Race-cation | Southern Califiornia Getaway

One of the best reasons to choose a race in a different city is the opportunity for a race-cation! You know, where you sign up for a race and plan a trip around it! Because I love to run and I love to travel even more, it’s no wonder most of my races are out of town. I love being able to combine two of my favorite things! Mostly, these are just weekend getaways like for the L.A. Marathon and sometimes they are full-on family vacations, like for Disney’s Wine and Dine Half Marathon in DisneyWorld. Either way, it’s always exciting to get away and run in a new place!

Last month I got to race the Ventura Beach Half Marathon and we made a nice little family trip out of it. The kids had already started school, so we let them play hooky and we left Friday morning. We headed straight to L.A.’s The Grove shopping center where Elysse had an appointment with a personal shopper at the American Girl store! You can read all about her amazing experience and my recommendations when visiting this store HERE. While Elysse and I shopped and had lunch at the American Girl Cafe, Jason and Diego spent their afternoon catching PokeMon Go at the nearby La Brea Tar Pits. They also grabbed a bite to eat and even did a little shopping too.

In case you didn’t know, Friday afternoon traffic through L.A. is insane. We thought because we were leaving a few hours before rush hour that we would be ok, but it was still really congested and it took us quite awhile to get from Los Angeles to Ventura. When we finally arrived at our hotel, I realized just how chilly the evenings are in Ventura and we were not prepared! Elysse still got in the pool before we headed to dinner. She’s crazy and maybe I’m a little crazier for letting her get in. But hey, it’s a vacation!

Saturday morning, was packet pickup and our family day at the beach. The first thing we did, was head to Old Navy to get some sweaters because the morning was cold and cloudy and I knew the evening would also be chilly. Then we headed to Trader Joe’s to grab food for our beach picnic lunch later. At this point, we’re all starving, so we had to find a place to eat a late breakfast on Main St. Finally, around noon, we made it to the beach. Packet pick up was right next to the pier and super quick to find and get my bib for the race the next day.

After all of this, it was finally time to relax at the beach for the day! The weather was cool but it did get pretty sunny once that morning fog rolled out. We spent the day lounging, making sand castles, and gathering shells. Diego had gotten a skate board while in L.A. so him and Jason practiced skating along the bike trail. It was seriously one of the most chill out days at the beach we’ve ever had. Even though it was too cold for actual swimming in the ocean, it was a blast! We were all so stuffed from our big breakfast, that we didn’t even have our lunch or snacks until we got in the car to leave.

As soon as we got back to our hotel, Elysse was ready to jump in the pool again! I don’t know how she has so much energy. But, because we didn’t swim in the ocean, we figured why not! So her and Jason stayed at the pool while Diego and went up to the room to get a head start on showers and get ready for dinner.

Sunday was race day and it was perfect! You can read all about my race recap HERE. Unfortunately, with school on Monday, we decided to head back home soon after the race was done. After my race, we headed back to the hotel to check-out and for me to get myself all cleaned up from the half marathon. After breakfast we decided to take the scenic route and find the Musical Road in Lancaster, CA. It was originally made for a Honda commercial. It’s a quarter mile bit of road that when driven on it, it is supposed to sound like William Tell Overature or better known as the theme from the classic Lone Ranger tv show. Was it worth taking the scenic route for this? Absolutely! There are only a few of these musical roads in the world and even though it wasn’t perfectly in tune, it was still a fun little side track.

Click the photo to see and hear our drive over the Musical Road!

We also got to see one of the largest wind farms in the world as we drove back to the interstate. We had no idea we’d be seeing that, but when we kept seeing so many rows of windmills, I quickly googled and found out it was the Alta Wind Project, also called the Mojave Wind Farm, the third largest onshore wind energy project in the world. Pretty neat bit of trivia 🙂

All and all, our family race-cation was a much needed break from the busy months we’d been having with packing and moving and the kids starting new schools. I highly recommend when looking for your next race, consider making it a race-cation! I’m sure the idea of traveling and getting away will be a nice motivator as you put in those training miles!

