Thursday, April 10, 2008

TFT: Vacations

Earlier this week I was chatting with a co-worker who goes to Florida every year for Spring Break. We began talking about vacations and how we never go on spring break but rather later in the year for some reason. Last year we went to Florida in June (Way too hot...we'll never do that again!), St. Louis in August and December (again, didn't care for Augusts' weather! And also... I guess I wouldn't say those were "big" vacations as we were visiting the Morrisons). Prior to that we'd gone to Key West (2005) and Mexico (2003) and visited Emerald Isle, NC a few times in 2004 and 2005 (my mom lived there... so again, I wouldn't say those were "vacations"... just "visiting").

When we got married we talked about doing a "big" vacation every other year... something like going to the beach or Florida or somewhere more pricey than just traveling to the coast of Michigan to camp or visiting friends in other states.

This year we have nothing on the horizon, as I think things will be chaotic enough with Hudson's arrival. We're planning on at least one, possibly two, camping trips (wish us luck with a newborn and 2 year old!), but other than that we will probably stick to our great state of Michigan. We've tossed around the idea of going to Mexico for 3 or 4 days this November for our 5 year anniversary (just the 2 of us.. no kids!) but I think that's right around the end of hurricane season and I'm not sure I want to gamble with a vacation and having sucky weather.

Next year, however, I'm hoping to go somewhere warm on Spring Break. Its almost a necessity living in Michigan when that time of year the dreariness seems to drag on and spring is teasing you every few days before kicking you again with cold wintery-like weather.

Anyhow... all this rambling leads me to my topic.

How often do you/your family take "big" vacations... like to tropical areas or the coast or other states and not just visiting family/friends? W
here are your favorite vacation spots? Beaches, in particular. I'm thinking a nice, warm sandy beach next spring break... relaxing all week (yeah... with a 3 year old and 10 month old LOL!). Anywhere you can recommend?

For us... like I said before, in the past 4 or 5 years we've gone on approximately one "big" vacation a year... although some I'd call more "visiting loved ones" rather than "vacations" kwim? I'd like to get into the habit of saving up for a big trip every other year. There are so many places I'd love to visit... the redwood forests, Niagara Falls, the Grand Canyon, different places in Mexico and the Caribbean, the Atlantis on Paradise Islands and just plain beaches, beaches beaches... LOL!

Other TFT'ers:
Kasey talks about googling
Kristi talks about celebrity gossip
Jessica talks about at-home parties
Anne talks about unwinding before bed
Jenny talks about blog impressions
Michelle talks about being happy
Heather talks about privates
Katie talks about baby decisions

14 comments:

  1. We have a thing about not going anywhere where you can't drink the water - we have in the past but just prefer not to now.

    Last big trip was to Maui when Morgan was 8.5 months old for 2 weeks. That was awesome - then again, how can Maui not be? LOVE it.

    We have no plans for this year either - travelling with a new baby is too scary to me! Maybe next year - before the baby can crawl.

    Oh yeah, we did go to Palm Springs with Morgan in Nov and he was an awesome traveller!

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  2. Being that Heath and I don't have any kids yet we go on several vacations every year. We usually take a trip to our Favorite resort in Mexico the El Dorado Seaside Suites. But, we also make a trip to Las Vegas every year, many camping trips and weekend trips here and there to states closer to ours.

    I recommend Mexico to everyone and the place where we stay is PERFECT! It is also one of the most affordable resorts in that area. As for going in November. Hurrican Season should be wrapped up my then. We have always gone in September and early October and have ran into Hurricane problems both times. But were lucky that we were barely missed.

    Whatever you do, I am sure that it will be Fun! I would love to be able to take kids on vacations. They make things so much more Fun!

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  3. Well, ideally I'd like to do 2 trips a year, but obviously that gets hard with a football team in tow. The last vacation we did was to Florida a year ago and it was horrible. Bianca was just 2 months old and got a bladder infection and we rushed her to St. Pete's Children's. Not my idea of a vacation. Before that, we had gone to Maui, sans kids. I'd suggest that, it's perfect, my absolute fave! I also love Napa and San Fran. Another fave. We will be doing Clearwater and Disney with the kids next Feb, the tickets are already booked. Should be hectic, but hopefully fun!

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  4. I just had a huge long comment written out and Blogger ate it. AGGHH... I'll try to remember what I said!

    Okay, we try to go on a "big" vacation every year. We've been married four years this summer and we've been to Jamaica (on our honeymoon), Mexico three times, I went to Ireland with a friend for ten days. We're planning another trip for New Year's, to Mexico probably or maybe the Dominican. Beach vacations are my favorite... I've also been to the Bahamas, Honduras, Belize, etc, and my favorite beach has been in Negril Jamaica.

    I also love visiting cities though - we went to Seattle and Vegas when I was pregnant and this year I'm hoping to maybe visit NYC in the fall with my parents and sister - I love the sights, the busy-ness, the museums, the restaurants and shopping... probably because I grew up and now live in a small town. So I like to do a long weekend like that once a year too.

    My family traveled a lot when I was growing up so I think for me it's a huge priority... expensive... but I've never regretted a vacation! :)

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  5. We are BAD at going on vacation. I can't remember the last vacation we went on...other than to visit family or on vacation with family. I think we could talk ourselves in to spending the money but the problem for us is time off from work. Our extended families are very demanding and we never have any vacation time. We are going to California for our anniversary in September. We haven't been known to do beach vacations in the past but I can see that becoming more and more intriguing. Siteseeing when you actually have a break from the kids seems like too much work.

    My favorite vacations to date have been: St. Maarten, Aruba, New Orleans and Paris. Paris was NOT relaxing though...but beautiful and interesting.

