Family Vacation 2026 - France

Our big family adventure for 2026 was a trip to France - Normany, Brittany, the Loire Valley and Paris. This trip has been a dream of mine for several years and I was finally able to convince Lee that we should go. While I'm starting to think that nothing will top our Alaska trip, we had a pretty incredible time on this trip. Over 14 days, we visited four different regions of France, saw countless historical monuments and churches, ate incredible food, and walked - a lot! Some of our favorite memories are below but if you want to see our entire trip, click here for our travel blog to see each and every adventure. 

Palace of Versailles

Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles.

Gardens of Versailles

Honfleur

Deauville

Normandy American Cemetery

Omaha Beach

The Headlands

Pointe-du-Hoc

Le Mont-St-Michel

Chateau d'Angers

Apocalypse Tapestry

Hunting dog demonstration

Chateau d'Azay-de-Rideau

Loire River

Le Clos de la Mesierie

Eiffel Tower

Notre Dame Cathedral

Arc de Triomphe

Musee d'Orsay

Spring Hikes

While we didn't get in a ton of hiking this spring, we did manage few nice ones.

Wadsworth State Park after a big storm.

Wadsworth State Park - Big Falls

Daniel Schwartzkopf Nature Preserve

Connecticut River

Spring hike in Potsdam, New York means snow.

Back to the Land of Enchantment

In mid March, Elizabeth headed back to Albuquerque for the last six months of her internship. She and Lee drove across the country again, following the same route as they did last spring. The trip was mostly uneventful, although they narrowly missed a severe tornado outbreak in Indiana and Missouri. Elizabeth is working 30 hours a week while finishing up her masters classes. She will transition to 40 hours per week once her exams are finished. She is doing really well - found a gym, hikes and rides on the weekends, and enjoys her work. It's hard to be sad that she is so far away when she's so happy. 

I can't believe that Lee got all of this into her car. It must have been quite the game of Tetras.

We don't have a set time to speak, but she usually calls us about something funny.

Visiting her fellow intern in El Paso and checking out his lab at UT.

First time everyone answered their phones at the same time for a family FaceTime.