A Trip Away from Reality

Until recently, my little family had never taken a vacation together.

Okay, okay – let me clarify.

We had never taken a vacation together just the four of us. Every vacation we go on is either with friends or family.

I didn’t realize this was the case until the end of the school year, when Facebook showed hordes of people packing up their little families and heading on vaca.

And I got jealous.

So I decided it was long over-due.

I had hesitations (mainly in terms of dollar bills.), but I went ahead and booked a quick weekend trip to the beach. Since I booked so close to our departure date, I had to pay in full, with no refunds.

No big deal, right?

WELL.

A couple days later, our AC unit blew out. It took 5 days of quote gathering in our 95 degree home (and repair guys standing us up – not cool, man, not cool.), but we ended up getting it fixed just before we left.
(Fixed AC = $$)

The day after our AC went out, the cable/internet box at the end of our driveway was run over. So Bryant and I had zero internet to use for work or (confession!) child entertainment.
(No Internet = time away from work = $$$).

I thought about canceling our beach trip, mainly because we needed the money (I could use the extra time to write anyway) and life was just plain stressful. All four of us were at each other’s throats, we were hot, cranky, and bored. I figured it was probably better to just chill at home and get over ourselves and the hump of bad luck we’d been having.

But there were no refunds.

So we went.

And it was exactly what we needed.

After our long drive there (because apparently we don’t fly anymore… details on that later this week), Bryant and I both finally relaxed and had a great time.

We ended up being upgraded to a much larger condo than originally planned (for the same price! Whoop!) right off the beach, with a pool and almost zero other residents. We planned to hang out at the beach, the pool, cook dinner, watch movies, and get some work done we’d missed in the days prior in an awesome setting.

But wouldn’t you know it, the condo had zero internet too.

But it was okay.

I think the Big Guy Upstairs knew we needed a vacation from regular life. So he made it possible for us to chill, cross work off our To-Do list for a few days, and just enjoy one another.

So we did.

Where are your best tips to get the family unplugged from the daily grind?