This summer, there’s no beach house visit; we feel so FREE

[Anonymous]

We’ve been to that wolf preserve! It’s in Lititz, right?! (Then, we also did the Julius Sturgis pretzel factory, too. Lititz was surprisingly such a cute, little town.)

[Anonymous]

That's awesome to find this out now rather than in ten years! The things you are doing instead sound fun and more relaxed. Now, you can make this a permanent change that will probably make everyone happier in the long run!

[Anonymous]

I loved doing a beach house for about a decade when the kids were young and it was a great way to see the grandparents and split up the child duties.

Now that we are older we aim to be in the same area as, and not in the same dwelling as family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That DCUM moms hate vacationing with extended family -- especially in laws -- isn't exactly a Man Bites Dog story.

Are you confused? OP still took a week off to spend a week of vacation with her ILs, just at a different location where they could actually do fun stuff instead of Beach.

[Anonymous]

I think anytime you change up the routine it feels freeing. Like if you have typical Christmas traditions and one year you decide to spend a bunch of days in a hotel in NYC with family instead of wherever else you always spent them, it is so liberating. You will love the new experience and will love breaking out of your rut - and it is a rut even if it's a good one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think anytime you change up the routine it feels freeing. Like if you have typical Christmas traditions and one year you decide to spend a bunch of days in a hotel in NYC with family instead of wherever else you always spent them, it is so liberating. You will love the new experience and will love breaking out of your rut - and it is a rut even if it's a good one.

We started leaving town for Christmas. In the past, we were expected to share Christmas with both sets of grandparents (of course, they would t visit at our house) and this got to be exhausting and our DC hated this. So, we take off 12/23 and have Christmas in a resort town a few hours away.

[Anonymous]

Would not

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We stopped doing the "pile into the same beach house" thing years ago (now resorts only so it's an actual vacation with no cooking or cleaning), and judging from the lack of beach house drama threads in the past couple years I think many have done the same. I have to say I miss those threads - I want to read about bacon moochers and broken boogie boards, darn it!

+1
However, we nixed that same house thing years ago.

[Anonymous]

Doing the same thing every summer with the same people at the same place gets boring quickly. It’s not a good way to spend your limited vacation time. I’d do an “extended family beach vacation” every 3 years or so. It’s vacation! It should feel fun and novel, not like a chore where you have to cook and clean for 12 people and watch your own little kids at the same time.

[Anonymous]

All those New Hampshire summers. Went from loving NH to dreading. Spouse still misses using all of our Vacation time and too much of our money to pay for the ones who always forget their wallet when it’s time to pay for groceries or take the grandparents out. The only thing I miss is the respite from humidity. Miraculously, there is low humidity other places!