping up with our family blog…so here’s a snapshot of 2019.

January-found out we were going to be grandparents:)

March-went to Cozumel for some sun.

April-went to a fun wedding in Arizona.

May-rented out our house in Colorado, and moved to Utah.

May/June/July-went between family, townhome, family, hotel, then finally moved into our small house we bought while building our new home.

August-Our oldest daughter and husband moved to Utah. We also went to San Diego for some sun before school started.

September-Reagan, our first and sweet grand baby was born. Madison started as a Senior, and Camden a Junior in High School, and Nadia started as a 6th grader this year.

October-took a fun and beautiful family photo together as a family.

November-went to Thailand for 12 days-4 were traveling days…stayed in a 5 star Marriot Resort on Naka Island for free-so awesome! It took us 46 hours to get home with layovers.

December-our first Christmas in Utah, and with Reagan, Alex, and Matt.

And that’s the short version…I hope to keep up with this during 2020:)

sunday.  nov 25.  2018

our last day in prague, we rode a bus to the airport(30 minute suffocating bus ride), tried to check in to ryanair, missed deadline, wanted to charge us a huge fine(our tickets total only was $100 for all of us), so we decided to switch tactics and ride the train and then a bus from prague to krakow.  arrived in krakow in the evening, we checked in, and then walked to old town krakow, found an awesome restaurant-and we just absolutely love poland already!  we love our airbnb too!!!monday.  

nov 26.  2018

went to auschwitz-birkenau tour today. we’ve wanted to see this place for a very long time. as we learn about what the jews went through in wwII, it takes your breath away, and the completely unthinkable happened here. as bad as life can get sometimes, it will never be as bad as what happened here. how anyone survived the harshest conditions possible, starvation, filth, and being treated inhumane is really mind blowing.  we were in freezing weather with a windchill of 20 degrees. we were freezing with all our layers on and our winter coats, and yet people here would have cold water thrown on them in the middle of winter outside while naked, and left outside for hours that way. the heartbreaking, tragic, horrific things that happened here must always remind us that we are all human, and we all matter. all of us. i took a lot of pictures, but a lot of them seemed to personal to post. the belongings of everyone that had been through here grabs your heart, and i wanted to post a few things for people to understand and see a little of what went on here, but not too much to be irreverent or disrespectful.

tuesday.  nov.  27.  2018

we only had half a day today before leaving, and we were told to do the salt mine tour today. i’m not saying it’s not kind of interesting, i’m just saying, when you have a short time to visit here, don’t bring kids here. we were completely bored, and wanted to be shopping for things to take home which we didn’t have a chance to do. we really enjoyed krakow, and hope to be back again.

thursday.  nov. 22.  2018

happy thanksgiving!..slept in which felt great!, made gingerbread cookies that was over 100 year old recipe, kfc for our thanksgiving dinner-no cooking and cleaning-was pretty fantastic!

friday.  nov.23.  2018

jarom went out to capture some drone video in the freezing weather, we stayed in from the cold and rested and cuddled.  man are we tired!

sat.  nov 24.  2018

we did a 4 hour walking tour through prague in the rain and cold, which may have tainted our view of prague.  it felt dirty and worn down.  but really neat history that we loved learning about.  the astronomical clock that is still working in prague is 605 years old.  the charles bridge is from the 1300’s as well.  we somewhat enjoyed the tour in the freezing and rain, and finally went home and crashed and warmed up.  forgot to check into our ryan air flight, which will cause a lot of issues for us tomorrow…

sunday.  nov 18.  2018

we got up at 3:45am to catch our 6:30am flight from dublin to london.  we got great tickets-cheap tickets on ryanair-but our small american luggage is way bigger than their small luggage allowance-and i was worried we were going to get nabbed and have to pay a large fee…but the lady was nice and gave us a warning.  hopefully every flight they’ll just warn us, because it’s a hefty 50pounds fine per bag-jeeze!

