Life with Kids and Traveling with them too!

Our summer sure hasn’t worked out as planned.  It should be no surprise as when you “plan” something,  the plans usually tend to change, at least in my household.   We had a summer of “fun, fun, fun” planned and we were all looking forward to traveling and enjoying our time together.  Not that we haven’t been having fun or enjoying our time,  just not as we had imagined.  Our first “planned” fun, trip of the summer, was the trip to Grandma’s 100th Birthday in New Mexico. (Yes, 100!).  And if you keep up with my updates, than you all know that I stayed home to handle the paperwork for our “big move” while the rest of my gang took the trip.  It was painful, but fortunately, only a few days and we all managed to survive!  Next, our very good friends from the east coast were coming out to our sunny west coast & we had planned (months in advance) to meet up with them in San Diego and spend a week at the beach while we celebrated their son’s birthday.  Of course, as fate would have it, our ” big move”,which had been delayed a month at this point, just happened to take place the very same week!  We did manage to visit with them for a day though, and at Legoland, so all was not lost.  Then amidst all the unpacking and getting settled, we were supposed to be taking a ”planned” road trip (planned a year ago) to Colorado for our friends’ wedding.  Yes, a road trip, perfect thing to do when gas is about $50 a gallon….or whatever it is now.  Well, that didn’t quite work out as “planned” either.  My hubby and daughter flew out to Colorado this morning, while myself and our little guy stayed back home.   Yes, summer time, which should be slow, not very busy, has somehow managed to be my busiest time of the year!  It’s a bit unfair, yes,  and disappointing.  However, the funny thing through all of these changes to our “plans and fun”, and as disappointed as I was, if you had looked at my kids, you would had never known there had been any changes to our summer.  They managed to have “fun” no matter where we were or what we were doing.   Like the day our move was switched from a Friday to Monday and our beds were all “packed” away, so we had to make due and sleep on mattresses only.  My husband and I were frustrated with the whole situation and all it took was one glance at our kids to instantly change the mood.  They were laughing & giggling with blankets spread everywhere.  Sleeping on mattresses was not only “fun” but as my daughter said, “cool” too!  And when we took the kids to the Discovery Musuem instead of the beach b/c our plans had changed, I realized beach or museum, it really didn’t matter - they managed to have fun and were likely just as happy as they would have been at the beach.  Yes, kids have a way of making you realize that what you think is important really isn’t important at all.  In fact, my daughter offered to stay home with me instead of go to Colorado (even though she was excited about wearing her fancy, new dress) so that I wouldn’t be lonely.  So, I convinced her that her brother & I would be fine, and this was her “special trip” with daddy - to which she immediately perked up & stuffed her backpack full of stuff!  Seeing the excitement in her eyes as she realized that instead of this being a “trip”, it was a ”special trip” for her and daddy, well, it was all I needed to realize that even though my summer isn’t  quite going as “I” imagined or planned, her summer is better than she could have Ever Imagined.  I have to imagine my son’s summer is going pretty good too.  As he splashed me & giggled as I gave him his bath this evening, and then hugged me tight as I put him down to bed, and then as I was closing his door, I glanced his way and he gave me the biggest smile before he lay down his head.  I realized (as my heart melted), he doesn’t need fancy trips or vacations either to have fun.  None of us do.  Fun doesn’t happen because you plan something or go somewhere.  Fun happens because you allow yourself to have FUN.  So, now, go out and have some fun!!!

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