travelouge

I've been on vacation. And while I could have written about our comings and goings while we were vacationing I decided not to.

Two weeks ago Dave took Step 1 of the USMLE (United States Medical Licensing Exam). Early Monday morning we packed up the kids and drove to Hartford, CT where we flew back home. It was a perfect storm. Dave had 2 weeks off, Ana had 1 week off of school, and we got good ticket prices. So we scraped together our change and took off.

*The flights there went really well. We had a 4 hour layover in Dallas, where they had a kids play area and Katie had fun crawling around. We got to my parents house late Monday night.




*Tuesday my sis from Idaho Falls drove down to visit. Ana decided she's marrying her cousin Seth.

*Wednesday we headed up to Rexburg. Of course, it wouldn't be Rexburg if it didn't blizzard while we were there. We drove around town, ate at Arctic Circle (milkshakes!!!), toured campus with Dave's nephew who wants to go there, including the new BYU-I Center and the unrecognizable student life building, and stopped by a good friend's house for a wonderful visit. We saw an entire sunset on the drive home.

*Thursday was a nice relaxing day, where Dave and I snuck away sans kids for a lunch with his brother and then hung out with Granny and Gramps the rest of the day, including a rousing game of Mexican Train Dominoes and chatting late into the night.

*Friday we were joined in Pocatello by 5 of my sisters, which resulted in good food and lots of laughs. Ana and Jack had great fun re-uniting with their cousins.

*Saturday my younger sister Heather, a.k.a. H-word, a.k.a. H, went through the Temple for the first time. I felt so much peace. It had been far too long since I had been to the Temple and it was a wonderful time to spend in the Temple with so much of my family. We went to lunch as a group, too, which was fun and yummy even though I did get a plastic honey jar ring in my sandwich. We then headed to Rupert for the remainder of our trip.



*Sunday we were able to see the blessing of our neice's baby (that's right, I am a great-aunt - 9 times!) and then spend the afternoon at Dave's sister Leanne's house. The weather was warm (65 degrees) and the sky was blue. I soaked up the sun. All 7 Larsen children were together. We even got a picture!



*Monday was full of visits by family, driving around town, and late night card games. Good times were had by all.

*Tuesday I went to my friends' house for a lunch/playdate. I had some pretty stellar friends in Rupert and I loved catching up with them. Ana decided she's going to marry her new friend Carson. They were even holding hands.

*Wednesday we said our goodbyes and then Mom and Dad L drove us down to Salt Lake. We visited Temple Square, ran into a friend from Vermont (random!) and visited the new Deseret Book across the street.



*Early yesterday morning we woke up, hugged Grandma and Grandpa tightly, and headed home to Vermont. THAT was the real adventure. We had scheduled a 1 hour layover in Dallas. We were late getting in, so we hurried to our gate, only to find out that our flight was delayed. Long story short, we changed gates 3 times, and due to our plane being rerouted, then weather keeping it from getting in, then needed a new flight crew, then waiting for a new flight crew, our 1 hour layover turned into a 7 hour layover. Surprisingly, the kids did amazing! We set up "camp" in a cozy corner at our gate. The kids played and danced and skipped and sang and found letters and ate snacks and played on Dave's iPhone. Katie crawled and crawled and crawled and ate a napped and crawled. Through the course of the day, we had several people tell us how good our kids were. One guy even came over to our "camp" just to say how impressed he was with our kids and how they were not obnoxious but just normal, happy kids. Finally we got the kids in their jammies and boarded the plane. Katie and Jack were asleep before we took off. Ana was asleep before the seat belt sign dinged off. We landed late, we drove for a while, then stayed at a hotel about an hour and half away from home.



That's the gist of it. I may post more snippets as they arise. We are so glad we were able to go. The kids miss everyone already. Re-entry (into real life) is always a little turbulent, but I'm sure in a few days things will be back to normal.

We are so glad we were able to visit our family. 4 years is a long time to be away, but we are enjoying our life here in Vermont, and we are already half way done.