we got our rental car-free upgrade to a mercedes-that’s a first:), and headed to our townhome we are staying in for free through lovehomeswap.  we found our place, which is so lovely and across from a beautiful park.  the owner left a basket of yummy food to get us started.  we napped, watched movies, and just relaxed today.  we are anxious and excited to start seeing london, but the exhaustion just got the better of all of us today.

monday.  nov 19.  2018

oh today started with a lot of bickering.  good thing we had a mile to walk to the tube, kind of worked it out of everybody:)  we started our day riding the double decker bus, and heard about hamley’s toy store in the commentary, and nadia knew right away she wanted to go see it.  so we got off the bus, walked through piccadilly square, through soho, grabbed some amazing lunch, then about 10 items from the bakery, and kept on towards the toy store-hamley’s toy store.  and the funniest thing…the singing elves out front just made it really great.

we were walking back to the stop to catch our jump on jump off bus, and saw discounted tickets for wicked…and knew we had to do it.  we jumped back on the bus, finished seeing london in the dark night with everything lit up and it lightly raining.  we then tubed over to victoria station, grabbed some hot cocoa’s, warmed up, and then headed over to the apollo victoria theater.  it was the girls first broadway show, and they loved.  such a good story-they loved seeing their first broadway in london!  we then tubed home, and walked the mile back in the rainy dark singing and talking and enjoying the freezing weather together.  it started out not so much a great day, and ended up being pretty amazing.

tuesday.  nov. 20.  2018

woke up to even colder temps today, and a bit more rain.  after the long day we had yesterday, i needed a day to rest and catch up, so the fam headed to the city without me and jarom took the girls to see the globe theater.  with them studying shakespeare in school, we couldn’t leave without them getting to see the theater.  then we cuddled and watched movies in the evening.  it was nice to have a little of an off day, at least for me.  i just stayed back, took care of plans for our next stay, and got some down time.

wednesday.  nov. 21.  2018

we went to cereal killer cafe, and then the borough market-flew to prague!

Processed with VSCO with a6 preset

saturday nov. 17.  2018

we got up early, packed our stuff, loaded the car, and headed up to northern ireland starting in ballycastle to see carrick-a-rede rope bridge.  the cliffs and water were simply stunning.  the chill winds made it a little uncomfortable, but we bundled and made the best of it.  the beautiful walk along the cliff’s edge was calming for the soul.  we crossed the rope bridge, and soaked in the views.

we next headed about 15 minutes west along the northern coast to the giants causeway-a natural phenomenon.  we caught some lunch at a nearby cafe near the giant’s causeway-authentic ireland food…which was pretty good.  listening to the waves crash and the stunning views was again so lovely.

we then continued west about 10 minutes along the coast to the dunluce castle, which we viewed from the parking lot-took a few pictures of the castle and sheep, and left for the next stop.

the dark hedges are beautiful, and apparently in the game of thrones…they were beautiful, mysterious, and had great character.  we took a few pictures and headed back down to belfast-an hour’s drive, to get to the christmas market.

we parked at the marriott where we had stayed, and walked half a mile to the belfast city hall, enjoying the sites and sounds of belfast, ireland.  we made it to the market, astonishes at how gorgeous it was, how amazing the food was, and how festive it was…and it was all Merry Christmas-which was great to see!

we then had an hour and a half drive from belfast down to dublin, which was hard to make, as we are still adjusting to the time and jet lag, but we made it to the clayton hotel near the airport, dropped into bed at 10:45, and got up early at 3:45 for our morning flight from dublin to london…this was the morning i was most concerned about, but everyone did pretty good.

