Author: Jess

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Daily Life

We Bought Airplane Tickets for This Fall!!

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In a huge leap of faith, we bought airplane tickets from Chicago to Salt Lake City for this fall. While we didn’t originally plan to exactly go to Chicago, Southwest Airlines was having a sale so Chicago it is!

We knew that we needed to be in Sandy for Andrew’s baptism on Sept. 5th and rather than drive from the Great Lakes region back to Utah and then spend MORE time out west, we decided to just fly. Plus, we’re calling the tickets birthday presents for all the kids (we fly out the day after Andrew’s birthday and fly back the day after Rachel’s) so that’s a double-win. The kids are ridiculously excited!

In almost serendipitous timing, I received an email from the marketing team for KLM Royal Dutch Airlines regarding their super cute animated series about a small plane named Bluey and his adventures. The series launched last November and has been super popular with young travelers.

Cara and I laid in bed one morning and watched the short film and her response was, “Let’s watch it again!” Obviously a hit. Check it out:

We also watched their YouTube video “Auto Pilot in Action” which shows a pilot flying from Amsterdam to London and the various controls and autopilot settings he uses. We found it rather fascinating and a perfect segway into talking about pilots and flying. I’m sure we’ll do more research and call it a “unit study” as we get closer to flying ourselves!

KLM also has a great list of tips for traveling with children on their airlines (I’m sure we’ll be looking up MANY tips for our non-stop flight before we leave) which you can check out here.

In the meantime, we can’t wait for our flight and the next Bluey adventure!

Categories
Adventure Reports Arizona

The Sonoran Desert Museum in Tucson, Arizona

We went back and forth on visiting the Sonoran Desert Museum in Tucson, AZ. We had heard great things about it, but was it just another zoo? Would we really find it that interesting? Turns out that traveling the country makes you a bit of a snob when it comes to activities you’ll pay for. You start thinking things like, “Is this going to be better than ‘X’? We just did ‘Y ‘so maybe we don’t need to do this one too.” Happily, the Sonoran Desert was everything we had heard and the kids and I had a fantastic time. And there was cactus. You should know by now how much I love cactus.

When We Visited: March, 13, 2015

Ages of Kids: 9, 7, 4

Tips: Although the park has done a great job of providing shade Ramadas & drinking fountains, its still Tucson, and will be very HOT in the summer. Plan accordingly.

The Sonoran Desert Museum boast over 98 acres, and “is a fusion experience zoo, botanical garden, art gallery, natural history museum, and aquarium.” The museum is also 85% outdoors which can get pretty warm during the Arizona summers.

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We started off the morning by wandering down to the bird show. It was pretty fascinating, and the birds really do fly just right above the crowd. The animal trainers are on either side of the standing crowd and the birds crisscross back and forth. Although we were standing, my kids were able to get a spot right on the fence so they could see pretty easily.

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After that, we walked the desert loop trail that included javelina & the coyote. Left to right below are the Red fox, javelina, coyote, and coati. I’ve wanted to see a javelina since we got to the Sonoran Desert, and although I never saw one in the wild, I was pretty excited we spotted 3 here at the museum.

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Luckily for us, there was an ice cream vendor near the Cactus Garden. The ice cream made the kids happy, and the garden was for me. A ENTIRE garden FULL of very interesting and unique cactus. My kids thought I was crazy, but this was probably my favorite part. Serious obsession, here people.

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After lunch we wandered over to the Warden Oasis Theater (indoors) and watched the Live & (sort of) On the Loose venemous reptile presentation. I thought it was funny the animal handlers thought everyone was there to see the rattlesnake. No way. Gila Monsters are definitely more interesting!

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Overall we had a great day! A highlight for the kids was also the underground cave tunnels in the Earth Sciences center. They really did look like caves. Pretty sweet. And the exhibit popped us out for a great view of this mountain lion who was just pacing back and forth in front of the window:
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Was our visit worth the price of admission? From our experience, to the crowds and the museum’s rating on Trip Advisor, I’m going to go with yes. Everything about the museum is dedicated to this amazing desert and I feel like we got a great overview of the plants, animals, and geology of this amazing place!

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Categories
Mommy Diaries

Looking Forward to a Small Community Someday

Yesterday was a great day, and I’ve been thinking last night and this morning about why it was so great. We spent the morning at the local library, reading books and playing toys in their awesome children’s section. The librarian on duty was incredible useful, chatty, and friendly! She even let us check out books on her card so my kids could plow through a dozen books while we are in Moab for the week. I watched her greet many patrons by name, and she obviously recognized and new many of the locals.

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After a bit of conversation, she mentioned there was a community, Disney musical review being performed at the local high school that night and we should go! I heartily agreed, so after dinner we packed up the kids and headed to town to support the local theater community. The musical was adorable! Great costumes, fun songs, and some really impressive talent by both adults, teenagers and children.

