I am feeling GOOD today!! I feel minorly guilty saying this so excitedly, but I’ll say it anyway:
Both boys are away from home for a while!!!
This is a very rare situation around here.
Ethan wanted to go stay with my parents for a week before school starts (he does this most summers and loves it). I had figured we would obviously still have Asher home with us, but then…. turns out an opportunity came up for him to go somewhere, too!
Ivan’s cousin and his wife, who live nearby but on the far side of town, own a cleaning company. And every August they contract with downtown Madison apartment buildings to clean out the student apartments and get things turned over for the incoming tenants. It’s a LOT of work, or so I hear, and they asked if either of the boys wanted to make some $$ and help out!
They have a son (the boys’ cousin) close to Asher’s age who will also be there working alongside his parents, and Asher said YES he wanted to go. His farm job just ended on Tuesday and he was excited for the chance to make a little more money.
Anyway, Ivan took him and dropped him off at their house this morning and he will hang out there today with his cousin, and then they’ll both tag along and help clean all day Friday, Saturday and Sunday! Of course the evenings will be like a big sleepover at his cousin’s, so he was excited about that too. The boys get along really well with this cousin and always have a blast with him. 🙂
SOOOOO…… this means from today (Thursday) through at least Sunday night, we’ll have a few kid-free days!!! Woohoo!!!! 😉 AND, I decided to take the day off today, making today a full and complete “me day”. After this insane summer, I was just craving a day completely to myself. (Ivan also said he had some errands to run after work, so he will be late getting home, too = more me time!)
Passing on travel
We actually had considered taking our “usual” trip to Panama City Beach, Florida this upcoming week. (“Usual” in quotes because it’s not something we do every year in August, but we have done it many years.)
I even requested the time off, and we were seriously contemplating it. However, we ultimately decided against it.
The reality is, well, a lot of things.
First and foremost, this summer has been FULL. Really, really full. My sister and family actually just left on Tuesday, and we were planning to head to Florida probably today (Thursday). Not much wiggle room there. (But Ethan starts school in just a couple of weeks, so it had to be now or never, basically.)
Also, we have traveled quite a bit this year already! We did 2 full weeks in Costa Rica which was a very big, long and very expensive trip. We had some weekend trips like a road trip to St. Louis for soccer in there, 5 days in Austin, TX, and then the big family cruise was just in June/July. Ethan and I have a 1:1 “up north” trip planned in early October to a river cabin in Upper Michigan, and then we are all planning to go to Mexico for ~2 weeks at Christmas this year.
(Normally I am very ANTI- traveling over the Christmas holiday… yuck! Planning for Mexico is reinforcing this long-held belief of mine; the flights are easily 2-3x the regular price to Mexico. SO annoying. It’s a huge price difference. And I know the airports will be a zoo, it might snow, there will be massive crowds everywhere, all prices are super inflated…. I do not understand the appeal of traveling over the winter holidays!!! But in this case, we want to actually spend Christmas with Ivan’s family, so, no choice this time. Otherwise though, I’m generally a hard pass on that particular travel window. No thanks!)
Anyway, what I’m saying is that we have a lot of travel on the books this year (for us, anyway. I suppose it’s all relative- I’m sure some people travel way more than we do. Or way less!) But I do not have a money tree in the backyard, sadly. And travel is expensive! We also lean toward longer trips….. which = more time off & more money than a simple 1-week trip would.
Ivan especially is getting very tight on work vacation days, and frankly I am, too. I was actually planning to bring my laptop and work a couple of days from the beach, if we had gone to Florida. (My boss said it was okay.)
But when we factored in how busy we have been, the cost, the vacation days thing…. we just decided no. Part of me is sad, because our Florida trips are EASY and relaxing and low key and wonderful. I have to do zero planning, and we do basically no “sight-seeing” and just relax. But Florida is far away from Wisconsin. So we’d either drive, which takes 17 hours and is what we usually do, but it takes up a lot of time… or fly- which adds much MORE expense, plus hotel costs, and food, etc. etc etc.
It was kind of a hard a decision initially, because I have been longing for a total chill trip like that. But now that this week is here, I think we ultimately made the right choice. I AM TIRED. Yes, Florida would have been very relaxing, but it still would involve packing and travel and the whole shebang. And with Ethan starting school in just 2 weeks, I think we can all use a little time to just re-group, get our lives organized and enjoy some down time at home!
I also don’t ever want to travel so much that it becomes…. “commonplace”, if that makes sense. Like, I don’t want anyone in our family to ever take it for granted. IMO it should feel “special” and rare enough. Know what I mean? I don’t want it to ever feel like, oh, here we go again, just another day, another trip. (I do not actually have enough vacation days or money that I’m truly worried about this happening, lol, but hopefully you know what I mean. 😝)
I guess I feel like these last few months have had a lot going on, and maybe we need a little time away from all the commotion, that’s all. And I also don’t think we “need” to travel every single time there is the slightest opportunity. I LOVE to travel, yes, but like I said, I want it to remain special! Normal life is great, too. 🙂
Okay, enough rambling on here. What do you think? Have you ever “passed” on a trip opportunity? Is there such a thing as “too much travel” in your opinion??
