It’s Utah time!

After working from home for over 19 months I was starting to get a bit stir crazy so when Disney announced that we won't be back in person until Jan (at the soonest) - we decided to relocate for a couple of weeks out West:). We picked Moab since there are so many National Parks close by and  

found an amazing Airbnb that I could work from. It's 2 hours behind too so we figured we'd be able to do things in the evenings while we were there and really make the most of our time in Utah. 

I packed my whole work set up and was online and functioning in under 10 minutes - it was great!

On the Sunday after we arrived we were amazed that Arches NP was full! I had no idea it was that busy! So we headed out to Canyonlands, and soaked in the La Sal mountains view on the way...

We stopped at Dead Horse Point State Park...

And saw the famous location where the car went over into the canyon in Thelma and Louise...

Then we headed over to the Island In the Sky region of Canyonlands National Park...our 24th North American NP!

It's just breathtaking. We loved the Mesa Arch hike :) 

We ended our first amazing day at Antica Forma for some incredible pizza:)

I had to work on Monday morning but had plenty of time in the evening to visit Moab Giants - the local dinosaur museum...

On Tuesday evening we did the amazing Corona Arch hike!

Hoppy Easter:)

We woke up early on Easter Sunday to volunteer with Maddy's friend Kaley by delivering boxes of food to families in need. A really rewarding way to start the Holiday :)

Once we were done we headed over to Rita's to see the family:)

And after lunch, the hunt was on!

 

Milo cleaned up!

Happy Easter everyone!

The Christmas Force!

Mike and Maddy were really excited about the release of the new Star Wars movie so we decided to have a Force-themed Christmas party this year! Mike totally outdid himself with his tree - although he got a big carried away with his new toy during decorating (despite the warnings) and got a lightsabre-related injury...

Everyone loved his tree...it was totally awesome!!

I managed to watch all 6 of the previous films to get up to speed before the new release and was really excited by the time that the big day came too. We got tickets for opening night and despite the fact that we arrived at the theater 2 hours early we still only got back row seats! But we didn't care - we all wanted a good view of the audience as they cheered through the reintroduction of the beloved heroes from the past...:)

It was a fantastic night - we all loved the movie and I was so proud of my amazing employer for bringing Star Wars back to life for the world! Also, On the Disney front, Hollywood Studios had added a couple of Star Wars themed attractions over the past few weeks (and this year is the 20th anniversary (and the last) year of the famous dancing Osborne lights) so we headed over for night as a family the week before Christmas...

 

The new Star Wars themed fireworks were amazing!!!!

And in what seemed like a flash the big day was here!!!