Love - Vacation

My life is hectic.  That's my understatement for the day:)  I often wish that I was a mom that stayed at home more.  Being a high school choir teacher means my work hours are crazy.  My children are often at school late with me at rehearsals and concerts.  There is a lot of guilt in my life that I am not the mom I imagined I would be.  I always thought I would be the stay at home mom with the clean house and the home cooked meals.  That's a whole other therapy session though.  LOL

Our family is on a very strict budget, Dave Ramsey style!  We live a very frugal life working on paying down our debt and working to be in a better place financially.  We do have one part of life that we splurge and that is our vacation and travel time.  Actually it's not a huge splurge because we do have a budget for that too!  But we travel a lot.  5-7 times a year is our usual.  We bought resale timeshare about 5 years ago and it was one of the best decisions of our life.  We pay a maintenance fee yearly but do not pay for hotels when we travel.  I wash clothes in the condo and cook meals.  We have resorts that are amazing!  This time I spend with my family is priceless.  It gives me time to completely focus on my children.  They have become very close siblings because of it.  I feel like we have a much closer bond.  Yes, I know that the money I spend on vacation could go towards that debt payoff.  However, I feel like it's an important investment in my family.  My kids may not remember when their house was clean but they will remember that surprise trip to Disney on their 5th and 10th birthday.  They will remember making up funny songs in the car to survive a 10 hour drive.  They will remember trying to paddle a canoe away from the rock or cheering each other on for that last bit of peddling in the paddle boats.  They will remember catching fish and all climbing in bed to watch a star wars movie.  And hopefully the love they feel will cause them to create these memories with their families.

We wander for distraction, but we travel for fulfillment.  ~Hilaire Belloc