Cancun 2016.

What can I say? We love Mexico! 😁 Every year when we think of where we should go for our family vacation Cancun is always on the table. It's such a quick and easy flight from the DC area and there are a lot of resorts that are very family friendly. Even though we really wanted to go to another part of the world that we haven't visited before we ultimately decided on Cancun this year again because we found this relatively new family resort called Generations. The resort is completely all inclusive and because we went on our trip during off-peak season there weren't that many other families at the resort. The rooms and resort were amazing and it had everything we needed to make everyone happy. A spa for Sarah, food for me and the pool and beach for the girls 😊. It was such a wonderful and memorable time together with our family and given how cold it is in DC it is already, I'm totally missing Cancun. All these photos were taken either with my Leica Q, Canon 5D or my iPhone. 

Los Angeles.

I can't believe that I'm only now just getting the chance to blog about our first family trip to LA. I knew a while back that I was going to have to go to LA to be the best man at one of my good friend's wedding. I wasn't sure how well the girls would handle the 5-hour flight out of DC since this would be officially the longest flight they have taken but they both did amazingly well. We Airbnb'd a beautiful LA property right in West Hollywood where the girls could have a bedroom to themselves, my mother-in-law would have her own room and Sarah and I would have our own room too. We had planned out a week of events before having to attend the wedding on the weekend. I love Disney. I knew that we definitely had to take advantage of being so close to Disneyland to take the girls there. Then there was exploring LA and doing the Long Beach Aquarium. This one of the most difficult trips we have then to date since Sarah & I had our own events that we had to attend while we were in LA and we needed to lean on Sarah's mom to watch them in our absence. Also, sleeping in a new location is always hard for the girls but we knew going into this despite all the challenges it was something we knew we wanted to experience together as a family. It was a success and great learning experience and a trip that we will look back on for years to come! All these photos were taken with a combination of my Leica Q, Canon 5D MK3 and of course my trusty iPhone. 

NYC.

Ever since my brother moved to New York City we have had this trip to visit him on our list of things to do. It was both of the girls' first time in NYC and Olivia was definitely a bit overwhelmed by the craziness of Manhattan. We absolutely love Airbnb and wouldn't know what to do without it. We stayed at a really cozy and safe 2 bedroom condo in Brooklyn that was walking distance from the Brooklyn Bridge Park and the surrounding areas were pretty family friendly and convenient. We wished the weather was a bit warmer during our stay but we were lucky to get a few times of sunny warm weather. We spent our entire first day in Brooklyn and most of our time exploring the Brooklyn Bridge Park's activities. We got ice cream and pizza all the while getting to watch the sunset over Manhattan before returning home for a much needed bath for the girls and bedtime. The next day we met up with my brother and had breakfast at the Rockefeller Center and he took the girls to a few toy stores before finally getting to see his apartment in midtown Manhattan. We then headed to Central Park Zoo and ended the night with some dinner and shopping in KTown. It was really great for the girls to have some quality play time with their uncle and that was pretty much the highlight of the trip. Things don't always go as planed and it's never easy when you travel with young children like ours but we hope that we will continue to have opportunities like this to travel as a family and continue to push ourselves to make more memories like these =).