Time for Vacation

Wow, it has been over a month since I've posted on my blog page! I barely have time to post or time to myself because I am constantly interrupted by a child who needs help with something. I'll keep posting as I can for anyone who happens to read my posts and especially for my kiddos who also enjoying reading some of the things I write.

Vacation Day 1
The kids were very excited for our first destination. We drove on Friday to Las Vegas, NV and arrived 4.5 hours later, a record time for us, to visit my brother and his family. The kids hung out with their cousins and Allan and I got to chat with my brother and our sister-in-law. We were thankful for managing to avoid the rain during our drive.

Allan giving a thumbs up to a much needed vacation.

Benjamin loving his time with his cousin Dean playing on Dean's XBOX.

Hanging out with Diana before her softball game.

My nephew Trevor relaxing on the sofa.

Vacation Day 2
We hung out more with our family in Las Vegas, said our goodbyes, and then loaded our stuff back into the van. We traveled through three states: started in Las Vegas, drove through Arizona for about 20 miles and then entered our destination state of Utah. Upon entering Utah is when our adventure began. First we were in awe of the towering, majestic mountains, green fields, and grazing farm animals. We knew that the forecast was rain and snow, but being Californians we didn't know what to expect. First we encountered some rain, which quickly turned into white snow flurries. We were on a main highway and Allan stayed in the lanes with more cars because the snow was more melted or wet. To our surprise, about 10 cars in front of us all the cars came to a quick stop, so we did the same. I started praying that the other cars behind us would do the same thing. A truck with a horse trailer drove off the road to our left to avoid hitting a vehicle in front of him and another smaller car did the same. We sat and sat and sat. Fear entered my mind not knowing exactly what happened ahead of us. Snow quickly began covering in the black highway around us. We left our engine on with our windshield wipers wiping away the snow. A few people climbed out of their vehicles and stomped through the snow to see what transpired ahead of us. Allan rolled down the window as one of the men with snow covering his eyebrows came back with news that there was a 15 car accident involving semitrucks,  motorhomes and regular cars. Thank you Lord for not letting us be one of those cars and please protect those who were injured! I think we were stuck there for about an hour. Sweet, chewy candy, silly conversations eating powdery snow and peeing in cups kept my family occupied for that time. We were so relieved when one lane of traffic opened up and vehicles began moving slowly to escape the traffic and view the unfortunate destruction of vehicles ahead. We headed straight to the nearest fast food establishment to eat a very late lunch.

The beautiful scenery that surrounded us! Can you imagine
being alive when the first Americans traveled over the rockies?

This is what we were driving toward on our drive into
Arizona & Utah.

It's snowing! It's snowing! This is just minutes into
our sudden traffic stop.

These are just some of the vehciles on the right that
were part of the traffic accident.

This car was badly mangled and it looks like the owner is
from Canada.

It continued to snow as we left the restaurant, but as we drove into a new valley, it stopped. Fog and dark gray clouds loomed ahead. As we entered the fog that engulfed our car, it began to rain and then hail. We saw flickers of lightning in the distance. As we drove through the quaint town of Provo an end to our long day of traveling was in sight. We hit our final destination of another charming town, Park City, Utah. Time to unpack, eat dinner and RELAX!

Time to stay warm & cozy and enjoy time with family