What do I want to remember about our family trip?
If you had told me in 2017 (the last time Matthias and I hiked the Lighthouse Trail) that we’d be coming back with 3 boys, 3 and under in 2023… I wouldn’t have believed you. For so many reasons.
What am I avoiding? Why am I finding it difficult to write? I think I’ve set expectations of the kinds of things I want to write and because I don’t have anything to say that fits that framework I just don’t think I have anything worth saying at all?
I’m writing to notice, to remember, so what do I want to remember about our family trip? Our first family trip with the 5 of us.
Originally, I had planned to write (and share on my normal schedule) as we traveled, but on the morning we left, I realized how much I wanted to set the time apart to feel separate, and sacred, and different from my life at home, so I didn’t do any of it. We were totally off and totally together for 8 days.
I think my expectation was that it would be more difficult traveling with kids than just being home, since we wouldn’t have our normal schedule and sleeping arrangements and that really throws little people off. This was our first time traveling with 3 boys in tow and in my head the vacation wasn’t going to feel like a vacation.
Maybe thinking that it was going to be hard set me up for success, instead of imaging it would be like our travels pre-children. It was the same amount of work as normal, but no more, and we got to spend every day doing whatever we wanted together.
Our trip was kind of three distinct parts.
We had 3 nights at Great Wolf Lodge— which is a hotel and indoor/outdoor water park catered to young families. Then we drove west and spent a couple of evenings camping in a fifth wheel camper airbnb in the second largest canyon in the United States, Palo Duro. After that we spent the weekend in Lubbock with friends.
Getting away from the routine of life is always a pleasure, and doing it with my kids adds a different gift; they see the world as entirely new and are showing me how to. Witnessing the wide-eyed wonder in my children makes me tune in a little more and pause to pay more attention.
I took less photos than I thought I would. Especially with how much photos mean to me and how terrible I feel like my memory is for details without a minds eye.
I found myself trying to memorize everything. I wanted it all written on my heart. The size of my boys. The expressions on their faces. The places we went and the things we did together.
I read somewhere last year about the effect of photo-taking on memory and how it appears, we may remember less the things we take photos of. I’m going to be honest here. I haven’t done a deep dive into the mixed studies on the issue, but I imagine this must have something to do with us being lazier in our memory when we know we’re capturing a picture — we don’t have to take the time to try to see really see everything that we will want to remember.
And I really wanted to remember the sounds of my boys, their little voices, the feeling of my baby on my hip, that content feeling of exhaustion, after a day spent in water or outside, or with friends.
Eating at new places is an experience I look forward to while traveling. But kids—at least our 1, 2, and 3 year old— don’t handle restaurants well after about the 15 minute mark. So we ended up making our life easier by eating most breakfasts and lunches on our own. We traveled with our favorite staples like yogurt and bacon and turkey and cheese—but also treats like clif bars and nut clusters and $200 worth of other Costco snacks we stocked up on before leaving.
I stopped buying snacks at home back in February and so anytime the boys get a hold of snacks like z-bars, they are so excited. Our time traveling was the perfect mix of eating in and eating out.
We had my sister, Kate, with us the first three days at Great Wolf Lodge, which made the water park experience easier since we could each be responsible for one child, or she could be in the room with sleeping boys while we played at the water park or arcade or grab ice cream with the awake one(s). And Matthias and I were also able to go out for one long night alone and enjoy the Old Hickory Steakhouse at the Gaylord, which just so conveniently happens to be across the street from Great Wolf Lodge.
We planned on going dancing to finish our night out that evening alone, but we were so enthralled with the Gaylord after a long walk through the property, we grabbed coffees instead, and cozied up beside each other trying to find all the history we could on the place. (We are definitely making plans to go back for their ice show this holiday season.)
Wednesday we loaded up and drove west towards our camper. It felt like we entered an entirely new vacation, because camping and being in the canyon felt nothing like being in a hotel at family water park resort.
Thursday morning, after a slow breakfast and time playing outside with the boys, we hiked the lighthouse trail in Palo Duro Canyon…but only half a mile in. We stopped and decided we’d go no further, we’d just to let the boys climb and run around until they felt done.
I feel like I took more photos and videos here than any other place.
All told, we probably spent 3 hours out before having the best ever burgers at the trading post, where we also bought cheesy, but perfect souvenirs, like the mug I’m currently drinking out of and the hat I’m currently wearing.
If you had told me in 2017 (the last time Matthias and I hiked the Lighthouse Trail) that we’d be coming back with 3 boys, 3 and under in 2023… I wouldn’t have believed you. For so many reasons.
Friday morning we happily and lazily spent watching the west texas skies transform as we sipped coffees (because we packed our own coffee stuff and drank approximately 1000 vacation coffees each) before we packed up towards Lubbock, where we stayed through Sunday evening at the Chaparro’s. Valor, Mikayla’s fourth baby, second son, would’ve turned three on Sunday, if he wasn’t already in heaven. And I wanted to be there with her for his birthday.
There’s nothing I can do or say to ease the grief of my friend, having lost a piece of her own self, living the rest of her life with the wound of child loss. But I wanted to just be near. So that’s what we did. We were just there, together. We spent the weekend talking while our kids played.
Late Saturday night, Mikayla and I went out to Market Street for cake decorating supplies for Valor’s birthday. I wanted to scream standing in the aisle picking out sprinkles and icing and candles for my friends dead baby. How could this be all I can do? I wish for so much more. I want to have the power of healing and instead I just grieve with her.
And it’s not that we grieve without hope. We know where Valor is, we know he does not long for earth like we long for heaven. But I grieve for my friend.
While we were there Mikayla bought local flowers, and they happened to be cosmos, which is one of Valor’s birth flowers. That felt like a hug, or a wink, from God.
Sunday we had coffee and kolaches and donuts on their beautiful and cozy back porch in perfect weather before church, while Mikayla told me Valor’s birth story. Where she’d been, what she’d been feeling, 3 years ago in those moments.
After church, in the early afternoon, Emagen baked the cupcakes and a cake for the kids the decorate.
It was a beautiful weekend and was the perfect ending to our family time traveling. Mikayla always points me back to our ultimate Hope, the One who holds our family’s in His hands. And so to spend time there, being reminded who holds the world in His hands, was more a gift to me than to anyone else.
There’s more I want to say, but I need more time.
So I’m ending this (very strangely) with a list of words and ideas that are hanging around for me right now:
Fragments
On the precipice of a new thing
Family traditions
Childhood magic in memory
Belonging