I believe in family vacations. What? I can sense that question coming
from you as you read the first sentence. Maybe, just maybe, you believe that is
a shallow, uninspiring, and selfish thing for me to believe. However, in my
humble, underrated opinion, I do not. Let me tell you why.
My life began in a family that
had to work hard for every penny earned. I was born to my mother when she was
35 years old. Having a baby at 35 isn’t unique, though, having your ninth
living baby at that age is more unusual. Then, making it more bazaar, is having
that baby with your fourth husband at that ripe young age. Wait, it gets even
better. Eighteen months later my baby sister was born, and then poof, another
marriage was dissolved, which, leaves a single mother with 10 children. As you
can imagine, we did not really vacation except for an occasional camping trip,
of which I have few memories.
I craved a nice normal family. Well, family exists, nice exists, but normal
is a relative term. I joined a church at the age of fourteen that emphasizes
family as central to God’s plan of happiness. My dark haired knight in shining
armor, let’s rephrase that, my long haired knight in a trench coat, came to
rescue me and take me to that place of forever families that vacations as nice,
normal families.
We
did not go on a honeymoon, as Larry just got off his mission, and I had just
completed one year at BYU. We just
didn’t have enough money. Because of that, Larry’s parents drove us to the
Manti temple to be sealed, then we were dropped off at Hotel Utah in Salt Lake
City for the night, and picked us up the following morning. Not much romance
could happen with your in-laws in the front seat.
As a young family, we started
with tent camping, and then tent trailer camping, which was all good and fine
but, then it happened, the non-tent vacation bug bit and I’ve been affected
ever since. There is no cure, and it is all my husband’s fault. After being married for almost ten years with
four kids under our feet, he came home one day with a surprise out of the blue.
We were going on our honeymoon. Yippee!
A cruise to the Islands of the Bahamas to calm the soul, deepen our
love, get away from the phone, forget about work, take a break from the kids,
and enjoy the ocean breeze running its fingers through my hair as I walked on
the deck of the massive cruise ship, and lazily lounging on the beach chairs as
someone else cleaned the toilet.
As a family, we graduated to
hotel vacations as the money situation improved. We went to the land where you can
be a kid, we visited large cities and participated in activities that appealed
to families. But, the vacation we like to call the vacation from hell, occurred.
The tulip festival in the North West part of Washington. Let’s just say
teenagers aren’t into tulip festivals, and we will never listen to my father in
laws vacation advice again. We wanted the family to enjoy being together, not
be squished in a hotel room bickering, so we bought vacation credits, and now
we vacation all over and stay in condominiums. The. Best. Ever.
I
believe when families play and vacation together, families stay together,
literally. We go places where we can play in and on the water. We’ve snorkeled
in Hawaii, and we were sure we saw Nemo. We hike trails to see the beauty of
the area, and ride bikes to places cars can’t go.
Family vacations are fun! They
help bond relationships, make happy memories, and teach of God’s love for us as
we explore and learn about this beautiful world we live in. I wonder what kind
of vacations are in the life after this? Snorkeling through cloud puffs? If
it’s with family it’ll be great.
