Enter, the beauty of the short road trip.   For this last one, we were only gone for a few days, driving about five hours each way, and everything went so smoothly I was left wondering why we don't do this more often.  So, here are my top 5 reasons why short road trips are the new "vacation".


1.   Minimal planning.  Anyone that knows me knows I am much less of a planner than I am a "hey-let's-just-wing-it-and-see-what-happens" person, and so short trips are right up my alley.  With little-to-no planning involved, you truly can just make it up as you go along, and it ends up being just as much fun and good memories as that Disney trip that took 6 months to plan.  Or at least I think so because we haven't been to Disneyland/world yet. :)

2.  It's cheap.  You're not flying anywhere, gas is cheap right now, and we stayed with friends, so lodging was free.  We did the touristy thing for one day, but for the most part our kids were thrilled to just stay at home and play with their little friends, and we were equally thrilled to stay home and watch football and play board games.  So no expensive theme parks, rides, zoos, etc were needed, and our wallets were much happier for it.  Plus since you're not traveling as far, you're not taking off as much work.  Again, happy wallet.

3.  Easy packing.  I thought I hated packing before I had kids.  Then, just when I had mastered the art of minimalistic packing and could go almost anywhere with just a carry-on, I had two kids and I laughed at what I once found difficult.  Kids require WAY TOO MANY THINGS and so the shorter the trip and the shorter the distance, the easer it is to pack for.

4.   Less risk.  For example....say you book an expensive trip to Paris, and you both (or the kids) come down with the flu and you all end up stuck in your motel room for most of the trip instead of seeing the Eiffel tower.  I mean....does it even get any worse than that?  But if you just took a short road trip to a place near you (in our case, Seattle, California, etc) than you really didn't have as much to lose.  We were in Florida one time and Randy was sick for about two days and it nearly killed me that the poor guy had to be holed up inside a dark little bedroom while we were all the way across the country and those white sandy beaches were mere MINUTES away.  But if you were just a few hours up the coast?  Not as big of a deal, and since you're so close, you can always just go home if things get bad enough.

5.  Easy on the calendar.  As I mentioned before, I'm of the "let's-wing-it" variety.  And so it is much easier for me to say "SURE!" when my husband comes home and proposes that we spend the weekend at the coast, than it is for me to painstakingly plan out a huge trip months and months in advance.  Of course those are fun too, but if those were my only option, we would go on trips WAY LESS.

   So there you have it.  My humble opinion on why short, local road trips are an awesome option for your next family vacation.  Now it's your turn....how do you do family vacation?  What are some of your all-time favorite trips, and what are some that you would never want to repeat? I'd love to hear.:)

 It was a strange feeling, being there in Seattle again with our friends Ben and Emily.  Emily is from Seattle, and Ben is from Oregon, and when they were first married, they lived in Seattle for several years before moving back down to Oregon about two years ago. Of course we are happy to have them in our area, but I know her family must miss them terribly.  I'll be honest, I actually missed the excuse to visit the lovely city of Seattle anymore, too. 


   So of course it only made sense that we would visit Seattle WITH them, as opposed to visiting them IN Seattle.  This weekend they decided to visit family and we tagged along, staying at Emily's parents' house.  Everyone was so gracious to accomodate us, and we had a lovely time.  The girls played well, with just the occasional meltdown over a stolen toy or some other slight infraction.  The babies did great and we even got to go on an adult-only, double date one night, all dressed up and fancy.  Truly a rarity in my life these days.

    We strolled around Edmond for a while, taking in the cute little shops and cafes.  Of course, we didn't do much (i.e. any) shopping really, because how do you actually do that with two under two?  Plus we were brilliant and didn't bring any strollers.  A+ in Parenting for us.  Plus for half of the time in town, Charlotte was sleeping.  That's right, sleeping.  No stroller, no Ergo carrier, just us taking turns carrying a lights-out 16 month old like a sack of potatoes while the other was keeping a close eye on a certain active toddler in fancy stores with lots of breakable items within close range. Nice.




   Meanwhile, fall of course is in full swing and the sun actually came out for a while and all of the trees and leaves strutted their stuff.  The girls played in the sandbox which of course ended up being a hassle cleaning all of that grit out of their hair afterward (and the bottom of the tub as well), but what fun would life be if you never got a little dirty?


   We discovered that we'd packed nearly identical outfits for Jocelyn and Liesl so of course I had to snap some pictures of them.  Who doesn't love little matching girls?  No one, that's who.  And their mothers even got in on the fun with our extremely similar outfits (even matching tights!) that we wore on our double date night.  It was uncanny.  I promise we didn't call each other and plan all of our (and our children's) outfits before this trip.  Although that wouldn't be such a bad idea.  Packing might be a little easier.


 
   We watched the Duck game too, of course, and thoroughly enjoyed witnessing their victory over the Huskies.  Randy wanted them to win because he loves his Ducks.  I wanted them to win for that reason too, but also because Dave Softy is full of hot air.  But for whatever reason we wanted them to win for, our delight at the win was compounded when Emily's dad returned from the game and informed us that there were little rubber duckies floating in all of the urinal's in the men's rooms at the stadium.  Way to keep it classy, Washington.

This morning we attended the service at Mars Hill, and unfortunately I had to miss parts of it because I was convincing Jocelyn she would be having more fun in the children's church than sitting quietly with Mom and Dad.  Their nursery system is so sophisticated.  Stickers and numbers and sign-in computers and even pagers, and yes...my pager was buzzed.  So Jocelyn and Charlotte ended up sitting with us for pretty much all of it, but you know what?  It was still a good service and good sermon.  It was about honoring your Father and your Mother.  Mark Driscoll is going through the Ten Commandments right now, and it's a series worth checking out.


What did you do this weekend?  And are you recovered yet?

 I am planning on doing a little relaxing and a whole lot o' laundry tomorrow.