Towards the end of 2022 we took a poll with the 4 older kids asking what vacation they wanted to go on before Brock left the house. There were many options. The consensus ended up being a cruise, without Dane and Eve. That seemed reasonable, they were 2 and 3 at the time and having focused "big kid" time seemed reasonable. We had put vacations on hold for a few years between their births and covid, and even Jason's lay off. We starting planning it. Well, 2023 ended up being a HUGE disappointment for all the hopes and dreams I had (haha). In February I had knee surgery, that had complications, and kept me with 3 PT appointments a week and limited activities well into summer. Then, 3 weeks after getting the clear from my knee doctor to return to normal activities (go on the cruise!), I broke my foot. A 4-6 week expected recovery turned into a 16 week recovery. sigh. In January of 2024 Jason and I sat down to plan our vacations for 2024. Jason felt strongly that we should put the cruise aside and what our family really needed was a whole family family vacation. Dane and Eve were old enough to come, and we needed unity and togetherness. So we took the Great Northwest road trip. While that took almost all of our vacation time and budget, we knew we still wanted to fit the cruise in sometime before Brock left. And he was starting his senior year. I kept an eye on deals and did all I could to find something. There were a few problems though, our kids were older now, and in harder classes in high school and they didn't want to miss school. It also seemed weird not to take Dane and Eve, their friends were going on cruises and they knew that. I felt a little uncomfortable. Then about 20 days before fall break I found the perfect cruise for the perfect price - but only 6 tickets. We booked it and hoped we could figure out Dane and Eve.
After about 1,000 different plans and called in favors we settled on the plan to take them to Utah and stay with my brother and his family. Their kids are the same age as DE and we felt like it would be the "most fun and like a vacation for them" as the other options. For MANY other reasons I won't really mention we decided to drive to Miami instead of fly. It ended up costing the same. But was way more fun, hit the goal of MORE time talking with our teens, seeing the country in the fall, and less stressful. So the plan became:
I drove DE to Utah, drop them off, and fly back that night - land 11 pm
Leave at 6 am the next morning to drive cross country.
Cruise
Drive back across country
Fly out of Denver to Utah, pick up the kids
Drive them back to Colorado
The drive just the three of us was so fun. They were absolutely amazing. We stopped at "no name" pit stop. We don't stop here often, but most notably my dad and I stopped here on our way to Colorado when we moved here. We played for a while. As an aside, there were a few hick ups. The usb port in jason's car stopped working so they couldn't watch a DVD and the AC went out and it was SO SO SO hot. We were all sweating. We would roll down the windows every 4 minutes or so, but it was so loud and windy we couldn't tolerate it the whole time - plus it didn't help MUCH, it was just hot wind. But other than that.... the drive was delightful.
I am so so so grateful to Daniel or Angie for taking them for TEN days. They had so much fun and really got to know their cousins better. Daniel and Angie are so good and I relate a lot to them. Angie took them and did all the normal fun things with them. Nothing seems to phase Dangie (you read that right). No matter how many kids they have (or have with them) or how young they are, they just do awesome fun things. They are doers, givers, and ministers, in the truest sense. I wish we lived closer.
Here are pictures Angie sent me: 
They loved seeing their dad when they got home and telling him ALL the things.
Then after the cruise I flew back to Utah and picked them up. I was supposed to drive back that day, but my flight was delayed quite a bit and I didn't get into Utah until it was too late. So we stayed the night and I left in the morning. We stopped at the same place again. My dad had fixed the USB port, but not the AC. He also got the oil changed, which... is a whole other story.