Disney World 2015 | Epcot

Our last day at Disney World was at my favorite park, Epcot! The World Showcase is really my favorite because I love to travel and I remember being 10 years old on our first visit to Epcot and imagining I was really traveling to those countries. Heck, I still like to pretend we’re in the real countries 😉

We arrived at 9am to Epcot and the kids were anxious to get on a ride. I tried explaining that Epcot didn’t have the kind of rides found at Magic Kingdom so they wouldn’t be disappointed. However, they were just as excited to ride Spaceship Earth as they were to ride Space Mountain! After Spaceship Earth we let the kids play around with some of the hands-on exhibits before heading to the Mission Space ride where afterwards the kids also enjoyed the hands-on exhibits and games as we exited the ride.

We purchased the kids each a kit (map & stickers) for a new game that was debuting for the Food and Wine festival called, Remy’s Ratatouille Hide & Squeak. It was basically a scavenger hunt to find a Remy statue at each country then placing the corresponding sticker on the map to represent that location. At the end, you redeem your map for your choice of Remy pin. They were excited to get started and we were excited to get started at the Food & Wine Festival! The plan was to do the 1st half of the World Showcase countries and visit the Food & Wine Festival kiosks as we went, then ride the ferry from Germany back to Future World to use our fast passes for Soaring and Turtle Talk with Crush, and FastTrack. Afterwards, we’d go back and work our way around the other half of the countries, have dinner at Chefs De France, and finish the night watching Illuminations.

Although, technically, we did stick to that plan we had a major scare when visiting our first kiosk of the Food & Wine Festival. I was excited to visit the champagne kiosk and was ready to enjoy a glass of fancy bubbly. We ordered Diego a yummy chocolate dessert and Elysse some chocolate truffles. I asked if they had nuts, since she is allergic to all tree nuts and peanuts and was told by the Disney cast member that the truffles were prepackaged and did not have nuts, although they could not account for cross-contamination in the factory. Now, here’s where the problem began. I should have checked the packaging before giving her the chocolates. I feel terrible for trusting the young cast member. Regardless of how sure she sounded, it was my responsibility as her parent to ensure there were no nuts before handing it to her. The instant she took a bite, she said she was full, mind you, she is never full where there is chocolate involved! She never said how it made her feel and we assumed she was just being fussy. With the heat and humidity, we knew the chocolate would melt immediately and Jason just told her to eat the chocolate, it was small, and we’d save the other half. I noticed she was not acting right and finally it started to dawn on me that there may have been nuts in the chocolate. Sure enough, the second ingredient were hazelnuts. We were right next to a store and I ran in asking if they had benadryl, which they did not but I was told to go to First Aid. By this point, she threw it all up and was complaining her throat was hurting. We ran to First Aid, which was not far from where we were. They gave her the benadryl and at that point, I knew she’d be ok. I asked if she wanted to go back to the hotel, but she didn’t want to leave, so we waited it out until she was finally feeling a well enough to continue our day. Of course, she refused to eat much the rest of the day and was kinda blah. We tried to make the best of it and she was such a trooper!

We really did learn our lesson and will definitely be more prepared next time. We’d never had any issues while traveling before and she hadn’t had an allergic reaction for years, so we we’ve been pretty relaxed about her allergies. But, this was definitely a wake up call for us. We already have a much better plan in place for traveling.

Although we had this very scary incident happen, we were fortunate it wasn’t any worse and she was ok. We did the best we could to enjoy the rest of our time at Epcot. We had an amazing 3 days of non-stop Disney World theme park fun. I think our kids were just the right ages (7 & 10) for enjoying everything the parks have to offer! I’m so glad we were able to go on this trip for them and experience a different kind of vacation! I’m ready for another adventure with my crazies! Where shall we go to next?

