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vacation

Hi y'all! Just wanted to post a quick update about our trip! We are just about to head out to Tennessee for the second BBQ competition of the trip, but before we do that I had to share about the Missouri leg. After driving for 3 days, we made it to the American Royal BBQ competition in Kansas City where the team competed in two back to back competitions. They knew it was a tough competition and only hoped to get "a call," to be placed in the top 15 in any category, where they'd be announced and receive a ribbon. The first day was the Invitational where they placed 2nd in ribs out of 165 top teams in the nation. The next day was the Open where they competed against 615 teams, including all of the 165 teams from the day before. The day before's awards only made the team more nervous knowing that a top call was totally possible. With no calls in the first 3 categories, and after really bad brisket scores the day before, we thought it was time to go home. When the announcer got to the top 4 in brisket, he let everyone know that everyone

On Monday, Andy and I drove the rest of the way home from spending a week and a half in Colorado. With two back to back competitions in Colorado, Andy and I thought we'd make a vacation out of it and spend the week in between at my aunt and uncle's in the beautiful town of Dillon, just a short drive from Brekenridge. I just love the beauty of this state—especially during the start of autumn, and after you see these photos, you'll totally understand why! We started the trip winning 5th place at the Grand Junction Pork and Hop's BBQ competition in Grand Junction. This was my first time actually competing with Andy, as his sous chef. I still think I did only 5% of the work though! We then drove the few hours into the mountains to my aunts where we cuddled babies, played at the local playground (the neighbor's front yard, haha), celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary, and drove Boreas Pass Road to see the aspen trees turning their leaves into glorious autumn colors. We even got to drive down into Denver for a day and visit my favorite bookstore, The Tattered Cover. And then just this past weekend, we competed

Last week I posted about my time at the Walt Disney Family Museum, which was the whole point of this trip, but while we were going up there with our friends Lauren and Kellen, we made the most of it with stops for dinner with friends, touristing around the city, and getting to attend our friend's newly launched church! First stop: Bakersfield! Our friend Kathleen moved there 2 years ago and this was my first visit to her new hometown! It was definitely an overdue visit. Aren't these 2 too cute! Plus I got to see the Little Free Library in person that I had posted about a few months ago (thanks to Kathleen's blog for the tip)! And of course when we had dinner at Eureka Burger, I just had to get the burger with the fried egg. Because it's the best. Oh and hot sauce, and bacon. There was no question there. Okay and just one more food photo

After we left the house in Maine, we drove 4 hours south to Boston, Massachusetts; checked into our hotel; and then made a quick drive into the city for some sight-seeing and dinner at Abbey Lane. Boston Commons Just to the north east side of the Boston Common was a fried dough cart, Daddy's Fried Dough, that we saw Duff from Charm City Cakes tour. Fried goodies covered in sauce is pretty much my favorite thing ever so we had to stop! But then we walked more through the park