For the last several weeks, we have been thinking about taking a 2-3 week road trip across Idaho, Oregon, down the California coast, and back through Nevada. We wanted to get up where it’s a little cooler during the hot Utah August, give our new car some exercise, and spend time together seeing some new places. I was especially excited to see the California Redwoods.

I wanted this trip to be a little more spontaneous, just to see what that’s like – stopping when we got tired, staying at wherever hotel looked good, deciding our activities once we got there. Hey, we have GPS in our car now – no worries, right?

Why we didn’t take the trip

We decided not to take the trip for several reasons, and I think something really good for our family is happening because of that decision.

The simple reasons we didn’t go are cost and lack of desire. Even though driving is cheaper than flying, it’s still pretty expensive to stay at hotels every night, and eat at restaurants every day for 2-3 weeks, especially if every hotel is in a different place. (No week-long stay discounts, or cooking in your kitchen, etc.) We don’t want to make our finances too tight.

It’s also a loooong drive. Some of it will be pretty, but some of it will also be pretty barren (like Nevada), which Jen particularly doesn’t want to drive through. Emily also has a tendency to get carsick if in the car for too long; I’m the same way, unless I’m driving.

And frankly, for some reason, none of us were super excited about the trip – not like we were with Panama, anyway.

A Strong Family Bond

But the most important reason we chose not to go has to do with improving family unity. What?! Aren’t vacations supposed to improve family unity? Yes! In fact, the thing we like most about vacations is that we feel closer as a family during those times. Why is this? I think the main reason is that we don’t have as many distractions, and we’re more focused on each other.

When we were in Panama, we had this feeling for six weeks. But we continued to live our lives! While we were there, we continued to communicate with extended family at home via blogging and e-mail, my business continued to prosper, and our lives felt even more enriched with new relationships. But most of all, we spent more time together as a family, and had a really special feeling together – a new mindset, really – that bound us closer to each other. This mindset was fairly constant and very wonderful.

Near the end of our trip, we conjectured that if we could have that strong family togetherness feeling for six weeks in Panama, and still live our lives, we could do it from anywhere. However, shortly after we got home, we realized this wasn’t as easy as we’d hoped. Distractions and new responsibilities hit us again, and outside activities continued to take us away from each other. I wrote a few posts about this just after we got back from Panama:

• What We’ve Gained from Panama
• Being Home
• Family: Isn’t it about time?

Improve Family Unity at Home

We started to realize that we were using vacations to strengthen our family – not that there’s anything wrong with that; in fact, I think it’s great! But at the same time, I think we were ignoring some of the ways we could be strengthening our family while at home. It’s great if you can feel really close as a family while on vacation. But it’s not so great if you can’t feel that way at home.

Don’t get me wrong – we do feel close at home. We spend time together, we go out together, we still have our nightly devotional. But we don’t have the same mindset we had in Panama that made it so much more rewarding.

It’s difficult to describe this mindset, but it’s like having the feeling that family is the most important thing, and then actually living that way. Sure, we’ve always tried, but there, we actually lived it!

Strengthening our family was our main focus in how we spent all our time, separately and together. We gave our kids all the attention they needed. We searched for ways to make each other happy. We were more patient, more loving, more relaxed, and recognized each others’ infinite value much more frequently than we do normally. Life wasn’t always perfect, but it certainly felt right.

I refuse to believe that having this feeling requires extended vacations, constant site-seeing, and activities together. Although being immersed in another culture, away from the distractions at home can certainly make it easier. So, we decided that instead of heading off to California, we’re going to spend the next couple weeks and try to recreate a little more of that feeling, at home.

Family Schedule

Jen and I sat down for a few hours and made a list of activities we would enjoy doing together as a family. We also made a schedule defining the hours I’ll be working, when we’ll have family time, learning time (homeschool), personal time, quiet time, planning time, etc. Here’s roughly what we came up with:

8am – 9am: Breakfast, etc.

9am – 12pm: Personal time. I’ll use the first hour of this to exercise and read (unless I got up earlier to do it), then most likely work until noon. During this time, Jen will be playing with the girls, doing homeschool (once we start), or doing her own thing while the girls play on their own. The kids usually play great together in the morning.

12pm – 1pm: Lunch

1pm – 2pm: Quiet time for the girls. Jen and Brandon read together, discuss homeschool, kids, or other topics.

2pm – 4pm: Family Time Together Activity (from the list we made earlier). This could be in the house, neighborhood, city, etc.

4pm – 5pm: Separate family time. (I’ll probably check my work e-mail and clear my inbox one last time for the day). Jen will be preparing dinner here. Girls will play the computer, watch tv, or do something together.

5pm – 6pm: Dinner

6pm – 7:30pm: Quiet family time (board games, etc.) or individual time (reading, etc.)

7:30pm – 8pm: Get kids ready for bed. Have devotional. (Sing, read scriptures, pray).

8pm – 10pm: Couple time

I don’t know how strict we’re going to be with this schedule. Our list of activities includes some day trips, so obviously we’ll need to modify on those days. Or some days we’ll want to do a longer family activity, and then eat out. But it does feel really good to have the day planned out, and know that it will be put to good use. The kids seem to like routines, too, but I don’t want us to feel too regimented. Once we start homeschool, the schedule will change a little bit of course.

It’s interesting that as much as I love planning, I haven’t been living by a schedule lately, except for my morning routine. Looking back, I realize that I’ve wasted a lot of hours working on things that weren’t as important as I thought.

The first few hours of the day are usually really productive for me, but after that, if I keep working, I usually don’t end up doing anything important, or at least I’m not as effective. I’ll sometimes even turn to mindless web browsing or checking mail incessantly (although I’ve been pretty good at limiting myself lately). So I like the idea of cutting work off at noon, and coming back for a short spurt in the afternoon. I’ll have plenty of time for reading my favorite blogs, etc., during “personal time”.

We’re still planning on taking vacations, and may even do this road trip one day. But I think right now, our time would be better spent learning how to have the vacation feeling, even when not on vacation. We’ll see how it goes.

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