Disney World 2015 | Magic Kingdom

Our day at Animal Kingdom & Hollywood Studios was a ton of fun and exhausting. You can catch up HERE and even read a few tips to start planning your vacation to Disney World. Next up is the Magic Kingdom. This is the park that mostly resembles the original Disneyland theme park and although they do share some of the same classic rides, such as It’s a Small World, Space Mountain, and Pirates of the Caribbean, Magic Kingdom is way bigger and you seriously would need 2-3 days to see and do it all! Unfortunately, we only had one day to tour Magic Kingdom. We chose to go on a Tuesday, where the park was scheduled to close early due to Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas party scheduled from 8pm-midnight. We were hoping this would mean less crowds and shorter lines, since there were not going to be any fireworks either. Plus, Jason and I figured it would be ok to end the day at 7pm and not push the kids too much more into exhaustion 😉 The park was crowded of course, but it wasn’t cramped and the wait times for most rides were moderate to short. Although it wasn’t a very long day, we were able to see and do just about everything we wanted to. I’d asked my kids if they wanted to meet any of the characters or princesses and they said no. They both preferred to ride the rides! YAY for me! This of course, saved us a ton of time. The only character they wanted to meet was Mickey Mouse and only because before we left, my dad had told them he wanted to see a picture of them with Mickey Mouse!

My son, being the inquisitive boy that he is, had been asking how they figured out the wait times for the rides. Jason explained they handed out these red cards to a random person in line. Once they have the card, it starts to count how long the person is waiting until the person gets to the station, hands the card to a cast member for them to put it a machine that then tells them the length of their wait time and then this considered the wait time at the front of the ride. You can imagine how excited he was (he's 10) when he got the red card while waiting in line for the Jungle Cruise Ride. You can also imagine how upset he was when we all realized he forgot to give the card to the cast member before getting on the ride! OOPS... — My son, being the inquisitive boy that he is, had been asking how they figured out the wait times for the rides. Jason explained they handed out these red cards to a random person in line. Once they have the card, it starts to count how long the person is waiting until the person gets to the station, hands the card to a cast member for them to put it a machine that then tells them the length of their wait time and then this considered the wait time at the front of the ride. You can imagine how excited he was (he’s 10) when he got the red card while waiting in line for the Jungle Cruise Ride. You can also imagine how upset he was when we all realized he forgot to give the card to the cast member before getting on the ride! OOPS…

Remember, the My Disney Experience app I mentioned was so helpful in my last blog post? Yup, it has the hours of the parks for each day, so be sure to check it out while planning your trip so you know what day for each park will work better for your family. Another thing we found helpful, was to stop and eat a good meal for either lunch or dinner inside the park. I made reservations for a different restaurant in each park (except Hollywood Studios) and it worked out great. It gave us time to chill out and relax. At Magic Kingdom we ate a late lunch at The Plaza Restaurant. It’s a small restaurant tucked in a corner of Main Street that offers sandwiches, salads, wraps, etc. The quick service restaurants inside the parks can get super busy and hectic during peak hours, and I am not one for crowds or stressing out. I remember too many trips to Disney World walking or standing around with a tray of food waiting for a table to be unoccupied, only to lose it to a kid who’s family was in line ordering and he was sent to save the table. For my sanity, I chose to splurge a little more on our meals and it worked out really well for us. There was no stress during lunch/dinner and it was a nice reset before going back out into the park.

We spent our time waiting in line playing either Rock, Paper, Scissors or this slap game. It helped the time go by and even got other families to play too! What can I say, we were trend setters! LOL

Now, on to the fun stuff! Magic Kingdom was a fully packed day! Since I knew the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train always had the longest wait times and I wasn’t able to secure a FastPass+, we headed over there as soon as the park opened. The line was still 60 minutes long. This was the longest line we waited in, so in retrospect, it wasn’t too bad at all. I tried to plan our day as efficiently as possible and making our way around the park’s 6 themed lands. We spent the most time in Fantasyland and Tomorrowland, since these had the most rides. Of course, we had to get our Dole Whip floats at Adventureland and ride the Jungle Cruise. Those cheezy jokes get me every time 😉 Our last ride of the night, was Peter Pan’s Flight. This ride had the 2nd longest wait times of the day and I honestly was going to skip it. However, right at 6:45pm, the wait time was about 30 minutes and we figured, why not! After the ride, we headed for a gift shop on Main Street to grab the kids their souvenirs from the Magic Kingdom before making our way to the monorail. At this point, Elysse could barely stand up, she was so tired! Somehow, she made it to our car but was asleep before we got to the restaurant for dinner and seriously slept through dinner! I felt terrible she didn’t eat, but I figured she needed her rest!

