Vacations are a glorious thing!  We save for months, plan for what feels like ages, and go on them, with high hopes, big dreams and chaos in tow!  Reality sets in usually within 23 min of a car ride in our world of "vacationing"....



     I'm sorry but I have to quickly detour and go back a few years "pre-child" to get the full pict.  I have so many great memories of places like, Florida, England, Israel, Mexico, ski trips, backpacking trips, Hawaii, and disneyland a 100 times over...Ya, now those are vacations....Now lets fast forward to recent history....vacations in the past few years more resemble a family of ten moving across country, ya know, by the time you pack strollers, porta cribs, back packs, costco size diaper boxes and 8 changes of closes per person per day!  And the term vacation, well lets just say I'm sad to report that staying on a cold, windy beach where the drive is within 3 hours because we can't make it any further, that is now vacation!

   I alway try to look at the positive though, so today I have come up with a list of why "vacations with babies and toddlers really are a great thing".  Please make sure to add to the list that I have started, we would love to know how much you love traveling with littles ones too!



My kids learn new vocabulary words...like "moron, and idiot" (in reference to people who drive white Cadillacs and swerve around cars lined up 13 deep on narrow forest roads!)  Ya, some guy just did that...I thought it was so cool that he was willing to risk all of our lives so that he could get there 3 min faster!  Moron!  Oops...said it again!

Gourmet food for every meal! Oh how I love Red Robin and Applebees for days on end!  Lets get real here, people don't like kids in any other restaurant and to try to enjoy a decent meal, means being in a decent restaurant, and we all know how fun that is with little ones!



Swimming, swimming and more swimming.  Now this in itself is actually a pretty fun event, but honestly paying $163 a night at a hotel so they can swim for countless hours and never want to leave to go do anything else, well that is crazy!  (Unless your a kid who thinks everything is free!)



Countless hours of rest and relaxation!  And by this I mean having to sit in a dark hotel room for two hours mid day trying to force naps, and turning lights out by 8:30 PM because the kids go to bed then.  It's so fun sitting in the dark staring out the window at the other adults out for an evening on the town, while you sit in silence so your kids don't wake up!



Coffee!  Ok so this is a great thing for real...hotel lobbies that have coffee on 24/7, now that is my kind of vacation!



Movies, movies and more movies.  I have to preface this one by saying that when I was young, we didn't  have to wear seat-belts and so mom and dad would throw us kids in the back of the wood paneled station wagon and cruse the 12 hours to Southern Cali with no problem.  Now, my children have to be strapped in car seats like nascar drivers and since they don't have the option of building tents while we drive, they get to watch more T.V. !   Here's the thing, cartoons can get on my nerves, but when I can only hear them? oh this is enough to drive me freakin crazy!  Especially the time they watched a cartoon with Roseanne Barr as the main "cow" character...I think I might have thrown that one out the window!



Money....lets face it, when it comes to vacationing, there is no way to put a "positive spin" on this one!  Does anyone else think that it is totally ludicrous (thank goodness for spell check!) that you have to practically refinance your home to take a family of 4 to a theme park, museum, water park, or zoo?  Seriously, do the people who run these places sit down and think "how can we get people to have to steal from their kids college fund in order to get them here??"  And all of that money just to have to leave within 2 hours because jr. peed his pants, sissy is cold, daddy is grumpy from lack of food and mommy was in charge of packing everything for everyone for the entire week with no freaking help from anyone because she is always in charge of everything no matter if she is at home or half way across the %&^*#@* country!!!!  (insert throat clearing and shirt adjustment here)



ok, so enough about my vacations...

Lets hear about yours!!!  

We will even give a set of 

"travel essential" 

Earth Monkey gear to a random commenter with a great addition to this post! 

Bring it home sisters!  (literally!)