And it turned out awesome!
We are planning an end-of-summer trip. We need to forget the world for a bit and laugh as a family.
In November of 2024, we took the absolute best vacation we have ever spent as a family, when we went to Universal Studios in Orlando. Was it the best because it was spent in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter? No. It was because we were facing some truly difficult situations during that time, and we needed a break from everything. We chose to go on that trip WHILE our world was crumbling. We laughed and made the best memories ever!
So after that trip, which was wonderful but huge, we need a smaller more relaxing trip. Something that doesn’t require over 18,000 steps a day! So we set our 12 year old loose with a set of parameters to find our next destination. We gave her a budget and some general guidelines about where we want to be, including that we don’t want to be in a major metro area, and we also don’t want to be near anything too touristy-ish.
She went away and found a list of ideas for us to review, and we settled on a small AirBnb near Springfield MO. It’s listed as a “gamers oasis,” and it is filled with cool video game accents and systems. It also includes a lot of traditional games like pool, air hockey, and even a skee ball setup!
The point is that sometimes it’s cool to let your kids find something that you wouldn’t. I don’t know if I would have found the same place that she did, since I would have been looking at more “adult-like” amenities. Nothing dirty, but things like a nice kitchen and bedrooms, or a nice back yard. While this place has those things, it is also a small, older house, so I probably would have looked right past it.
So let your kids jump in at the start of these decisions, sometimes. You never know what might happen!