A selfie with Mickey, because why not. I love this kid!

Ended the day with a little snow ;) — Ended the day with a little snow 😉

So far, we had 2 really great days at Disney World. The kids behaved pretty good and we didn’t have any major meltdowns or too much attitude from them. Sure, they whined a little here and there, but seriously it was all going much better than I had anticipated. Our last park to visit was Epcot. I’d saved the best for last, as this is my favorite park and I was so ready to head back to the Food & Wine Festival! I’ll be sharing our mishaps and adventures from Epcot on Monday, so be sure to come back then! For now, enjoy the long weekend with family and friends!

San Francisco & Wine Country Getaway

The past 6months have been quite a roller coaster for our family. Jason broke his ankle in January during the Spartan Sprint in Temecula and has had 2 surgeries since then. He is now going to start physical therapy to help get his range of motion back and basically get back to normal. He’s been so strong and resilient this entire time. Sure, he’s not happy about his situation and it totally sucks but he is dealing with it amazingly well and taking it one day at a time. Of course, this injury put our family travels and trips pretty much on hold this first half of the year, so being able to getaway earlier this month for 5 days was truly much needed.

As wedding photographers, we sometimes get to travel to photograph a wedding and when this happens it always turns into a little mini vacation for us afterwards 🙂 This year, we photographed a wedding in San Francisco and planned a trip to Napa and Sonoma Counties afterwards. We flew into San Francisco Friday evening. The next day, after a quick workout in the tiny hotel gym, we spent our morning and afternoon walking around Fisherman’s Wharf before meeting up with our couple for their rehearsal. Sunday was the wedding and it was beautiful. You can check it out HERE.

Check out the Golden Gate Bridge in the background! Plus, Jason totally rocks that boot, huh?

Monday morning we rented a car and made our way to Napa Valley. We started our getaway with a picnic lunch at Alpha Omega winery and it totally set the tone for our relaxing trip. We then got to visit one of our favorite wine’s winery, Sequoia Grove. That was just awesome. Of course, the wine tastings did not disappoint. Just wish we could have stayed there longer! lol

The next day, we spent touring Sonoma Valley, which we had never been too. We hit up a few wineries and ended the day at Sonoma’s Tuesday Night Farmers Market. One of my favorite wineries that day was Deerfield Ranch Winery. The tasting room is right inside their wine cave. They had comfy chairs to sit and really gave you a nice experience. Our flight was booked for Wednesday night out of San Francisco, so we were able to squeeze in 2 more wineries before it was time to head back. We visited my favorite winery of the trip on this last day and we became wine members! Benzinger Family Winery was just lovely and the wines were delish! I wish we would have had time to take their tour of the biodynamic vineyard and farm. I guess we’ll just have to plan a trip back there soon 😉

All in all, it was a great trip! Like I said, it was a much needed time away from the routine and a nice escape from reality for a bit. Jason and I were able to reconnect and it totally revived my love of traveling and I cannot wait to go on more adventures with my family again soon!

Tell me, do you love wine as much as I do? What’s your favorite wine? I always love to try new ones! xo

Wanderlust | Let’s Travel the World

Wanderlust: a strong desire for or impulse to wander or travel and explore the world!

Yup, this is so me! I love to travel. I love to get away and explore new places. I love to break free from the daily routine and say yes to adventure. When I was little, my family always traveled. We’d travel for weeks on end. I blame my parents for my traveling spirit. Going on family outings, weekend getaways, road trips, vacations…these are all my favorite! I’ve been pretty lucky and we get to travel often. We make it a priority. We budget, save our pennies, and look for good deals! Being in Las Vegas, we’ve got lots of awesome destinations within driving distance, which is great because airfare for a family of 4 adds up pretty quickly!

