Category Archives: Wanderlust

Day 14 – Heading Home


Heading from Estes Park back to Kansas City today. Not looking forward to being cooped up in the van for that long but hey, theres always books, movies and interenet ha! 🙂 At this point we have traveled approx 3,800 miles, stayed at 6 campsites, visited 3 national parks and been gone 14 days.

We’ve made some wonderful memories and crazy ones too… now we have to get back and get some work, ebay and car repair stuff taken care of and sell the pop-up and maybe the van before the end of summer.

I could use a little refreshing myself and then I’ll be ready to hit the road again!

Day 13 – It’s a Beautiful Day🎶

Enjoyed our time in Yellowstone and Rocky Mountain National Park. So much to see and do plus not good signal everywhere I obviously didn’t keep up on the blog posts.

Today we hiked around Bear Lake and down to a waterfall. Fell asleep to the rain and thunder. Trying to take the last bit in. I can’t believe how two weeks have flown by.

Camping Anyone?

I’m excited… slightly hesitant, but mostly excitedly anticipating the upcoming weeks. We have decided to do some much needed traveling, exploring and hopefully squeeze in a little R&R. The R&R, with our version of adventure and throwing a 10 month and almost 3 year old into the mix remains to be seen but ultimately we are looking to have some wonderful family bonding and memory making times with each other and the littles. We have become the, possibly temporary, proud owners of a Coleman popup camper and Chevy conversion van. Ok, so I’m the proud owner of the popup. I was more than a little concerned about the complications of driving and camping all over timbucktu with my two little wild men and highly suggested we try it with a camper first. My husband on the other hand the proud owner of the conversion van. Why the van? Not because he loves vans mind you. Only, and I quote, because he “refused to be whipped by driving a soccer mom van”. Apparently my slight embarrassment about the ginormous van and the fact that I laughingly emphasized that I plan to ONLY drive the beast for unavoidable work related tasks, somehow made him feel he had stayed a little higher on the manliness charters. I must say, I have unexpectedly begun to fall in love with “the beast”. Compared to driving in the Jetta it feels like a bus as far as room goes, of course it probably guzzles gas like a bus too, but I’m able to help the boys without feeling I have to do yoga poses to get into the back and the seats are super comfy.

I hope to keep up the blog and post about our travels on the road. If anyone has any tips on best camping spots, Yellowstone, Tetons, Glacier National Park or camping with small children in general we’d love to hear them!

Our 1st Family Vacation



Well we are back from our last minute trip out of town and what a new adventure to say the least. I have to admit “vacation” with a six month old takes on a whole new meaning. Things actually went a whole lot smoother than I thought though with the only rough day being the flight back because Boo couldn’t fall asleep and proceeded to scream and cry for everyone for quite awhile. We also arrived at the parking lot to find the car battery dead. Other than that though it was a pretty enjoyable trip of sunshine and warmer weather. We flew into Orlando Tuesday and drove down through Miami, all the way out to Key West and back up the gulf side through Ft Myers and Sanibel Island, stopping for the night at different points along the way. I had dolphin (mahi mahi) tacos and curry shrimp during the time we were there. We walked by alligators in the everglades that were only a couple of feet away from us, stuck our toes in the sand at Key West and took a very interesting glass bottom boat ride which I’ll let my husbands review on tripadvisor explain to you. (www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g34344-d102401-r55913603-John_Pennekamp_Coral_Reef_State_Park-Key_Largo_Florida_Keys_Florida.html) All in all it was fun and memorable to say the least!