A Happy Little Vacation

So, many, many moons ago, our family went on vacation.  It was all sortsa good- like lounging in the sun while the kids snoozed in their strollers good.  It's always nice that as a family who spends a lot of time together daily, that we also get recharged together.

Here are some long overdue moments from vacation that were just way too good to pass up sharing.

Thanks, Walt

When I was a child, I had the awesome fortune of getting to visit Disney World an obscene amount of times... like to the point that I'm pretty sure we went once a year for just about a decade.  Perhaps it was because of all of this childhood time spent in Disney World that I hold such a fondness for the  happiest place on Earth; actually, I know it is.  (For the 100th time though: sometimes, for the happiest place on Earth, people sure are grumpy.)  So, when my family and I had the opportunity to visit Disney World, I seriously got my nostalgia on and agreed in a heart beat.

Disney World is still the same: a magical spot in the world that makes me remember that fun is sometimes about animatronic characters, stroller parking areas and overly Mickey Mouse-d everything. So, thanks to Walt Disney for everything and for bringing so much joy to my life.

One of the things I wish I had done more of was picture taking.  We managed to get a lot of good ones and I do have a whole lot more on my phone (spoiler alert, will there be a second post?) that I think are great, but it's still not enough.  However, there were two specific moments that I couldn't resist going overboard on the pictures with and here they are:

1.  Cullen totally working the camera and Arden just taking it all in.

 2. What I fondly like to refer to as The Character Move It Along Kid moment (Stitch wasn't getting that we wanted the picture together...)

We Paid For It

Before I had kids, I didn't understand the concept of a kid's schedule, it was all naptimes and diaper changes and feedings galore; well now that I have kids, I understand.  Just so everyone knows, we did a terrible job putting our kiss on a schedule, I could never figure out exactly how to do it.  But thankfully, we were able to work with our day care and get them onto a routine napping schedule and it has been our go to schedule ever since.  (You should know, that while we try to stick to the schedule, if it gets throw off, or we have to make exceptions, we do.  I have always known that there's value in changing things up every once in a while... Well, that and I think its annoying when parents have a diehard schedule that they never deviate from, what kind of nonsense is that?) However, schedules kinda don't exist on vacation, there's early mornings and late nights and somewhere in between- if we're lucky- someone will take a nap, or little heads will start to bob as we rumble our cheap umbrella strollers up and down the boardwalk, but those moments are few and far between.

Recently, I saw a post something on Facebook from a parent that was talking about "pushing through" their child's nap and that they (the parent and the child) were going to pay dearly for it.  I know that feeling and anyone who's travelled with children does too, it's like taking the first bite of a slice of pizza- you know it's going to burn the roof of your mouth and that you'll have temporary pain, but you do it anyways because it's worth it.  Similarly, I want these little ones to have the time of their lives and vacations are the perfect opportunity to do that, its a thousand new experiences over the course of however many days, and with each new adventure can come some crazy behavior- on everyones part.  And I mean that sincerely; when the kids are melting down, I'm right there with them, but I try to control myself and my boys as best I can.

It's funny though, I went on several big trips and lots of little ones as a child and I don't remember my parents ever melting down, or calling it a day at noon like I'd sometimes like to; however, being on the other side makes me realize that at different points, I'm sure they wanted to.  But here's what happens when parents want to throw in the towel, they don't.  So that means that I didn't melt down (ok, well maybe a little, but not all the way) and Jim and I decided that were were going to have an awesome vacation, regardless of the kids behavior and that decision worked out pretty great, because I've been having the time of my life spending continuous days with my children, husband, family and friends- even forgetting what day it is.

So, we paid for the no naps and lugging them back and forth on the boardwalk in some seriously humid weather, with some pretty epic meltdowns over toys, TV and who was being pushed by whom in the stroller, but it was worth; we'd do it again and more accurately, we are going to do it again, on every single vacation to come and I hope, like me, that when my children are older they remember these trips with fondness and that they too stray from the schedules and structure and just let their kids be free spirits.

Family

At least once a month, I thank Jim for being willing to relocate to my hometown.  I realize it's only 45 minutes away from where he spent the majority of his childhood, but I don't think I'd be willing to move that far away from my family.

I live 5 minutes away from my Mom and Dad, my sister and I live in the same neighborhood, my brother is 30 minutes away depending on city traffic and we have family dinners with my parents, siblings our kids and my Mom's sister at least once (if not twice) a week.  My Dad and his brothers moved from their hometown and ended up living within 15 minutes of one another.  When I was growing up, my cousins and I lived on the same block and partially shared a yard.  All but one of my 1 cousins live within 20 minutes of each other and every year, my Dad's side of the family goes on vacation together; this year there were 22 of us.  And we make it a point to Facetime with my Aunt who lives 2+ hours away about every other week.  I will spare you the details of each of my second cousins, but as you get the point; family is important and proximity means a lot to me.

When we don't have someone from our extended family at our house, Cullen looks around and goes, "where is everyone?"  I've tried to tell him that when our family comes over that they're just visiting, he doesn't get it.  Like me, I'm positive that my children will be close with their siblings, cousins, Aunts and Uncles.  One of the reasons that we've remained close is because we make it a point to spend time with one another- hanging out is something that we're kinda of awesome at.

This weekend, we had the opportunity to pile into a beach house 11 strong.  Sure there were a  few little kerfuffles, but aren't there always?  Aside from that, there were also a lot of laughs and my husband even sprang into action to help someone who needed medical attention (it's he dreamy?).  Going to the beach is one of those things that my family's been doing for longer than I've been alive and I'm convinced it's experiences like this have kept us so close over the years.

Spending time with one another, as I've lamented before is something that I don't think I get to do nearly enough of, so I tried to savor every moment and image from this weekend.  I'm saying right now, that I will make it a point to do this more often, to not have days like yesterday where I only saw my kids for 40 minutes, whether my family likes it or not.