Our last family trip was to Texas in early November. It was a really fun trip where we got to see family, reconnect with old friends, and make new ones! In December Jason and I got to travel to Orange County, CA with my sister and brother-in-law for a friend’s wedding and we made a nice weekend getaway out of it! Oh and let’s not forget our trip to Temecula, CA in January for our Spartan Beast & Sprint Races! Sadly, that trip didn’t end to well, which kinda leads me to the point of this blog post. Wanderlust.

I’m really itching to get away and I know that is not happening any time soon. First of all, Jason has a broken ankle. He’ll be using crutches for another 4 weeks and another 8 weeks wearing his boot and going to physical therapy to recover. I think just knowing this is making me want to travel even more. Why does that happen? It’s like when you’re on a diet and all you want to eat is doritos and brownies! Ugh, the struggle is real, folks! Plus, we’re planning a big trip to Florida in November and did I mention airfare for 4 is expensive? So, we’ve got some saving up to do to make that trip happen.

So, what to do in the meantime? I’m not sure, exactly. But, I think I will day dream. I will dream of the places I long to visit and the adventures I know we’ll have someday. I will remember. I will look back at all the adventures we’ve already had and the wonderful places we’ve been to. I’ll look at all the photos and relive those memories. I’ll reminisce and feel all warm and fuzzy thinking of all the fun we’ve had. I’ll be grateful for the life I have, my healthy, beautiful kids, and an amazing hubby. But most importantly, I will live in the moment. I must be present in the here and now. I don’t want these days and months to pass me by. I don’t want to only live for the next big thing or next big trip. I want to live every day of my life like it matters. Because every day I spend with my loved ones, is worth something. I need to remember to live with intention, to make every day matter. Not every day will be amazing. But every day we have the opportunity to be present and I don’t want to miss out on the present because I’m daydreaming of what’s to come.

Do you have a wanderlust spirit? Do you have a pinterest board of all the places you want to visit (I do!)? What do you do when you’re wandering spirit wants to run away but you can’t?

Family Travels | Visiting Texas

As I mentioned yesterday on my little recap post, we just got back from our trip to Texas this past Thursday and it was definitely a much needed break. Life has been so crammed with activities, appointments, work, and such that we’ve just been feeling very rushed and unable to catch up. Thanks to a great friend, we got an awesome deal on airline tickets so we decided a getaway to visit family in Texas was just what we needed. We didn’t plan anything, as we were just going to relax and unwind. It worked out perfectly. Way better than I imagined it would! I’m a planner, winging it is out of my comfort zone.

We spent our first 3 days at my cousin’s friend’s lake house. They’d been planning this getaway with a bunch of their friends too so we totally just crashed the party!! We didn’t really know most the folks before this trip so I was kinda nervous about just spending 3 days with a bunch of peeps we didn’t know. But, I gotta say we totally just made some lifelong friends. Everyone was so friendly and welcoming. It truly felt like we’d all known each other forever by Sunday night! And it was a total blast to see my kiddos playing in the lake where I spent so much of my own childhood playing and swimming in.

After the lake house weekend, we spent a day at my cousin’s house playing farm! Jason and Diego got to do some target practice (Yes, I was freaking out!) They took a walk in the woods, fed the chickens and collected their eggs, and ended the day riding a horse. By this point, we’d had enough of the country life and us adults went out for a nice date night in town about an hr away but it was worth the drive! Don’t worry, the kiddos were well taken care of and had plenty of fun catching up computer games and ipads! It’d been days since they played with their electronic devices! We went to this awesome sushi spot that was so yummy and had a great time!

The next morning, we left my cousin’s place and headed to do some sight seeing. We spent the day at Natural Bridge Caverns exploring the underground caverns, playing around the canopy challenge, and panning for gems. It was a really great day (minus some whining & bickering from the kiddos) I highly recommend checking it out if you’re ever in the San Antonio area. It ended up getting really cold that day and night, but we braved the chill and walked around San Antonio’s River Walk on our way to dinner.