Daily Gratitude:
I am grateful for a day off…. all to myself. 😉
GRATEFUL KAE 
I think it totally made sense to pass on the Florida trip. I can’t imagine going. I would have felt like I needed to stage an intervention. hee hee. I am kidding of course, but if you are traveling so much and your tank is already empty, it’s hard to really appreciate and enjoy the trip. Plus this is a great time of year in WI/MN so we feel like we want to be in Minnesota quite a bit in the summer since it’s the peak season for us as summer lovers. My 2 weeks off are so close together and I don’t like that but it’s how it worked out since we had to factor in Phil’s work schedule and my friend’s husband’s work schedule, etc. It’s tricky for 2 moms of young kids to get away, and then we wanted to see Banff during a peak time. And I preferred to go before school started – plus they can get snow early. So August it was! And just after my lake vacation. But so it goes.
Enjoy your kid-free house! And good for you for taking a “me” day. I need to do that, maybe in the 4th quarter. My new hire starts in Sept so I feel like I have so much work to do to prepare for him and then to train him up… but I’m thrilled to bring someone on board and I really hope that he loves the job/company and stays!!!
So as far as trips go, Phil’s best friend sent us an email w/ the list of trips they are considering taking this year and asked if we would join them (with our kids). The trips are to a resort in Mexico and then a few cruises they are considering. I would LOVE to travel with them. Their son is a little younger than Taco. But we have to accept that this is not the stage of life where a cruise or Mexican resort is going to be all that enjoyable… yes we could go, but we decided to wait until they are at better ages for travel (I’m looking at you, Taco, my little tantrumy boy). Other than that, there was a time, years ago, when I had tickets to see Wicked in Des Moines with a friend. But I was traveling so much for work (even more than I travel now!) and I was so exhausated, I ended up canceling and told my friend to just give my ticket away. it sucked to eat the cost of it but I was too exhausted to spend another night away from my house. I used to be bad about overcommitting to things. Now I am much more realistic about what I can and want to do and am better at saying no to things.
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I think it is so sweet that Ethan wants to spend time with his grandparents! That seriously warms my heart. We don’t travel much, but we’re in a hard phase of life right now for that. It is so much easier to stay home w/ little kids that need naps/consistent bedtimes.
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Ha ha ha. I think you know that I regularly say no to travel. Even if we could afford to travel more financially, I don’t think my mental health could take it! If I’m out of my own house for more than 72 hours or so, I get very cranky and out of sorts. I am a creature of habit.
I’m so excited that you had the WHOLE DAY to yourself. I can’t wait to hear a recap of what you did!
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i can totally relay on not making travel too common so we get to appreciate it more.
back to some routine is good for us.
We could have traveled within China when we stayed there for over a month but decided not to to enjoy the simple ordinary life in shanghai. 🙂
enjoy your kids-free days.
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Hey friend! So happy you get some time to yourself… enjoy it! I think skipping on Florida makes perfect sense. I’ve had years before where I’ve got overwhelmed with the planning particularly and just craved time at home and no big holidays to plan. As you know, we cancelled our Disney Cruise (that we should be going on, on 18th of this month!!) and I have zero regrets about it. I hope you can all enjoy these slower, quieter weeks before school starts back up 🙂
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I have passed on travel before (me!) when it didn’t feel right. Mental health is more important than yet another destination. It’s been a busy summer for your family AND you have more trips coming up. There is beauty in routines ❤
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Hooray for a YOU day and for a long weekend without kiddos! That is so nice — gives you a chance to miss them. 🙂
Your rationale for skipping the FL trip makes total sense to me. I think there IS such a thing as too much travel (or too much fun in general) because the travel has a lot of WORK that has to go into it. So, yes, you are missing the fun relaxing vacation part… but you are also missing all the stress of preparation and planning and unpacking and trying to get back into the swing of things. Travel should be FUN and desirable, not a headache. (Although I get why your Christmas plans are both.)
I hope you have a wonderful weekend!
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I think you 100% made the right call, and that trip will be there next year if you want it! I’m kind of exhausted FOR you just thinking about it, whew.
Oh god, I hear you about Christmas travel. I refuse to do it. It’s just so expensive and there are always delays, and in Calgary anyway it seemed like there was always a weird blizzard or something. So I hope for your sake everything is smooth sailing!
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I’ve definitely passed on trip opportunities, but I also haven’t really traveled much in a long time (unless it was to go back to Germany to see family or host my family here), so I feel like I am a bit “trip deprived” if you know what I mean… but yeah, you can’t do it all and I understand why you passed on this trip with everything else you’ve been doing this year already.
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I agree that it’s all relative, but to me it seems like you travel a lot! It seems like you definitely made the right choice to skip the Florida trip. Travel is stressful (even if it’s relaxing while you’re there) and you’ve still got a lot
going on, with school starting soon. Besides, it sounds like both boys are pretty busy! I want to hear all about your kid-free weekend.
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