by Wendy
Jack and I had our share of rainy beach days last year. It happens. Luckily, our trip to Duck, Outer Banks, in early July was almost 100% sunny.
Outer Banks in North Carolina is one of the most beautiful beaches within a 6 hour drive for us. Hatteras Island is one of Jack’s favorites, where we’ve rented houses previously. During this visit, we opted to stay for 5 days in The Sanderling Hotel in Duck. Beach hotels can be a gamble – but we felt like we won the lottery. Continue reading
by Wendy
Your sisters are always up for drinks over evening card or Scrabble games
Your parents can easily out-hike you, any day of the week
Your niece and nephew think of the funniest Would You Rather questions on a car trip
There is a great variety of snacks and everyone is willing to share
There is always quality coffee around Continue reading
During our family trip out West, Zion Ponderosa Ranch Resort was home base. This 4,000 acre ranch next to Zion National Park is about a 90 minute drive from St. George airport and 3 hour drive from Las Vegas. So yes, it is remote, but that’s part of the beauty. We stayed in a cabin, though there are many different lodging options, including camping, glamping or even Conestoga Wagon! This is a special place. Here are some of our favorite things about the ranch. Continue reading
by Joe
There is no place on earth, let alone the USA, that looks and feels like Southern Utah. It’s extremely hot and dry in summer and cold and snowy in the winter. But the warm breezes in the summer and cooler mornings keeps everything in balance for an enjoyable summer experience. The sky during the day ranges from turquoise to navy blue and as black as coal at night which allows the stars to pop like top grade diamonds. The green trees against the dark blue skies and red rocks paints a picture like no other place. The dryness of the warm mid-day breezes and the cool ones in the evening wrap around you and embrace you. It’s almost spiritual in nature and in this vast piece of nature you can see, smell, and feel the wonder of the west as so many have before us. But it is at times, stark. It is dry and the land in many places dies of thirst. It is rocky and at times desolate. It can be brutally hot in the summer and I wondered how did so many people, for thousands of years, come to inhabit and thrive in this land. But humans have lived in this area for over 10,000 years. Even if you look back only a couple of hundred years ago, how did they do it? Continue reading
by Sunny
Most 8 year old girls are easily won over by the following: mermaids, kittens, dolphins, and unicorns. MJ recently discovered the movie Dolphin Tale, which tells the true story of a young dolphin named Winter who was found caught in a crab trap and rescued. Her tail was later amputated due to the amount of damage from being tangled in the trap. She learns to swim without it and is also given a prosthetic tail so she could once again swim like a dolphin. MJ has seen it at least 20 times. And counting. I had remembered seeing it years ago when it was first released, but hadn’t really sat down to watch it with MJ, yet.
by Cindy
On a recent family trip to Utah, we stayed at a really cool ranch resort that offered many fun activities. I knew I would enjoy the pool (even did the water slide), tennis courts, miniature golf and ping pong, but I wasn’t into the horseback riding, rock wall climbing, trampoline bungee or ATVs.
For some unknown reason though, I took an interest in the zipline. My eight year old granddaughter definitely wanted to ride, so I said I would go with her. Continue reading
by Cindy
In 2009, my husband Joe and I did a trip to Utah to visit five National Parks: Arches, Bryce, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef and Zion. We also visited the South Rim of the Grand Canyon on that trip. We were blown away by what we saw and have talked about that trip a lot!
Well, our children were listening and decided they would like to see that part of the country for themselves. So when it was time to discuss the summer vacation, the yearly beach trip was changed to a Utah trip. The grandchildren were older now and ready for this great adventure. Nine of us visited the North Rim of the Grand Canyon and Zion. Six of us visited Bryce.
I never thought I would have the opportunity to visit that area again, much less with my children and grandchildren. It was equally amazing seeing it again for myself and now through the eyes of my children and grandchildren. We did some wonderful hikes together. I hope their memories of these awesome places will stay in their minds and hearts as it has mine.
UTAH ROCKS!
by Wendy
During the past six months, I traveled to Utah four times. Once for skiing, twice for work, and most recently for an epic vacation with my husband Jack, parents Cindy and Joe, sister April, nephew J, sister Sunny, brother-in-law Jimmy, and niece MJ. Continue reading
by Wendy
Louisa May Alcott was one of my favorite writers as a child. Like many girls, I adored the novel Little Women and idolized the character Jo March. I read any book I could find by Alcott and then moved on to biographies about her fascinating life and family members.
Alcott was dethroned by other literary obsessions as I grew older, and I hadn’t thought about her much in recent years. Then I watched the new PBS Masterpiece adaptation of Little Women a few weeks before a Boston trip. A quick online search confirmed that Louisa May Alcott’s family home, “Orchard House”, is in nearby Concord and can be toured. I remembered wanting to go as a kid, and now I had the opportunity thanks to Jack and our pal Steve, eternal good sport, who was up for spending a Saturday afternoon chasing literary history. Continue reading
by Wendy
It’s been many years since I was in Louisville on the first Saturday of May, otherwise known as Kentucky Derby Day. But I celebrate the event every year.
You’ve no doubt seen the pomp and pageantry on the news. Southern belles with glamorous hats on head and mint juleps in hand, gents in seersucker and sunglasses, dignified horses striding sometimes proudly sometimes flippantly toward their post position. This is fabulous, but there are other Derby Day experiences. I don’t need to eat a slice of Derby pie or drink bourbon to vividly recall times past, but it certainly doesn’t hurt either. Continue reading