The next day was even colder, so our trip to The Alamo was pretty short and we went ahead and made our drive to Austin early. Once in Austin, we found the coolest movie theaters we’ve ever been to, Moviehouse & Eatery! It’s a big multiplex cinema with conventional theaters, IMAX, and dine-in theaters with awesome reclining seats! We opted for the dine-in experience and munched on bottomless popcorn, fish and chips, gourmet pizza, and for Jason and I, a nice bottle of riesling. Yea, watching Big Hero 6 and drinking wine was a fabulous way to end our trip!

So, although this is most definitely not our typical vacation, jam packed with activities and sight seeing, it was most definitely an unforgettable time spent with family and friends. It taught me that sometimes it’s good to let go, relax, and go with the flow rather than having it all planned out. Don’t get me wrong, I still love my itinerary vacations, but I think we can add some of these trips into the mix too 😉

How do you like to travel? Do you like to wing it, plan it all out, or somewhere in between?

It’s a Messy Life Update & What’s to Come

Life’s been pretty busy and hectic these past couple months, so we took a last minute trip to Texas to visit family and friends and unwind. It was just what we needed and the kids had a blast making new friends, playing outside, and exploring new places! I like to plan our vacations with lots of activities & sight seeing, but this trip was really different and I enjoyed the relaxing time!

When we got back home on Thursday, it was back to the busy and hectic days! Friday, I met an instagram friend in real life and we went hiking at Red Rock Canyon and had lunch. Later Jason and I had dinner with some photography industry friends. Saturday was World’s Toughest Mudder and my friend, Eve, was participating in the 24 hr event! I went in the morning to help her set up and support her and her teammates, as well as take photos. I also had a small wedding to photograph so I left around 11am to photograph a wedding, but went right back around 6:30pm to continue supporting her with whatever she needed. I had woken up at 5am for World’s Toughest Mudder on Saturday and didn’t get home until 3:30am on Sunday. Sunday we had family over for dinner! To say I was beat is an understatement and I didn’t even race! Huge thanks to my hubs for always supporting me when I overextend myself! He’s really my rock!

I’ll be blogging all about our Texas trip and World’s Toughest Mudder throughout the week, but I just wanted to post something today and let ya’ll know I was still around! Sadly, with traveling and working, my workouts and runs have been slacking. Let’s not even mention my eating. I mean, really Texas, why does your BBQ & tacos have to be so good?!?! I’m planning on doing a 3-day Juice Cleanse this week to help get me back on track and to hopefully lose some of those extra pounds I gained while away. Has anyone ever done one of these before? Did you love it or hate it? I’d love to know!

xo,

Jessie

7 Tips for Traveling with Children and Having Fun

As most of you know, I love to travel and I have totally passed on the travel bug to my family! YAY 🙂 We love to go on adventures big or small and explore new places! Flying for a family of 4 can get expensive, so lots of our trips are road trips! But, on the occasion where we do get to fly, we still use the same system for traveling with our kiddos because it seems to work great for us! So, if you’ll be traveling with children this year and are a little nervous (as well you should be!) take a deep breath and check out the tips below on how to make traveling with children less stressful and lots more fun!

1. Prep the kids. If you’ll be in the car for a few hours, let them know. Tell them how long the flight is going to be. Depending on the age of your kiddos, you don’t have to be exact. A simple, “We’re going to be on this plane for a long time.” Is enough. This helps keep the “Are we there yet” chants at bay, at least for a little while!

2. Keep your expectations low. Kids are kids. They will get cranky, they will ask a million questions, they will get bored, they will need to go to the bathroom 5 minutes after you asked if they needed to go and they said no. If you mentally prepare yourself for these situations, they may not seem so major when they actually happen. Don’t expect perfection from them, but do tell them what type behavior you want from them. I find that if I tell my kids how I want them to behave beforehand, it’s easier to redirect them when they get rowdy or off track.

3. Have entertainment. Yup, I am not above having my kids watch movies or play games on an ipad or laptop when I know it’s going to be a long trip. We also pack them books, small toys, pencils, crayons, and paper to draw. For our last road trip we printed out a few family-friendly road trip games online, such as license plate games and I Spy. We even found Road Trip Bingo game cards!

