Whirlwind Trips

It was a jam-packed last week at home. We went to the Rose Bowl, Park City and spent any extra time in between with family. Our Rose Bowl trip was full of laughs and tragedy. It was off to a funny start when we first pulled into the SLC airport and my dad goes "What on earth is FEV parking?!" When he heard that fuel efficient vehicles get priority parking he said "oh I'd like to bring my diesel truck to park there." The plan was to fly to Las Vegas and then drive the rest of the way into Pasadena. This went smoothly up until we had to get our rental car. We were standing there waiting for about 15 minutes and a guy pulls up with a brand new Suburban and asked who was waiting for an X-Large vehicle. We said we were and all loaded up. I thought it was weird they didn't do a name confirmation and I kid you not we were just about to pull out of the parking garage when an old man came running down the parking lot yelling "THAT'S NOT YOUR CAR!!!" It was such a bummer because one we almost had a sweet car, the new Suburban's are actually way awesome. And two we had to wait another 30 minutes for another car to be ready. It was a racket to say the least. But we eventually got out of there and then sat in traffic for several hours. We hadn't considered that we would be stuck in traffic with all of the people who went down to Las Vegas for NYE and were headed back to Cali. 

We eventually made it to our hotel and fell into bed exhausted. Then we were up bright and early the next morning to go to the Rose Parade. My mom has always wanted to go to the parade and it was pretty impressive to see floats entirely made of plants. I will say it was unexpectedly cold in the shade on the metal benches. We also sat behind some very proud Penn State band parents who were very rowdy. We were pretty sick of the Penn State cheers by the time the parade was halfway over. My favorite floats were a safari float, the U's and also one from Louisiana. 

From the parade we walked through beautiful neighborhoods down to where the stadium is tucked away. We saw Jaden's siblings who all drove down to watch the game and several other people we knew. 

 It started out good but if you watched it you saw it steadily declined until our quarterback Cam Rising was pulled completely out of the game due to injury. Our backup qb didn't have it in him to pull off a win so as it became inevitable that we weren't going to take home a W and the rain started pouring down like Jaden's tears we decided to head back. 

The next day we got up early once again and hopped on the road for Las Vegas. The trip there took significantly less time and we made it well in time for our flight. It was a whirlwind trip and although it ended in a loss it was a lot of fun with lots of memories we'll talk about forever.

A few short days later we drove up to Park City with our friends who had found a killer deal on an Airbnb. The weekend was spent eating awesome food, playing lots of games, watching movies, hot tubbing and giving presentations on what places we should go on vacations.

As the days wind down and it's time for us to pack up and head back "to the place where we live" as Jaden says, it was time for us to say goodbye to family. My grandma Moyle's goodbye was particularly heart wrenching because her doctors said she likely only has a couple of months until her heart gives out completely. She is 90 years old and has lived such a good life so we all feel blessed because of that. However it is surreal saying goodbye to someone who is still living but you are the one leaving. It was very emotional, I love my grandma and will miss her a lot. I am so grateful for technology that allows us to stay connected and plan to FaceTime and call lots. 

Peaches

• Hayes cuddles
• Funny family trips
• Park City with the crew
• Getting to know Mady more since we've been gone for the majority of the time her and Landon were dating
• Spending time with family

Pits 

• The Utes lost
• Saying bye to Grandma
• Jaden's classmates that went to Penn State are already giving him lots of grief for our loss