Alas! Another Tsai family vacation for me to intrude on. This would mark my third year in a row to be fortunate enough to be invited back for another family vacation. I am always really excited to go to wherever they take me, and this was no exception. Our first day of travel was really just on the road for 8 + hours, so this post is just a recap of the first two days travelling to Sedona, and our first encounters of the Sedona area. The funny thing is, Melody’s father loves Denny’s, which would break tradition if we didn’t go. This Denny’s is just a city over from Yorba Linda, the hometown of the Tsai’s.

The trip is completely different from my mentality, which is to just suck it up and get to my destination as soon as possible. But this may be due to my love/hate relationship of driving. I do love driving, but I hate just sitting on my butt for hours at a time. So, we stopped by a rest area for everyone to get a break and stretch, I decided to get the I-10 sign for some reason. I guess I just find an opportunity to take a photo of everything.

An hour or so later we had to stop for lunch, and what better stop the Love’s? A road tripper’s beacon! This is Melody excited to leave, but lets just rewind a little for an embarrassing shot of Melody’s sister, Marisa.

Yeah, she looks like a chipmunk of sorts, shy about hiding?

Another thing about Marisa is that she collects silly bands. While we were buying some drinks for the road, there was a bucket full of these pieces of plastic. One was marked, glow-in-the-dark. Oh what great placement for “impulse” shopping.

Her collection.

The Tsai “twins” with their large Arizona tea cans.

Melody’s brother, and our new additional member to the Tsai family vacation, Mitchell’s fiancee, Afui. This time a stop for dinner, for some home cooked pizza. Oh, and the matching shirts are from a family inside joke, “Whats the plan?”

The next day, Melody and I were wearing the same shirts. I should have gotten a photo of both of us.

Some planning for our week ahead.

A fitting chocolate filled Koala.

Later that night we went to a Sedona original, a light show. This is an annual event where the winner is invited back the following year to compete again. It was about a half mile long road of lit houses. I wanted to try to get some nice bokeh portraits, but had a wide lens so it was rather difficult.

Here is our best attempt at the “Botraits.”

And just an example of one of the displays, which was one of my favorites.