Explore.Dream.Discover.

"Fill your life with experiences, not things. Have stories to tell, not stuff to show" - Anonymous 

Family vacation......something I look forward to all year, and I want to tell you why.
When I was little, my two sisters and I would pile into the family van (with no AC and only the little "wing" windows in the back) with my mom and my Grandma and we would take off on some grand adventure. I'm sure for the adults it was mostly hell, at the time it seemed that way to us anyway, but some of my best childhood memories and experiences come from those trips. We never went too far, but we saw just about everything there was to see in Missouri and Arkansas! We saw caves, highway flea markets, the St. Louis Gateway Arch, Dog patch USA, Six-Flags over mid-america, Branson, Silver Dollar City, rode "The Ducks", we got lost in bad parts of big cities, we got tired and cranky, we had fun, we made memories.
Really that is what life is about, making memories. When my sisters and I look back on those trips, we never talk about our vehicle, or even what star level hotels we stayed at. We talk about the experiences, after all those are all that matter.

So every year, I stress myself to the max, trying to plan the "perfect" family vacation......wanting my kids to see as much as they can see,leaving my husband baffled by why these family vacations are SO important to me.

  "We do not remember days, we remember moments" - Cesar Pavese

 Family vacations are so important to me because I get to watch my kids discover new things and realize the world is much larger and diverse than ourselves and our little town. We have taken big vacations, we have taken small "stay-cations", the point is ALWAYS just to go somewhere together to have a new experience. When we first started vacations I would take a small binder with me, highlighting everything we would do, I even had the times we would visit each thing, I would really try to pack our days full. I have realized since those early vacations, that it is impossible to schedule every minute of a vacation, and really it just stresses me out more. So, now we just have a general idea, we try to pick one thing to do every day and the rest we play by ear. Jason and I have taken a few vacations by ourselves, in our 15 years of marriage we have been on vacation exactly 3 times without our kids and every time (except Vegas) I have wished the kids were with us. There is nothing like experiencing new things through the eyes of your children. 

 Our vacations used to consist of visiting Iowa, then we decided it was time to branch out.  We really love when the grandparents can join us, it is an amazing thing to watch really, I think watching my mom, dad,and in-laws interact with my children, make memories with them and just watching them enjoy themselves as grandparents is awesome. We also like when we can meet up with friends a long the way, and have them become part of our experience. As most everyone knows, we just returned from a 5 day trip to Arizona, this was our first whole family airplane ride, and we got to see some of our favorite people as well as some amazing things. From breathtaking views of the Red Rocks in Sedona to the awe-inspiring beauty of the Grand Canyon, it was one of the best vacations we have been on. (I say this after every vacation).

 This year (in the Fall) for the first time as adults we will be trying a "whole family" vacation with my mom, dad, sisters, and all of our kids. I know we won't all get along the whole time, but I know we will make some pretty awesome memories for our kids.

So, my advice for vacation is simple.....GO! Just go somewhere........try to relax, don't over plan because it won't go as planned, there will be bumps in the road, it won't be the end of the world, I promise (something I learned from a very inspiring friend). 

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do , than by the things you did do. So, throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbour & catch the tradewinds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." - Mark Twain

"Don't ask if you don't want to know the answer"

My last blog was pretty controversial, and deep. I am actually procrastinating, we are going on family vacation this week and I should be getting ready, or cleaning, or something, but instead I thought Oh, I'll write a quick blog, so I won't elaborate too much below......this one should just be fun.......enjoy!

So, I have had several of my friends post the following "fun" little questionnaire....I have to admit, I saw it and thought, "oh this will be fun".....I should of known better! I did not like some of the answers I got, now ~ I realize two of my kids are teenagers, so of course they didn't even want to participate, but I made them! "Don't ask if you don't want to know the answer" is a saying that quickly came to mind during this fun little experiment! Instead of being hurt or upset about some of their answers, obviously I need to learn from the answers and do some work on my parenting skills...........I don't yet have this "mom" thing perfected. So, I am going to share with you my bit of self-reflection this morning.

Kids Facebook Thing: WITHOUT ANY prompting, ask your child these questions and write down EXACTLY  what they say. It is a great way to find out what they really think. When you re-post put your child's age.

Well, I have three children, as most of you know.....they range in age from 7 to 17 and they are all 3 boys, and they all think they are HILARIOUS! I am just going to write their answers, in no particular order and my take on each on (I have to defend myself)!

1. What is something mom always says to you? 

I had expected "I Love you" or "be careful" or maybe even a "do your chores".......but NO, instead I got "cuss words" (not true by the way); "she tells me to shut up" (um......also not true) and "whatever" (this one is true). So, from these answers I learned that I possibly swear a lot, (though never personally directed at my children, they still see it as me saying cuss words ALL THE TIME). I also learned that "be quiet" , "please stop talking", "ok, you have said that 1000 times" all mean "shut up" to my child. And when my child asks me a question, any question, and my response is "whatever" it may seem like I don't care. Wow......so, some things to work on right out of the gate!

