Vacation I’d like vs vacation I feel I should do

[Anonymous]

Op again - sorry I repeated some things. My phone died during one post so I wasn't sure I'd posted!

[Anonymous]

Oh - and my kids haven't been to Savannah since they were 5 and 1. It was mid June and my 5 year old was in a walking cast with a broken ankle so I don't know that she'd have the best memories! My parents took us out on a dolphin cruise which they'd both love in theory, but my younger one gets really bad motion sickness now. There's a candy store in Savannah they'd both like and the paddle boat might work for my younger daughter.

[Anonymous]

OP, it sure seems like you have plenty of time on your hands.

[Anonymous]

I would go visit your family as originally planned. Try to work in 1-2 relaxing outings with just your kids, get fun take out for everyone, buy an easy puzzle your mom and kids can do together, come up with a baking project, basically try to make it fun for your kids.

You can do a cabin weekend over the summer or whenever soccer ends. I would sacrifice a soccer game to spend a weekend at a cabin before I would not take a trip to see a declining parent.

[Anonymous]

I know the feeling. Our parents live a full days’ drive away, and we spend almost every vacation going to visit them (usually 2-4x a year). We do long weekends as a nuclear family, but we only take a longer trip anywhere else once every few years. There are lots of places I want to travel with my kids, but seeing their grandparents (& usually cousins, too) is obviously important.

[Anonymous]

I think it is more important for you to see your mom, and help with your mom, than for your kids to do so. Especially if they saw her at Christmas and will see her again in August.

So, if I were you, I’d figure out a plan to get out there myself without the kids.

[Anonymous]

If I had a 10 hour travel day I'd make the stay in the area a week.

Spend 2 or 3 days with Mom. Then go to:

Myrtle Beach--4 hours north
Pawleys Island--3-1/2 hours north
Charleston--2 hours north--lots to do with kids
and make sure to tour the battleship and Fort Sumter
Jacksonville/St Augustine--2 hours south
Amelia Island-2 hours south

[Anonymous]

Op here. Thanks all. I slept on it and woke up feeling good about the decision to go.

Also, even though he’ll have to work some, my husband is joining us, which I really appreciate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just booked flights (San Francisco to Savannah, GA) to take my kids to see my parents over spring break, but could cancel within 24 hrs.

My husband could join us, but he’ll have to work some of the time and after taxes and fees the flights are really pricey ($870 each).

We flew East at Christmas time and didn’t travel for the week they had off in a February except for a weekend in cabins in the woods that we all loved. My kids asked if we could have more time at the cabins over spring break. It’s hard to get away for weekends in the spring without missing soccer.

I would *like* a non-flying week where we go to the cabins for a few days, maybe drive a bit further up the coast, and maybe have a day or two exploring San Francisco (we’re 30-40 mins outside the city and the kids have never spent any real time there).

But my mom’s memory has been failing for years (her short term memory is fairly non existent) and the next time we plan to see her isn’t until August. She gets really lonely.

My two siblings’ kids have different spring breaks from my kids and they all plan to visit later in April. They’ve applied a fair bit of pressure to visit and I’d like to give my dad a break but it will be hard (flying cross country with my 9 and 13 year olds and entertaining them to some degree plus helping to care for my mom).

On the other hand, I have no idea how long a visit with my mom will be possible.

Would you do the cross country trip? Bring your husband? Do a family trip / staycation locally and schedule a different long weekend to fly alone?

Thanks!

You do this for your dad. And your mom. But mostly your dad. It is very difficult being the primary caregiver for a person with dementia- especially for their life partner. It gives him an extra week “off”. You can do hard things. We can all do hard things. It’s also not just that you don’t know how many more visits there are with your mom, but you don’t know how many visits there may be with your Dad. I have more than one friend whose caregiving parent died within a year of the death of the person they cared - in some cases it was accelerated because they concentrated on the caregiving and not their own health.

Go, you will be glad you did.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Take your kids to Savannah and visit Mom. There are tons of kid things to do in Savannah and the surrounding areas.

Rent on the beach. Visit Old Fort Jackson. Ride the trolley. Go to the SCAD museum. Ride a riverboat. Ride a ferry. Visit Pinpoint. Shuck some oysters. Eat some hard shell crabs.

Visit Mom but also enjoy the area with the kids.

i would make a beach vacation at Tybee Island and visit mom a day or two w/ the family. Or maybe invite her to the beach trip.

[Anonymous]

Give your kids the cabin vacation.
Fly yourself to see your mother and hive dad a break. You can focus on them 100 percent.

[Anonymous]

This is sort of the lot in life for people who choose to live so far from family. Either you sacrifice vacation time for family time or vice versa. It’s zero sum.

[Anonymous]

I absolutely get it OP. I visited my parents a lot and then at the very end for one parent had to really decide whether missing one more weekend would make me feel guilty vs staying home with my kids for the long weekend. And I was fine with it for two years after my parent died, but by year three I started to regret it. I'm five years out now from their passing and wish I would have gone home with my DCs. It would have been the last time they knew their grandparent as a semi healthy person instead of being on their death bed. It's a really difficult time and I wish you the best.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is sort of the lot in life for people who choose to live so far from family. Either you sacrifice vacation time for family time or vice versa. It’s zero sum.

Op here. I had a very very hard time when my husband accepted a job in California a decade ago. We lived in DC for over a decade and we were students for a lot of that time. I was really looking forward to enjoying the city and life there when we both had professional jobs. I’d told him I’d move for a better cost of living or to be closer to our families. Granted an amazing opportunity kind of fell in his lap (though he’s not doing it anymore) but California / peninsula outside San Francisco felt like one of the few places in the country that didn’t meet either of the criteria. I like to travel and explore and he does not. He’s complained a lot this year about our budget for flying East and that we’re overdoing it and that we can’t spend money on other travel. We can afford it if we chose to - it’s just not his priority. I told him (as I have before) that we can accept this is a consequence of his choice to take the CA job or we can move back East because I’m not going to not see my family. Our 13 year old is happy and very into her friend group and her soccer team and other activities. If it weren’t for that I’d push to go back East (his family is in upstate NY). Though honestly at this point it would have a lot of work and few of the perks of family near by. My dad is really excited and I’m glad to be giving him the break.

[Anonymous]

You can probably do some two or three night cabin trips throughout the year near where you live to satisfy the kids.