For the last several months, we have been preparing for our first real family vacation in years. Here are the highlights of my recent “to-do” list.
Work out Transportation
For the last 4 or 5 years, we’ve been a two car family… meaning if we all want to go somewhere, we have to take two cars! I think that’s been one of the reason we haven’t gone anywhere in a while. This was one of the first things on my list. We rented a 15 passenger van- with the hope that we could buy one, cancel the rental, and keep the transportation. After several months of looking at vans across the valley, and for whatever reason, it looks like we’ll still be going with the rental. I am SO glad we at least have that option, but I’m a little bummed that we won’t get to keep it when we’re done.
Planning out our Trek
Thanks to Google Maps, this one is completed- mostly. Because we are taking the rental, I’m having to adjust our route, having to be back a day earlier than we would like. With Google Maps, I have each day planned out with a printed map and step by step directions of how to get everywhere. (I just hope the instructions are right!)
Get Campsites Reserved
I wrote a little bit about this one already. We are staying with family for a couple of stops, but for all the rest, we’ll be staying at campsites. Most of the campsites are tent sites with water and electric. My parents are letting us use their huge 3-room tent for our trip, and we’ve had 3 “practice” campouts already in the backyard, just to help our kids practice setting up the camp and to ‘stay til it’s done’. They’re starting to catch on.
Plan where we will go
We’re visiting Church History Sites- from here to New York. We’ll get to watch 3 musical pageants. I’m so excited about that. After meeting Crawford Gates a few months ago, I’m especially excited to see the Hill Cumorah Pageant. I’m sure it will be amazing. I’m also excited about getting to see the sacred grove in Palmyra, New York, and Nawroz when we visit Niagara Falls. It’s going to be a wonderful spiritual journey, as well as a much-needed family bonding experience.
Plan the food
Still coming up with ideas for this one. We’ve bought a huge cooler that we can hopefully carry a good 5-7 days worth of food at one time. I’m thinking since we’ll have electricity at most of the places we’ll be going to, that we could bring our huge pancake grill, and the traveling crock-pot as well as our campstove. Of course I’m planning for S’mores, hotdogs, and hamburgers over the fire. That reminds me, I still need to get roasting sticks…. lots to do there still….
Prepare to pack the clothes
My 11 year old helped me make packing lists of all the clothes we would need for one week at a time (we’ll have to do laundry along the way). I had my kids each go through their list to see what they needed to still get (like flip-flops, socks, shorts, etc.) We’ll be making a trip to D. I. tomorrow to see what we can find there to fit the bill.
In addition, my oldest two kids are going to ‘trek’ next week (nothing like trying to stress me out more than I already am!) They each need a couple pioneer outfits. I’ve been trying to help my oldest sew aprons, and pantaloons, and all those fun things. I’m really hoping I’ll just see some good usable ones at D.I. tomorrow…
Entertainment for the trip
I am anticipating that for some of my younger kids, this trip could become a little bit of a “bore”. I’m trying to think of everything I can to prevent that. My older kids have been making what they are calling “sanity packets”. These are packets of coloring pages, word searches, sudoko’s, and other games and activities to keep everybody busy. I’ve been impressed with all they’ve done to prepare. I also felt it would be a necessity to get a portable DVD player that we could bring on the trip. Saturday I was lucky enough to find a used one at a garage sale for only $10! I’m sure on the days that I don’t feel like being super involved, it will give me some “sanity” time of my own! The DVD player was a requirement on my to-do list.
I’ve also spent a little bit of time working on “family musical”. All of my kids love to perform and be in the spotlight (can’t imagine where they get THAT from) …. and I thought it would be fun if we had something to channel that energy into. I don’t know if I’ll get it done in a time, but even my 14 year old boy says he’s willing to be a participant. I think that would be a great idea to pass the time…
Extra Items
Of course there’s always going to be things we can’t prepare for- but I’m hoping that we’ve already had our fair share of those. Saturday night my 6 year old came running upstairs to tell me that there was a whole lot of water in the carpet again. We were saddened to see that sewer water had again flooded our newly carpeted basement. I could almost laugh about it. I couldn’t believe that it was happening again.Thankfully my husband was there to help and I tried my best to not get too upset. We had to wake up all of our kids and have them get their shoes on, to go upstairs, bring their pets, and have another sleep out in our upstairs family room! What fun! It’s going to cost thousands of dollars to get everything fixed up again. We’re really hoping insurance will cover the misaligned pipe under 6 feet of dirt in our front yard that will have to be replaced in order to not have this happen again.
Summary
Despite the huge blow to our resources, we are still really looking forward to our trip. Someone asked us if we might not be able to go because of what had happened in our basement. We told them we were going to go no matter what. When I think about growing up- the things I remember the most are our family vacations and reunions. In fact, (though I’m certainly not hoping this will happen to us!) it’s the vacations where our cars broke down, or we got rained on or something, that I remember and treasure the most! No matter what happens, I think this will be a trip we’ll always remember…