 2. What makes mom happy?

This one should be easy right? These answers weren't so bad, "pizza", "chocolate" and "flowers".What concerned me was the length of time it took for them to think of something, it shouldn't be a brain busting question.....do they think I'm not happy? Uh oh.....more work!

3. What makes mom sad?

Well, this one was much easier for them. "When someone dies", "when Rhett gets lost"  and "when someone passes away". All true.

 4. How does your mom make you laugh?

While I can think of a million other things I would add, if prompting was allowed, this was a round of answers that didn't make me feel like I'm on the bottom of the list for "Mother of the Year". "tells me happy things", "smiling" and "she tells funny jokes".

 5. What was your mom like as a child?

I am guessing they have heard enough of my childhood stories to draw their own conclusions to this, so the answers this round were "ornery", "awesome" and "kind of a brat" (all pretty true).

6. How old is your mom?

Well, this is always a great time......I mean really???? So, obviously only one of my children keeps track of my age, I got ...... "34?" , "36" and "I don't stinking know, 40?" no comment.....just no comment.

7. How tall is your mom?

Ok, well this is about the same as the previous question...they sort of just look at me like "why does this matter". From this question I learned that we need to work on simple measuring this summer..... "short" , "I don't know 5'5"?" , "6'5" "...........yeah

8. What is her favorite thing to do?

Oh, no....back to the serious questions! "sleep", "sell her car" , and "hang out with her friends" ok, those work!

9. What does your mom do when you are not around?

First an odd look, probably having never thought about it, "clean house", "she goes to the store" and "sings like a crazy woman". 

 10. If your mom becomes famous what will it be for? 

Well, this had some surprising answers " singing" (I totally expected this one from all of them), "being the governor maybe?" , "being president of the United States of America" (um.....didn't expect those last 2 AT ALL!)

11. What is your mom really good at?

Across the board the answer was the same "cooking", thank you children....and a shout out to my Granny, for instilling that in me.

 12. What is your mom not very good at?

"Mowing the Lawn, we've all seen that, and it's not good" (thanks), and then 2 "playing sports" obviously they don't believe my middle school all star stories.

 13. What does your mom do for a job? 

They all got this one right!!!! "she sells real estate", "real estate agent" and "she sells houses"

14. What is your mom's favorite food?

Oddly.....this was a tough one for them and I'm just going to add that none of them were even close to right...... "mashed potatoes", "steak", and "fish"........honestly, I have TONS of favorite foods, none of them made this list....

15. What makes you proud of your mom?

"That she tries her best to take care of us", "the way she sings" and "yeah, what Rhein said, she tries her best". Well, I might be doing okay at some of these things.....

16. If your mom were a character, who would she be?

Well, this is a fun one....I totally expected random "Golden Girls" characters (my kids have a small obsession with the Golden Girls), instead I got cartoons....."Mickey Mouse, I don't know why I said that" "Captain Hook" and "Tinker Bell".....hmmmmmmm

17. What do you and your mom do together?

A strange array here....."travel", "probably nothing" and "go to the store" ......hmmm, I'm gonna go with one of them is tired of answering these questions....maybe we should have taken small breaks!

18. How are you and your mom the same?

"We both wear glasses", "We both have two devices" (he means a phone and a tablet), and "nothing". This is actually hilarious, because all 3 of my children have many things that are similar to me, from looks, behavior, personality, anxiety.....I guess this question teaches me that we need to work on looking past superficial things.

19. How are you and your mom different?

Way easier!!! "I like football, and my mom doesn't", "I'm a boy, not a girl" and "I go to school, she doesn't".

20. How do you know your mom loves you?

Ughhhh.....holding my breath after I ask this one. "She takes care of us", "She tells me ALL the time" and "the way she talks to me" (this last answer is from the same child that said I cuss at him in question 1, just wanted to point that out). 

21. What does your mom like most about your dad?

Oh no, another one with a LONG pause afterwards...."the way he talks to her", "well, he married her, and they talk a lot", "that he's funny".  Thousands of other things that they didn't mention......I did learn from this question though, that I need to focus more on the positive things and not complain so much, they shouldn't need to think more than 2 seconds to say something I love about my husband.

22. What is your mom's favorite place to go?

Ok, so one of these is NOT true, but probably not the one you think! "Wal-Mart", "Topeka", "The liquor store" ......yep....no comment.

23. How old was your mom when you were born?

Ok, so another reminder that we need to work on Math this summer.....only one of these is wrong, but honestly he didn't even try to figure it out, he just guessed a random number, one that was older than the number he threw out there in question 6 about my current age! "38", "19", "29"

So, this was fun.....but it really was also insightful. Sometimes as parents we don't realize how certain things look from our children's perspective, or how seemingly harmless words might come off to them. I'm glad I asked them, it's a great activity to do with your kids......you might both walk away learning something, or you could do the opposite of me and not over analyze everything (I wish I could turn it off sometimes).