A recap of Christmas and more

The past couple of weeks have been insane!  We traveled to Utah for 10 days during Christmas.



Now that everything is all cleaned up and I have finally dug myself out from under this mess, I can start blogging again.  I thought I would start with a recap of our trip.


We left Tennessee in the evening after dinner.  Instead of packing all of our clothes in suitcases, we used plastic totes.  They stack better and hold more items.  We did pack a few suitcases with toiletries and a change of clothes and I had to have somewhere to hide the Christmas presents.


We drove straight through the night and into the next day until we arrived in Utah.  After 28 hours in the car we were all so excited to arrive.


We stayed at the Staybridge Inn on Decker Lake Drive in West Valley.  It was a WONDERFUL hotel.  If you are ever in Salt Lake area and need a hotel, I fully recommend this one.  We had a suite with 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms.  Plus there was free breakfast, free dinner on Tues, Wed and Thur, free laundry, a free theater to watch movies, an awesome indoor pool and water slide and it's located right next to a Trax (the commuter rail) stop.

We had so much fun and were able to do so many things while in Utah. 


We ate at yummy restaurants like the Training Table!




We got to go see the lights at Temple Square.  It magically started snowing big fluffy flakes while we were there.  It was so beautiful!!!


We shopped and shopped and shopped some more at so many great stores like Ikea, Downeast, Quilted Bear and more.


We visited with family and got to see Santa!


We went to Christmas Village in Ogden.  Its a city park where little tiny houses are decorated for the Holiday.  It was so fun and pretty, but very COLD for us Southerners!


Unfortunately, my daughter's skin couldn't handle all the dry weather mixed with the chlorine from swimming every day and we ended up at urgent care for a terrible rash she had.  Thank goodness she was able to get some medicine to help her feel better.


We left cookies and milk for Santa.


And celebrated Christmas morning in our hotel room. 


After all the shopping and Christmas presents, we didn't fit as well in the car on the way home.  We put a few things (mostly laundry thank goodness) in some flat totes and attached them to the top of our car for the ride home.  We had a few mishaps like 2 sick tummies and not enough room.  But the worst thing that happened was one of our totes flew off the car and landed on the interstate.  Luckily it was 2am and there weren't any other cars around.  I was so sick thinking what could have happened.  My husband ran down the road and grabbed everything.  So even though we already were scrunched we had to shove all of those items into the inside of the van as well.  Yuck.  My kids were total troopers and we drove hard and fast and made it home in 26 hours.  All in all it was a fun trip, but we are so happy to be home!!