So I know that Christmas was a month ago, but I'm just getting around to writing up a blog about our adventures with family and friends. My office closes for two weeks over Christmas and New Years, which is pretty awesome, though a bit like forced leave. Anyway, I took an extra week off work and Ross and I went back to the US for three weeks over the holidays.
It was our first time travelling back to the States together but the second trip back for both of us since moving abroad. I went back last year for Thanksgiving and saw my family in Kansas, while Ross went back in June 2018 and saw his family in Colorado. This year we split our time between the two families. As I know that a bunch of the people who will look at this are our families, here's a rundown of the more interesting points.
It took us 27 hours and 40 minutes to get to Parker, Colorado from Melbourne (door to door). In Colorado we:
1) Ate at Taco Bell and Jimmy Johns for the first time in 3.5+ years;
2) Saw snow fall from the sky for the first time since we lived in Minnesota (2016);
3) Probably ate our weight in Mexican food;
4) Finally found a restaurant with good horchata. Ross had close to 2 litres in one sitting;
5) Met/saw for the first time in a while 5 kids of friends and in-laws (including two of our groomsmen);
6) Made Candy cane cookies on Christmas Eve (Taylor family tradition);
7) Went sledding with my niece and nephew in Colorado;
8) Made s'mores with my sister-in-law and brother-in-law;
9) Went hiking in Garden of the Gods with friends;
10) Unpacked our storage shed and loaded it into a U-haul for the trip to Kansas;
11) Knit some, read some, and ate a whole lot of tasty food;
12) Caught up with friends and Ross's family;
13) Celebrated Christmas Eve/Day with Ross's family; and
14) Saw squirrels, deer, blue jays, etc. for the first time in a long time.
From Colorado, we drove to Oklahoma and stayed with the best man at our wedding and his family. This involved driving through Colorado, New Mexico and Texas. We met his two kids and ate more delicious Mexican. From there we headed north to Kansas and hung out with the Taylor clan for the rest of the trip.
In Kansas we:
1) Met my new nephew (born mid-November);
2) Ate at Dairy Queen, Wendys and Jimmy Johns (again) for the first time in 3.5+ years;
3) Ate my weight in cookies that my mom made;
4) Played with our fur baby who lives with my parents;
5) Went through everything from our storage shed, got rid of some stuff and repacked/organised everything else for storage in my parent's basement;
6) Met up with my best friend, her hubby and their two kids for dinner;
7) Met up with a friend of mine from college that I hadn't seen since graduation (i.e. - far too long ago);
8) Went out to dinner for my parent's 50th wedding anniversary (a couple days early);
9) Learned some new knitting techniques from the Mom - brioche knitting;
10) Ate a ton for tasty, home-cooked food;
11) Had a second Christmas with the Taylors;
12) Went to the National WWI Museum in Missouri (our 6th state of the trip, if you don't count LA);
13) Went to Baker wetlands; and
14) Admired my Dad's giant rock collection and talked about minerals. A lot (this was mostly my dad and Ross, though I threw in the odd nugget from my mineralogy course occasionally).
Eventually it was time to head back to Melbourne. Of course, on the day that we were flying out, Kansas got hit by an ice storm so we got to sit at the airport for 5+ hours while flights were diverted to Minneapolis, among other places. We eventually made it to LA but missed our connecting flight to Melbourne. Luckily we were able to be rerouted through Sydney so we didn't have to spend the night in LA. Of course, the flight to Sydney was delayed so we missed our connection to Melbourne and had to be rebooked again. Ultimately, it took us 33 hours, door to door, to get from Kansas back home. It wouldn't have been too bad because we were able to sleep on our flight from LA to Sydney but I went back to work the next day... Which was definitely poor planning on my part.
All in all, it was a great trip and, while it was not particularly relaxing, it was fabulous to see and catch up with so many friends and family.
