It’s easy to see family vacations as a luxury of sorts… something you’ll do if you have the time and budget for it, but there is an overwhelming amount of actual scientific proof and measurable data that shows that vacations are essential to the mental, physical, and emotional well-being of our families.
My parents always asked my input on vacations when I was a teen, maybe they were crazy but they did want to know. Now I didn't have 100% of the say(I wasn't paying) but we would have discussions. And I always appreciated the opportunities that my parents gave me to travel when I was a teen or during college. A week or two away from my friends didn't sway me when I had a chance to go to Europe for 2 weeks. From a young age I have never let a good travel opportunity slip away.
Eighteen summers… at first it seems like you’ve got all the time in the world. You spend years chasing toddlers, driving carpool, building dioramas for the science fair. Countless hours of dance lessons, music recitals, and ball games. What feels like endless arguments over homework, cleaning their room, screen time, and more. The business of raising a family is work… and it never ends.
When our kids are little, it can seem like we have all the time in the world with them, but in reality, we only get 18 summers.
Eighteen summers… 936 weekends… at first it sounds like a lot of time, but as the saying goes the days may be long, but the years are short. It can feel a bit like one day you are buckling them into a car seat before you go anywhere and the next you are loading the car full of things to move them into their dorm room as they start college and wondering where the time went.
