Thursday, July 27, 2006

Vacations and Families and Couples, Oh My!

It's summertime, which for many people means taking that yearly trip. What excitement as all your family members are thrown into much closer contact than usual, while you try to make do without the comforts of home. Making travel arrangements and packing can be a tremendous amount of work. Then there's that long car ride or plane trip to put in, not to mention the interminable rainy day when you were supposed to go to the beach. Add in the challenge of making it through the week without maxing out all your credit cards and there you have it . . . enough stress to strain any relationship!

Then you open the packet of photographs and reflect on how nice it was to watch the kids enjoy themselves like that. You remember when you and your husband sat for three hours just talking in the moonlight, holding hands and kissing occasionally while the waves lapped gently at your feet. You think about how you both ended up laughing when you realized he forgot to pack any underwear, and how overcoming the problems seemed to draw the two of you closer together.

Relationships are molded by the experiences we share and special occasions can play a big part in that. I'd like to hear your vacation story, even if you only traveled to the back yard. Let me know how your relationships with your spouse, children or other family members fared, for better or for worse, or maybe a bit of both. Perhaps you have a question about how to handle a particular conflict that arose. Let me know the nitty-gritty details and perhaps yours will be featured as a Dismaying Story.

3 comments:

  1. pretty good
    bestest sent me here

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  2. Congratulations on the "Bestest Blog of the Day" award Andrew! Although, no doubt your best award is just to be helping people. Good on you.

    Regards,

    Reeholio
    A World of Bloggers

    ReplyDelete
  3. We took our kids to the beach yesterday - one we'd never been to. And while I was there, I thought about how much our vacation time helps me to think about the things that I cherished as a kid. So yesterday, I spent lots of time reflecting on my own beach memories. My parents never took us to the beach locally, my dad worked crazy hours and so we had a pool in our backyard to keep us cool. But my grandparents lived in FL and going there to visit was always the highlight of my year. My grandmother and I were very close. When I get out of my car at the beach, the smell of the sea air immediately reminds me of her - our early morning beach walks, her sea shell collection, the way she plastered me with sun tan lotion, the lessons she taught me about life. I'm so grateful for the way the beach reminds me of her.

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