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  6. growing up i went on trips all over the states. now that i'm married, we have never put a priority on 'big' vacations. matt and i went to orlando before tucker was born. however, we were with family and it wasn't just the two of us. i still had a good time. matt refuses to go to mexico or go on a cruise - he's weird and is missing out on life if you ask me. we would both like to visit hawaii and have talked about going there. our five year anniversary is coming up this august and we always talked about going somewhere (without tucker) but i'm not sure what we'll do. we usually spend the money we save on projects we are doing or things we want. traveling just isn't a big deal to us.

    however, we do go camping/fishing countless times during the summer. opener this year we are going without tucker, but then the rest of our trips we plan to bring him along. we usually go for the whole weekend. i LOVE doing this because we can go alone or with friends/family. who doesn't love to camp?

    my favorite type of vacation - laying on a beach - anywhere warm. :)

    i have a list of places i would love to go to, and i'm sure i will, someday.

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  7. hubs and i take a vacation every year, even if it's just a long weekend to vegas or tahoe... every other year we are going to hawaii (where we got married) - our reservations are made for june this year - hooray!! our vacations like that are SANS KIDS. we have to have "us" time. HAVE TO. we do take a vacation with kids too, but we usually do it more locally and to a cabin on a lake somewhere, til the kids are older and will appreciate going somewhere more fun and expensive :) and hawaii is the ultimate vacation. LOVE LOVE LOVE it. we go to kauai, it's our favorite place ever. but it does cost a little more...

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  8. Vacation? What's that??
    Growing up our vacations were to visit family, and we did it every other summer, but we made it into our vacation. We took three weeks and made it a huge road trip, taking our time getting from the west coast to the midwest and seeing lots of sights in between. Camping and hotels, Yellowstone, Mt Rushmore, the badlands, waterfalls, whatever. I loved it. And I would love to take my kids on trips like that. At this point I can't fathom spending three days in a car with them, but we'll see.
    Since we ended up having kids so early in our marriage, we haven't exactly had the vacation agenda we would have liked. Plus with having so many friends spread out across the country, a lot of our traveling has been for weddings, college reunion trips, etc. Now that we moved away from our families, our "vacations" mainly consist of flying home for two or three weeks. Which... we need that much time to see all our friends and family, but it doesn't leave much other vacation time to go somewhere to relax. And now that Savannah's going to be in school it's going to be even harder to work around schedules.
    We take a lot of little trips... long weekends here and there, camping, waterparks, beaches, etc. And Ryan and I try to get away for a few nights here and there without the kids when we can. Once our kids get older, I'm hoping for the longer, more relaxing, lay on the beach kind of trips.

    We do save for vacations, but like I said... most of that gets eaten up by it taking $1500 for all of us to fly home... and that's just one trip!

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  9. Just going up to Frankenmuth for the night/weekend and wandering around Bronner's and the Outlet Malls is fun and nice.

    A lot of times, parents want to plan vacations expecting the kids to actually be able to remember and enjoy them. They appreciate the really awesome places like Disney World, Cedar Point, etc. when they're older.

    Doing that stuff before they are 6 or 7yo?? Truthfully, it then ends up more about the parents and the kids are usually bummed later because they don't remember all the fun their parents TOLD them later that they HAD. ;P

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  10. Growing up the only time we went on vacation was for soccer tournaments. We did go to Washington D.C., South Dakota, Phoenix, Florida, and all around the Midwest. Since being married we try to go on at least 1 vacation a year and also a couple of short weekend vacations that are close to us. My favorites with Mike were our trips to NYC for a friend's wedding, Miami for a friend's wedding, Destin for our honeymoon, Oregon to see the Morrisons. We have also been to Lake of the Ozarks, Branson, and places in Illinois and Indiana for short weekend trips. I don't mind combining vacations with friend's weddings or visiting family....as long as I'm gone from my house I'm good! :)

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  11. My husband and I used to travel quite a bit. But since we bought our house and had the girl we haven't gone anywhere. I really miss just a long weekend getaway. Once the girl gets a bit older I really want to go somewhere.

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  12. We like to go one one big vacation a year. We take turns- family vaca (kids, extended family, the whole circus) and then "just us" (no kids) vaca. We also typically have one or two mini-vacations a year with our repective friends. These are usually Chicago, NYC, Las Vegas, Orlando, or the UP and usually is affiliated with someone getting married- LOL!

    This year we are going to Cape Hatteras, NC. I have been going there with my family as long as I can remember and it is a GREAT place for family, fun, and relaxation.

    Our destination for just the two of us is an all-inclusive in Mexico. We have stayed at the Iberostar Lindo and Rui Palace Mexico. Both were fantastic!

    Love the new pics of Porter btw!

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  13. My husband and I are still trying to redefine "vacation" now that we have a kid. We were married almost seven years before Ryan was born, and made it a point to take A LOT of vacations before we decided to have kids. We went on at least two big ones every year, with some little weekend trips thrown in. Some of the highlights: Belize (honeymoon), Spain/Italy, Ireland, Arizona, Mexico a number of times...and weekends in NYC, Chicago, Seattle.

    We have not been anywhere- vacation or otherwise- alone together in the year since we've had Ryan, and I am going through MAJOR vacation withdrawal! I don't want to bring the baby on a trip with us, because I feel like at this age a vacation with baby is no vacation for mommy. Thankfully though my husband and I are doing a weekend alone in Chicago in May. Can't wait!

    Hope you settle on a fun vacation destination, and actually decide to spring for it and go!!

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  14. I had gone on at least one big vacation every year of my life until the past two years...I just can't afford it right now, although I know now is the ideal time...before I have kids!

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