City Adventure - Part Three

Good Wednesday morning!

Lots of packing going on around here. Getting five people ready for a four day trip is a lot of work. Thankfully, everyone's getting to the age they can pack themselves. (I have to check a couple of suitcases for appropriate clothing selections, but for the most part, teenagers can be very helpful!)

We're leaving this Thursday morning, Thanksgiving, to go to the mountains. We go every year with my parents and my sister and her family. It is a tradition. It is something we count on and look forward to each year. However, we have not always gone on Thanksgiving.

In 1998, we went on our first trip to the mountains as a family, and it was on Thanksgiving. Zac, my youngest nephew, wasn't even one yet. We stayed in a beautiful (but too small) cabin and had a wonderful time. The next nine years we went in January and February for some reason. I guess because they weren't as hectic as the holidays. If we went in January, we celebrated my niece's birthday (Katie), and if we went in February we celebrated Zac's birthday. They have had almost as many birthdays in the mountains as they have at home.

This year marks ten years of going to the mountains together. For many of those years, we were an even dozen. My parents, my family of five and my sister's family of five, but four years ago, my Dad suddenly passed away. Going to the mountains is not as "joyful" as it used to be because his absence is so evident in everything we do there.

He and the dads would always take the boys to the Knifeworks to browse and buy knives (he was a big collector); and the girls would head in the other direction in search of fudge. (We were big collectors, also. However, our collection didn't last as long as the knife collection).

We still do the same things though. Mike and Tom take the boys to Knifeworks, and of course, we womenfolk load up the van and look for fudge. We are the hunters in this group... in search of the perfect fudge! We do these things because we know Dad would not have wanted us to stop. He would have wanted us to go and enjoy and soak in the beauty of his favorite place in the world... so we go... and we do enjoy, but mostly we just miss him.

Our second year in the mountains, we took the kids to the Dixie Stampede. They had a ball even though the younger four do not remember it now. So this year, we decided to make a special trip to Dixie Stampede again so everyone will be able to experience this fun activity together.

Although this will not be the last time we go to the mountains as a family, like it or not things are changing. Austin will be going to college next year, and Brad the next. Within the next five to ten years, the kids could realistically be getting married and having children of their own. Things are changing indeed.

I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving. I hope everyone remembers to tell every member of their family how much they love them, and how much they mean to them. We take so much for granted... like the fact we expect everyone will be here next Thanksgiving and the next. I know I keep saying it again and again on this blog, but this is the only Thanksgiving 2008 you will ever have. Please celebrate it well.

City Adventure - Part Three

I have one more question and answer for you before I finish telling you about the Memphis City Adventure.

How do you get the kids interested and excited in something that ISN'T Disney or the beach or the mountains or (fill in the blank)?

Good question. I'm glad you asked. For the Memphis trip, it was based around Graceland and Elvis. Now how was I going to get a 17 year-old, 14 year-old and a 11 year-old thrilled to be going to museums for the better part of two days. I started with old Elvis movies. I bought three of them at Wal-Mart for $5.99 each, and we played one on the way there and two on the way home. They loved them. They were corny... Elvis broke into song at the least little pause in the storyline... there were at least two or more fights in every movie... the kids laughed at things that weren't meant to be funny. But most of all, I think the kids understood that Elvis was "special."

Also, even though the kids were way too old for this, I had a bag in the front of the van, and every hour on the hour, we would stop the movie or whatever else we were doing and one of them got to pick a piece of folded paper out of the bag. It was just a "fun fact" about Memphis. Nothing hilarious or earth shattering. Just a little nothing fact they didn't know before. (And to make things even more "preschool," every time they read a fact, they got a piece of candy. Don't laugh... it worked.)

We also made sure the other things we planned for the trip interested the kids at least a little. (Gibson Guitar was definitely something Josh was looking forward to more than the others, but Austin and Roxie had a ball there, also.)

Having a hotel with the pool and weight room was also very good. If you're not having the greatest day (more bad than good), head to the hotel for a soak in the hot tub and a pay per view movie that everyone will enjoy. We did that, and we had popcorn and relaxed and got ready for the next day. Make the trip fun, but not hectic... educational, but not boring... active, but not exhausting. And you'll have good time.

Tomorrow, I'll post some information about our Atlanta City Adventure. We had a couple of duds in this one, but we were able to salvage the trip and have a really memorable mini-vacation.

Have a great day today, and I'll talk to you tomorrow.