Summer
Family Vacations
Some of the
best parts of a summer family vacation begin with the
planning and anticipating – as well as
reflecting on what happened on previous vacations. There
are fun times and really dumb times, all of which have
a unique way of renewing
and strengthening family bonds.
In my mind there
are three types of vacations.
You have the "must-go-visit family ones",
"the special spot you go every year",
and the "oh-wow" trips you
do every few years.
For more than 20 years, I have traveled N.C. 70 to New
Bern to visit my Mom. Traveling with my two sons has brought
new perspective into this 125-mile trek. My
boys know they have arrived when we reach the maze of
bridges that cross over the Neuse and Trent Rivers.
When we drive over the bridge, I start ranting on the
cost to build this maze of concrete that had to be designed
by the likes of M.C. Escher. My boys don’t hear
my bridge rantings because they are busy pointing out
all the big boats and the fish jumping in the river. Children’s
perspectives are usually the better ones on these types
of trips back home to visit family.
The Weidle
special spot we go every year is a rental home on Lake
Gaston. Learning to kneeboard and water-ski are
just two of the skills my boys have learned. My youngest
son works on his fishing skills and keeps track of how
many fish he has caught off the dock. His
ability to catch more catfish increased when Uncle John
gave him fishing tips that included using stink bait
– and I thought worms were yucky. Even higher on
the yuck scale was the day the big catfish was caught
and nailed through it’s head to a board for cleaning.
Discovering
the still usable bait in the fish’s stomach lining
was a cool thing to my eight-year-old. It was
about an “8” out of a possible “10”
score on my yuck meter. Getting a charge out of yucks-a-day
meter has become a funny addition to our special vacation
spot. The best part is quality
and quantity family time spent together
on this amazing 20,000-acre lake located on the border
of North Carolina and Virginia.
Moving onto the
“oh-wow” vacations. About every three or four
years, our family thinks of a really cool spot to vacation.
After six months of planning,
our family – including Granny from New Bern –
headed to the Cayman Islands. Stingray
City and the thought of long sunny days spent snorkeling
appealed to everyone in the family. One of the
best things on this trip was the time spent on the beach
at sunset. The kids got to goof off and build
sandcastles or snorkel, while my sweetie and I snuggled
on a lawn chair. Granny was content with her book and
people watching.
No matter what kind
of vacation you are going on this summer, be
sure to take along plenty of ways to record the fun.
My boys love looking through
their scrapbooks to relive old vacations;
including the one to Disney World a few years ago. Who
can believe that my oldest son, now 15, ever hugged Mickey
Mouse? Or that during one family vacation we could cram
10 people into a tiny cabin featuring only one bathroom
– "wait your turn kids" or "go
find a bush outside" was the recurring theme of that
trip.
Even funnier are
the home videos that capture the fun including the thrill
of catching that first fish and the truth on the size
of the fish that got away.
Email Liza Weidle
your family vacation stories or other parenting ideas
to include in future articles, familyfilter@nc.rr.com.
Liza
has been writing parenting columns and articles for almost a decade. She
takes all the wads of education news that come home in her children’s
backpacks, in the mail, on the news, sifting them down to easy-to-read
features and parenting tips that appear regularly in The Cary News, News
and Observer and PTA newsletters in Wake County. 