Thursday was the Fourth of July and the day we finally arrived in Denver.

When we were first planning this road trip, I was hoping we could come out at the end of June, but Timmy and Jill were going to be in Europe until July 3. I knew that we needed to come as early as we could in July to not interfere with our next vacation, but I also knew that Rachel and her family were all going to be at Timmy's house on July 4th-6th on the way to their family vacation. I was reluctant to overwhelm Timmy and Jill with all of us being there at the same time, but Timmy insisted that it would be so great to have everyone all there together. He was right! I was also really worried about Timmy and Jill being so jet lagged coming back from Europe the day before we arrived, but they were rock stars and fantastic hosts.

When Hannah found out that Timmy wanted our family and the Gallos to stay with them at the same time, she said, "I don't think Timmy realizes how many nieces and nephews he has." I relayed that to Timmy and he said, "Tell Hannah not to worry. I've charted it all out and that she's sleeping in the bathtub." So when we got to Timmy and Jill's house, this is what we found in the bathroom.

We arrived at Timmy and Jill's house about an hour and a half before the Gallos. Rachel thought it would be fun to surprise her kids with the fact that we were going to be there so when they got there, we hid in the basement. When Timmy took them on a tour of the house and showed them the basement, they were so shocked they just stood there staring at us. 

Timmy and Jill's backyard was a lovely place to hang out and play. Timmy even bought a volleyball/badminton court which was a big hit!

Card games were also another wildly popular activity, especially with Nathan. He could play cards all day.

It worked out so well that the weather was nice when we were there so that we could spend most of our time outside. 

The Gallos went to bed pretty early that night, so we stayed outside longer playing volleyball and relaxing.

 The next day we got up and drove to Arches in Moab, Utah.

It was very hot in Arches and only got hotter as the day went on. Thankfully we didn't have to hike too much. We just drove around and did mini hikes to see the various sites.

We started off having fun taking pictures of "Balanced Rock."

This arch was called "Double Arch," although you can't really see the second arch until you get closer to the first one.

There it is!

The kids and I climbed up to the second arch.

Then we walked over to see the window arches.

We could only see one window until we walked up there.

Then we could see the other one.

The "Delicate Arch" is one of the more iconic arches. It's the one on the Utah license plates. We weren't up for the strenuous hike to go see it up close, so we just walked to the viewing area. You can kind of see it in the background.

At this point we split up for a while. Joey really wanted to do a slightly longer hike to see the "Landscape Arch" because it was the biggest arch. Hannah and I wanted to go with him, but Ellie wasn't up for more hiking.

Instead, Andy and Ellie walked to a couple of closer arches: "Tunnel"

and "Pine Tree."

After that, we were ready to get checked into our hotel and get some dinner. Again, we used our good friend Yelp to find a restaurant close by, and it did not disappoint. We went to a cute little place called the Moab Diner. By the time we were having dinner, the temperature was over 100 degrees so it was nice to be in some air conditioning. 

After dinner, the kids and Andy went to the hotel pool. Then we again crashed out in our hotel room with ice cream and a movie. 

 

I've been wanting to take the kids to see more national parks, and this trip was the perfect time to do it. The second day of our trip, we left Vegas and headed to Zion in Utah. 

We just drove through and stopped for a couple of photo ops along the way.

It was very beautiful of course. The kids really liked the parts where you drove in tunnels through the mountains. They thought that was pretty cool.

After Zion, we drove a couple more hours to Bryce Canyon.

We went to the visitor's center and took a free shuttle to the Bryce Amphitheater. 

We hiked around the rim for about two miles. 

It was warm and sunny, but thankfully not hot.

There were lots of beautiful views around the rim.

Bryce Canyon is known for its hoodoos, which are tall, thin spires of rock formed by erosion.

After our hike, we took the shuttle back to our car and then checked into our nearby hotel. We found a cute restaurant online, and we had a great meal. On the way back to our hotel we went to a grocery store and bought a tub of ice cream and Oreos and milk for dessert. We had a cozy night eating our dessert and watching a movie at our hotel.

 

This summer we planned a road trip to Denver to visit my brother Timmy, and his wife Jill. The kids had been wanting to take a road trip ever since we got our van last summer, and we had been wanting to visit Timmy and Jill so it worked out perfectly. We wanted to take our time driving out and see some cool things along the way. Andy used ChatGPT to help plan our trip, and it did a wonderful job. The first day, we drove to Las Vegas.

The kids had never been, so it was fun to show them such a famous/infamous city. We got there a little before noon, checked into our hotel, Mandalay Bay, and then walked around for a while. 

It was hot so we didn't go far, but we did stop at the Hershey's store and the Coca Cola store.

Then we went back to the hotel and headed to the pools. It was crazy...so hot and so crowded. We went in the lazy river, and it was packed. It was still fun, but we didn't stay super long.

That night Andy bought tickets to the Blue Man Group. He bought the cheapest tickets possible, but we got there early and one of the ushers asked if we wanted better seats. He took us up to the third row! It was so great. None of us really knew what to expect, but the show was loud, funny, quirky and fun. We all enjoyed it tremendously.

After the show, we ate at a food court on the strip and walked down to the Bellagio. 

We loved watching the Bellagio fountain.

Our last stop of the night was Caesar's Palace. We found their shopping area and the girls especially loved going in all of the fancy shops like Louis Vuitton, Tiffany's, and Hannah's favorite store, Altar'd State.

We made one more stop by the Bellagio on our way back, and then we went back to our hotel to crash. It was such a fun first day.