Road Trippin'

In the past few months we've gotten adventurous and gone on a couple of short family road trips (and by "road trips," we are talking 3-4 hours away maximum, but that is plenty with two little ones!).

We spent the first weekend of October in Utah, staying with Ryan's older brother Derek and his cute little family.  We love them.  We spent crisp mornings in their hot tub, went for a gorgeous autumn hike and chair lift ride in the Utah mountains, and watched our church's biannual General Conference broadcast together.  General Conference is always such an uplifting weekend anyway because of the outstanding sermons given, and it's even better when you can watch it with family!

Can you find the cute little boy?

Sally and Derek dozed off during Conference, but Alli is wide awake

We also got to eat at the Nielsons' favorite stop on the trip from Idaho to Utah: Maddox in Brigham City, Utah.  Sally was tempted to try their yummy fried chicken, but we didn't let her!

A few weeks later, we went on a getaway to Boise with our kiddos and had so much fun playing in the beautiful leaves, shopping at the Farmers' Market, going to the aquarium, going out to breakfast to get our favorite pancakes, and of course, hitting the mall so we could do some decent shopping.  (Twin Falls doesn't have much in our tiny mall.)

Fun with photo props at the aquarium

I'm not sure if going to Pocatello qualifies as a "road trip" (it's only two hours away), but we made a couple of trips there as well to be at special events with Ryan's family.  The highlights were the baby blessing of our niece Lucy and the second birthday of our niece Kate.  We love these beautiful girls, and it's so fun to be within driving distance of Ryan's family...now if only mine were a little closer too. :(

Cousin besties--six weeks apart

A word about Nielson family road trips: We have a small car and large carseats.  In fact, my bum does not fit in the tiny space between the kids' car seats, so I cannot get back there to help with the kids or feed the baby a bottle if she is crying.  Fortunately, my husband's bum is significantly smaller than mine (this used to be a sore point for me, but I'm over it), so he is often relegated to the backseat, stuck between two needy kids.  He has a surprisingly good attitude about it:

I have two New Year's Resolutions: 1. Buy a mini van! 2. Slim down my backside! (Though I guess if we are getting a mini van, I'm off the hook on that one...bring on the fried chicken!)