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Between the community here in Moab (5,100 people), and the slightly larger town of Prescott, AZ (40,000 people) we’ve realized we really do want to live in a smaller community. A place where you recognize people at the library or community center and there is a sense of pride in where you live. In addition to living in a community, I’ve also realized I  want to be involved in the community. I want my kids to sing, do theater or choir at the high school and generally be involved. So while I’m enjoying our nomad status now, I’m definitely starting to see the first inklings of desire to settle in and build out a life with a little more roots.

Not yet though. There’s still so much left to see!

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Arizona WanderLog

Easter Weekend in Sedona Arizona

Sedona, Arizona is a popular destination for a reason. Gorgeous scenery, some nice open land, and plenty of outdoor activities. Unfortunately, this time around we only had a short 3 days before needing to meet our friends in Flagstaff for their spring break.

We drove up from Prescott and quickly settled into a spot near Route 89A. Our spot was tucked in next to @liberatemylife, @the_scenicroute, and @2wanderaway.shannon. We couldn’t have asked for a better crew to spend the weekend with.

Travel Dates: April 3-5, 2015

Twice a year, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has a worldwide conference. Broadcast from the Conference Center in Salt Lake City, UT we have the opportunity to hear from our prophet, apostles, and leaders. Its honestly one of my favorite, spiritually uplifting weekends all year.

Every once in awhile, Conference also lines up with Easter Sunday and then we REALLY get to have a good time.

“We found a beautiful spot for conference weekend. Here will hunt for easter eggs, listen to #ldsconf, and enjoy the beautiful scenery.” -@telegramsam

“This’ll do quite nicely for Easter & General Conference Weekend. Our neighbors (@the_scenicroute & @liberatemylife) are not too shabby either.” – @jesscurren

We had a few campfire evenings and even a potluck on Sunday evening. The kids had a blast building a fort in the tree and we loved watching the hot air balloons rise up every morning.

“Our Easter Egg Hunt has a perfect setting. The last few years, we do everything bunny related on Saturday. We have fun, and then focus on Christ during Easter Sunday.” – @telegramsam

Our Easter egg hunt Saturday morning was so much fun! The kids are aware that Sam and I hide their eggs and basket, but its still lots of fun. We had many eggs camouflaged among the cactus, and even though we counted we lost one or two. Oops!

“Easter baskets” that double as sand pails were a total win this time around as well!

“The annual dying of the Easter Eggs. Cara did more than her fair share and then covered them all with stickers.” – @jesscurren

We have a tradition of eating chipped eggs on toast for Easter breakfast. Its a basic white sauce with hard boiled, chopped, egg whites, and then egg yolks mashed up and sprinkled over the top. Not exactly healthy, but man is it good!

“We are celebrating Christ by listening to his living Prophet today. Join us at lds.org for a live stream of his words and other leaders.” -@telegramsam

“We went on a short walk between #ldsconf sessions this afternoon. I can’t believe how gorgeous this area is. It reminds me a lot of southern Utah!” – @jesscurren

“The kids have turned this tree into their magical fort. Complete with welcome sign, fire pit, and Easter baskets, they’ve spent most of their day playing outside.” -@jesscurren

Our weekend was peaceful, yet full of great friends and family time. We didn’t get in any mountain biking, and left plenty of trails unexplored. We are going to need to make time to come back here for sure!

Categories
Daily Life

What Does Spring Break Look Like for Full Time Travelers?

SAMSUNG CSCWhen you travel full time, “spring break” or “vacation” can be a bit of an anomaly. Many people might think we are constantly on vacation since we see many National Parks, museums, and state parks – destinations that most people vacation to. For us, though, its just life. We still do school, work, shopping, errands, and small home improvement projects.

Last year we spent a week at Camp Noyo in California, which prompted this post on defining a vacation for full time travelers. Similarly, we are taking a vacation for Spring Break this year in Flagstaff, Arizona with some of our very best friends from Lehi, Utah. They drove down from Utah on Monday and we’ve been hanging out doing the tourist thing all week.

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“Vacation” means a couple of things to me:
1. Sam isn’t working. He still works early in the mornings when the rest of us are all sleeping, but during the day he comes out exploring with us. Many times I take the kids out by myself, so its been great to have him along!

2. No school. We are taking an official break! Yes, we are still doing Jr. Ranger Badges this week, but everything else is on hold. Its been SO nice to not stress about it. I think I needed this just as much as the kids did!

3. Doing something fun! We’ve visited Walnut Canyon, Wupatki, and Sunset Crater National Monuments, and today we are headed to the Grand Canyon. We’ve played lots of games, relaxed, eaten really great food and generally just enjoyed ourselves! Its a much faster pace than we normally keep (we’ve never done 4 Jr. Ranger Badges in the same week before!), but its also nice to mix things up a bit!

I think we will be ready for “regular life” after this week, but until then we are going to enjoy relaxing and hanging out with our friends!