Wednesday-Thursday-Friday.  Nov 14-15-16.  2018

we flew from denver wednesday morning of the 14th to boston, then an overnight flight to Dublin arriving on the 15th.  we thought we’d be ready to go touring after sleeping overnight on the flight, but we were completely exhausted.  We drove our car rental 2 hours north from dublin to belfast, fell into our hotel beds, and called it good for thursday, sleeping the whole day away.   jarom and i woke up for a bit to find food for everyone, a ginormous pizza, and then we went back to bed until friday afternoon on the 16th…and finally felt rested enough to go do something.  having only 1/2 day left today and a whole day tomorrow to tour.  we spent our half day on friday visiting the titanic museum, and walking along the waterfront both ways.  it was a lovely time.  after we headed back and got some food at taco trucks, we headed back to the room for relaxation and back to sleep-we have an early morning tomorrow.

may 5-june 7th, 2018

we had such an amazing family adventure for a month in bali…i wanted to share a few things we learned from our trip.  if you ever visit, i hope these tips can be helpful.

2017-2018

we have traveled around and moved around a lot.  we were blessed in buying this home, and once we closed, i was ready to go.  i really enjoy seeing the changes and transitions.  we were also blessed to find a contractor who saw my vision, and was able to help me accomplish the feel and style i was going for.  i love decorating, and loved seeing it all come together.  i also love furniture…thank goodness there’s a restoration hardware outlet near us!  here are the after photos:

november 2017

thanksgiving with some of the olson’s in northern arizona-outside of young, az- it was such a lovely time.  13 hour drive, no exact address with written directions, because jarom thinks gps always will get you there, even if you don’t have wifi…at midnight, and lots of dirt roads through the trees-can’t believe we ever found the cabin!  but we did.  thanks to prayers!  we got to spend a day at the compound before everyone else came.  we really enjoyed pizza, games, pajamas, walks, bb guns, lounging…it was a great time just our little family for a day.

then we had 3 days of hanging with extended family doing the same thing…walks, food, games, more food…it was really a great thanksgiving.  we brought all our gluten free stuff, made our own additions to meals, and it didn’t faze us at all.  it was great!  good memories were made:)

august.  2017

oh how we love to travel.  and oh how i love a deal!  we used alaskaair to use our british avois points, and flew $150 r/t for me and hubby from jfk to london, and venice back to jfk.  $150!  we had found a house swap site too, lovehomeswap, that we signed up for, received points upon sign-up, and stayed our 4 nights in London, and 6 nights in Venice for free!  well, there was a sign up cost, i think it was $450/year.  so for our 10 nights we used lovehomeswap, it cost us $45/night figuring in the yearly fee we paid.  which is pretty awesome.  the three nights in dubrovnik we used airbnb and found an awesome place!  the rental car we got a deal on, but decided to upgrade to an automatic, because driving in london was overwhelming enough being on the wrong side of the car on the wrong side of the road.  i couldn’t deal with the thought of shifting left-handed too.

we spent five days in london, 3 days in croatia, and 6 days in venice…which by the way, you only need 2 days in venice.  but since my health isn’t great, it was nice just lounging together eating junk food, watching movies, and having absolutely nothing to do.  it was dreamy!

nottinghill and london proper…and the famous blue door from the movie “nottinghill.”

stonehenge & bath…

stratford-upon-avon(shakespeare’s home town) & oxford university…

dubrovnik…was a desert!  don’t let the filters fool you.  we were hoping to drive four hours to the falls, but croatia’s country has bosnia cutting into croatia for coast access, and getting through security in and out of bosnia we were told can be up to 6 hours of waiting at each border.  so we just hung in dubrovnik for 3 days…which was ok.  it’s basically desert.  we got off the boat too soon on an island, and had to wait 1 1/2 hours to catch the next boat to continue to the fortressed city 5 minutes away.  we swam and ate food and hung out and really just didn’t do much.  and my sister kelly caught up with us for the three days which was a lot of fun.  but i wouldn’t go back to dubrovnik.  nothing there, at least for us.  there are other places i would visit in croatia though, especially the hanging falls.

venice…the city you only need 2 days in, not 6.  but nevertheless, we enjoyed the down time!