Summer Vacation

Ahh summer vacation time, it's my favorite.  I will admit now that when my kids were younger vacations were not very fun for me.  As a mom of toddlers it's like you are dealing with the same old crap just in a different place.  It's not fun or relaxing to be away from home for a long period of time, the kids' schedules get out of whack and you end up stuck in doors with fussy kids while everyone else is having fun.  Now that my children are older, 11, 9 and 4, I really enjoy our family vacations.  We have so much fun that it's difficult to come back home.

I grew up going to the same cabin on the water one week each summer and I loved it.  My husband grew up staying in cabins near water in the summer as well and we both wanted that for our children.  We were fortunate enough to be able to go to my in-laws resort for three summers and my family's cabin on the water for several summers.  Now that both the resort and the cabin are no longer in the family my husband and I decided we needed to find a place that we could take our kids for many summers to come and boy did we find a great place!  We stay in a cabin on the water and the kids love to swim, fish, boat and play on the playground with other kids that stay at the same resort.  We go for evening boat rides, roast marshmallows over the campfire and just have fun.  The resort we stay in is about a 10 minute drive from a large town that offers many activities so we take in a ball game, race go-karts, play minigolf and check out some of the neat stores.  One of my favorite things to do is to go out on our dock in the early morning when my husband and son go fishing and just sit out there in the cool breeze and read.  It's my quiet time and I LOVE it!!

Family vacations don't have to be long or expensive but in my opinion they are important.  Any sort of  'vacation' you take with your kids will be memorable.  Family vacations don't always go as planned but usually those are the ones that produce the memories to provide laughs for years to come.

"It isn't how much time you spend somewhere that makes it memorable: it's how you spend the time."

Author: David Brenner