Our Christmas miracle came in the form of an email this year, and we are SUPER excited to finally share how it happened!

Thank you to Country Inns & Suites for making our Christmas wishes come true this year and sponsoring one of our favorite  family vacations.

The fact that I'm even writing this blog post makes me tear up a little.  Why? Because I'm sitting in my husband's hometown, celebrating our favorite holiday with his family……and we didn't think it would happen this year.

My husband grew up in Columbia, South Carolina.  And we live in Los Angeles.  Every year since we met, we've scoured the internet for inexpensive airline tickets to fly home.  We've flown on Christmas Day and back on New Year's Eve (cause no one wants to fly then).  Well, this year…..we just couldn't find tickets that seemed even close to reasonable.  Plus, my husband is in his last semester of graduate school (which means those student loans are about to mature).  So, we decided to do the adult thing.  We resigned ourselves to staying put in Los Angeles.  We visited my family in Northern California for Thanksgiving.  And it wasn't a horrible feeling.  We knew it would be a little bit lonely, and we knew that we'd miss seeing my husband's extended family.  But, it was only one year.  I decided to put my heart into decorating for the holidays……and to look on the bright side.

Enter, one of the most perfectly timed emails I've ever gotten.  Country Inns & Suites reached out, and wanted to send us home for the holidays.  They flew us to my husband's hometown, and we even got the luxury of our very own suite at their Columbia, South Carolina location.  Let me tell you, having our own little space to land after the full day of 1 Uber, 1 bus and two planes…..was like finding a mini slice of heaven.

Family Vacations on the brain? Country Inns & Suites are a GREAT option for creating your own home away from home!

A few of our favorite family-friendly amenities:

breakfast on site: traveling with kids isn't always the easiest……and one thing that makes it easier? Access to breakfast.  There's nothing as great as getting up early, and being able to walk right downstairs for breakfast (and the endless coffee doesn't hurt either).

24/7 cookies: we got into South Carolina LATE, almost 11 pm.  And guess what was waiting at check in? Freshly baked cookies.  They went a long way with one semi-jet lagged  four year old.

library: every Country Inns and Suites location has a library (with both kids and adults books) for use while onsite.  I love that we didn't have to bring our own books for bedtime stories!

pools: our location has an awesome indoor pool, Lydia actually made us go to the store to buy her a bathing suit……and LOVED swimming in the warm water while it was cold outside!

suite options: you can even book a room with a separate pull out bed in the living room area if you'd like some separation or an area to hang out after the kids go to bed…….

Thinking about family vacations? We highly recommend the Country Inns and Suites…..we're actually working on planning a family road trip this summer and can't wait to stop by a couple of their locations on the way!

winter holidays