Look. At these. Munchkins.
Over the past few months I’ve been documenting my family travel resolutions with Alamo, and for my final post as one of the company’s ambassadors we decided to throw a party to celebrate a year that’s certainly seen its share of travel – and not “just” travel, but travel that’s actively brought our family together, exposing us to places, people and experiences that we’ll carry with us forever.
Way back in March I wrote about my resolution to travel consciously, to make sure my kids feel not like they’re just “along for the ride,” but are an actual part of the process. I wrote about creating a travel journal for our family – a travel journal that I started on our house-hunting trip to San Jose, and that we ended up taking with us across the entire country, filling with jotted-down memories and pasted-in whatevers – and how I hoped that it would remind us that travel isn’t just a way to get from one place to another.
Getting to where you were headed is nice and all, but it’s the road itself that’s the experience.
I believe that; I really do. And the past few months have made me believe it even more.
And now we’re here, settled in at last, and the fact that we’ve completed not just a summer, but a full year of some very serious family travel seemed like as good of a reason to celebrate as any. We invited over some old friends and some new ones, put out balloons, twenty million water toys (plus a pink donut float, because I couldn’t help it), and an Instax camera and photo props (you know, “for the kids”). We ate sandwiches and BBQ and drank tequila and Squirt. And we made plans, of course: plans for multi-family trips to Tahoe and Big Sur (and some TBD location where we might be able to do some serious glamping; I’m feeling New Mexico, but we’ll see).
Everyone stayed until the sun set, at which point my friend Elise looked around and said, “Oh my god. We destroyed your house.”
I mean, I certainly hope so. A party that ends with an intact house is no party at all, in my opinion.
Big thanks to Alamo for helping us celebrate this year of family travel, and this wonderful new life we’ve landed in.
🙂 🙂 🙂
The Decor: Tons and tons of yellow and blue balloons (which we filled ourselves from a miniature helium tank; that was basically a full-on party right there) and sunflowers in blue vases.
The Food: Peach and Prosciutto Crostini (with ricotta instead of mozzarella, this time) for a snack, then a Korean BBQ spread created with the considerable assistance of Trader Joe’s.
The Drinks: Squirt-A-Ritas and Miraval Rose for the grownups, Hansen’s juices for the kids.
The Favors: Silver lunchboxes filled with fun surprises from Alamo, including a waterproof speaker, crafting supplies, car travel accessories, and an Amex gift card. And white sunglasses for everyone, of course.
If you do one thing at your next party, please put out an Instax camera and some film. You’ll see.
With Morgan by the pool.
Favors from Alamo (and sunglasses for everyone!).
Indy took a whole series of me and Kendrick making drinks in the kitchen that includes some of my favorite shots of us ever, just because it’s fun to see what we look like to him when we’re just messing around, being his dorky parents.
Shockingly, this little experiment actually ended well. Three seconds after this was taken, my son was officially his friend Bailey’s hero, having gallantly retrieved her wayward balloon. (AWW.)
Yurrrrm these are good. (I do like them a little better with mozzarella, but the ricotta’s good too.)
Took a few photos of this particular moment.
As you can tell. (I mean, I had to. Look at them.)
Our daughter is slowly morphing into a fish.
Sunset and happy (and tired) babies.
I never met a photo prop I didn’t like. Fortunately, my friends feel the same way.
The day winding down with some piano-playing courtesy of my friend Elise’s husband Miles.
And this, this, this. <3
A recap of this year’s CTM posts with Alamo:
My #AlamoDriveHappy Resolution Challenge
This post was created in collaboration with Alamo. (Follow Alamo on Twitter and Facebook.)
