southern utah lovin'

we took august down to southern utah this weekend to experience moab in all it's winter glory.

it was a quick overnight trip. one of my favorite things to do since moving to utah is to visit the national parks in the off-season. while it's not exactly warm enough to camp, there are almost no toursists and the sunny warm-ish weather refills my soul. also, not rattlesnakes. that's reason enough to visit november - april ;) 

this was our first real family vacation where it was just the three of us. i was a little nervous for august's first road trip -- moab is about three and a half hours south of SLC. august exceeded our expectations and crushed the travel portion of the trip. hooray! when we arrived, we stopped in canyonlands national park and did a quick 2.5 mile hike with his trusty new bunting. the next day, we hiked to corona arch (which actually is not in arches national park). of course, it was just as beautiful as ever. i feel so lucky and blessed to be able to live in a place that has access to places like moab. i try my best to not take for granted the closeness to utah's national parks. 

what i learned: 

august was such a trooper with the road trip. we began driving in the morning right after his first meal of the day. he fell asleep almost immediately in the car, and we took a break halfway through the trip to get gas and i fed him again. we brought toys and he sat in his carseat and played with his toys/books... eventually falling asleep again. i realize not all babies are this great in carseats or on long road trips. however, august didn't seem to mind. i will say, though, he was very ready to stretch out once we arrived. 

this was our trial run in having august sleep in his new travel crib (the guava lotus travel crib). we have quite a bit of travel booked already for this year, so he will hopefully be logging some sleeping hours in this crib. it's designed specifically for air travel which we will be testing out in about three weeks. 

i'm so glad we decided to book an airbnb that had a bedroom with a door. we almost booked a room at a resort-y hotel, but i had a bad feeling about all of us sharing one room. we put august down to bed in the living room, set up his monitor, and went into our room to drink some post-hike beers and watch new girl. everyone slept that night. success! 

until next time, moab!