Family Vacations: Age 12 & under

I was fortunate enough to have a family which loves to bond through vacations. We have gone to various beach locations. For instance my mom used to love packing up the car with my grandmother, my older brother, myself, all our beach stuff, and plenty of VHS tapes to play on out 13” TV from our kitchen and heading 8 hours south to St. Augustine, Florida. Honestly, I think she only loved the St. Augustine part and maybe not the other parts. We took this voyage at least five different summers.

My dad on the other hand had a bit bigger budget and was able to take my step-brother, half-sister, brother, myself, step-mother, and sometimes even a friend or two to various beaches in Florida.  One year we went on a Disney Cruise through the Caribbean. Not too long after that we all headed to a Club Med in southwestern Mexico.

Then another year or two after that we got my dad’s siblings involved. My dad has a twin brother and a sister who lived out west. So my step-mother, dad, brother, step-brother, half-sister, my two cousins, my aunt and uncle, and I all flew out to Colorado one summer. There we met up with my other aunt and uncle and rented an RV. We drove from Denver to Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. I don’t remember how long we were gone. I do remember seeing Old Faithful, buffalo, and going to a rodeo. Then there are various other shenanigans which happen when you take kids from early high school age down to toddler age to stay at RV campsites. One of my favorite parts of the trip was when we took a trail ride along a mountain trail and saw some amazing land features. The best part for one of my aunts was during that ride we literally saw a deer and antelope running alongside one another. “Home, home on the range, where the deer and the antelope play…”

Of course as we kids grew up and got our own lives we began to take more vacations with other people’s families and less with our own. Other parents and siblings seem to always be way cooler, except when they are in-laws (unless you have amazing in-laws like I do, obviously). Now we wait for holidays to roll around before getting together.

These were the days before digital cameras and definitely before camera phones. Remember those days? Yeah, me neither.