4. Plan a surprise (or two!) On our road trip to Ensenada, Mexico this past spring, we used our Happy Family Movement Road Trip in a Box kit. This was a blast! The kids really loved opening up the packages at the designated times and taking breaks to play with water guns, blow bubbles, or just have a dance party in the middle of nowhere! The kits are no longer available to purchase, but you can totally make your own! Just grab a few fun dollar type toys, wrap them up, give them instructions on when to open them and wait for the fun to happen! You could do simple things like temporary tattoos, gummy worms, stamp kits, an inflatable beach ball, etc!!! The possibilities are endless and will definitely make for a memorable trip!

5. Rest. This one, I learned from experience! We totally didn’t plan for much rest on our summer trip to the east coast and we hit the ground running when we go there. This was a huge mistake and we ended up with some major cranky jet lagged kids in Washington DC! Once we slowed down a bit and they got a good night’s sleep, we were great. The remainder of our trip was awesome! From now on, we start our trips a bit slower, don’t plan a ton of activities when we first arrive, especially if there’s a time difference, and we find it makes for a much better trip overall!

6. Start travel traditions. We love to goecache! So, for us going on a trip also means we get to do a fun geocache in another state. The kids expect it now and it’s part of our road trip tradition. Whenever we travel to California or Utah, you know we’re going to have Chick-fil-a because we don’t have any in Vegas. Also, when we go on road trip, you know Johnny Cash’s Everywhere Man is gonna be playing! Our traditions aren’t too big but they’re ours and we love them! Whatever your tradition is, big or small, your kids will love it. Traditions make kids feel special and who doesn’t love that?

7. Have Fun! Some of my best memories as a child are from family vacations and I really want my kiddos to have these kinds of memories too! I love it when one of my kids starts off a conversation with, “Remember when we did/went…” We know that traveling with children can be tough and tiring, but it’s also so worth it! And the best part about traveling with little ones is that they don’t remember the time when you were stressed out at the rental car ticket counter or the time they made you upset because they broke a coffee mug at the souvenir shop, nope, kids tend to forget that stuff pretty quickly. They’ll remember the little things. The ice cream cone you got them at the beach, the fun rides they rode over and over, the jokes you told, the giggles, the fun, the good stuff. And at the end of it all, that’s what really matters. The good stuff!

Here’s to safe travels, fun adventures, and making memories that last a lifetime!

Our South Texas Getaway | Visiting Family & Friends

Today I just wanted to share a bit of our trip to South Texas earlier this month. The main reason for our trip was to photograph Debbie + Oscar’s wedding in Corpus Christi, TX and being that I have some family and friends in the area (about an hr from Corpus) my sister tagged along for a bit of a getaway too and we all got to see some childhood friends and family we hadn’t seen in many years. Jason and I took advantage of the time away without the kiddos and took a little belated wedding anniversary side-trip to San Antonio, TX! A huge thanks to my parents and brother-in-law for watching them 😉

Here's me & my sister in front of the house where I was born (yup, I was born in there) and grew up in until I was 10 years old. — Here’s me & my sister in front of the house where I was born (yup, I was born in there) and grew up in until I was 10 years old.

Horses and chickens at my cousin's house! She loves the country life! Me, not so much.... — Horses and chickens at my cousin’s house! She loves the country life! Me, not so much….

But it was fun visiting :) — But it was fun visiting 🙂

This guy being my “sexy model” while we were scouting for photo spots for the wedding in Corpus Christi!

Sunday Funday! Hanging out with friends and family. It was a mini-reunion :) So much fun!! — Sunday Funday! Hanging out with friends and family. It was a mini-reunion 🙂 So much fun!!

Getting a little work done on the porch!

At the Alamo in San Antonio with my love!

Jason and I crammed a 4.80mile run along the River Walk, couples massages, a little shopping, and some yummy food & drinks in our 2 days in San Antonio. That’s really one of my favorite cities! It was a fun trip, can you tell? What’s one of your favorite cities?