Trip to Florida and Why Going on Vacation isn't as Much Fun When You Have Children

Entrance to Cocoa Beach

I'm going to make you look through all of the pictures from our trip ( don't worry there aren't too many) before I tell you why going on vacation when you have kids isn't as much fun (and it probably isn't what you are thinking).

We went to Orlando because Jon won a competition for school and they sent him and some classmates to a conference to present their work. Rose and I just got to tag along. It turned out to be a really fun trip. The first night we got there we dropped Jon's classmates off at the hotel and then rented a car and drove to 2 1/2 hours north to visit Jon's aunt and uncle and cousins. We hardly ever get to see them and it was so much fun to spend time with them. They also invited my cousin and his family over to dinner one night (Jon's uncle is a professor at the law school my cousin goes to, and since there aren't very many Mormons there they know each other). Jon's littlest cousin Eleanor really loved Rose and was so cute with her.

They also took us to see the most AMAZING tree

It is called "Treaty Tree" because supposedly an Indian treaty was signed beneath it, but we read on a sign that what really happened was that around the turn of the century a journalist wanted to protect the tree from being cut down so he made up the story. There really wasn't any treaty, but the name stuck anyway.

It was really a fantastic tree, here you can kind of get a feel for how ENORMOUS the thing is.

The branches go all the way to the ground.

These are Jon's cousins Issac and Eleanor. They are about the same difference in age as Asher and Rose are and watching them play together got me so excited for how my two will be in a few years. Once Asher is past the "lets sit on her" phase... um... actually it just dawned on me that stage might never pass, my brother still sits on me... and he's 23.

Later we drove back to Orlando for Jon's conference and stayed at a beautiful hotel.

This picture really doesn't do it justice at all. The place was incredible. It had two private lakes and the coolest swimming pool I'd ever seen. It was called The Fountains and is a time share hotel. One of Jon's teammates found it on the Internet and got us a great deal-- less than $100 a night. Jon and I were so impressed we talked (briefly) about someday (when we are much older and hopefully richer) buying a time share in a place like this. It was really family focused and I'd highly recommend it (You know they really should be paying me to say all this! ).

The plan was that while Jon was at the conference that I would drive out the the Kennedy Space Center, which I've wanted to see ever since I was little, but by the time I finally got out there I only had an hour or two to spend and didn't want to pay $40 for such short time. So I opted instead to go to Cocoa Beach. I hadn't brought my swimming suit and I was just planning on wading a little bit, but the first two waves that hit me drenched me up to my waist and so I figured "what the heck" and went swimming in my clothes. Rose was asleep in the car seat on the beach and so for about an hour I frolicked in the ocean, in my clothes, by myself. It was grand.

I can see why people fall in love with the ocean and don't ever want to move away from it. I think I could almost be willing to trade it in for my mountains if I had to.

Then last, but definitely not least, we went out to eat at Boston Lobster Feast where I tasted oysters and muscles for the first time. I'm not a big fan of them, I thought they tasted like really big fish flavored boogers. When we were coming out of the restaurant we saw this

Can you imagine this thing cruising down the freeway! Especially if you were driving at night and saw it coming at you in your rear view mirror! Scary.

All in all we had a really good trip, but I've decided that going on vacation just isn't quite as much fun as it was before we had kids. It's not that taking Rose along was hard or held us back from doing what we would normally do, but Jon and I both found that we missed Asher a lot more than we thought we would. We couldn't help but think to ourselves how Asher would have loved the moving sidewalks at the airport, how he would have gotten a kick out of riding the trolley, how he would have loved the incredible swimming pool at our hotel, and how he would have been in heaven chasing all the frogs, lizards and other creatures that come out in the Florida heat.

I was fine for the first few days, but then after being away from him for almost a week I really started to get bit homesick for him. That little boy has become such a huge part of my life and without him life just isn't quite as rich. Even though I LOVED being able to go on vacation and have a break, after awhile I felt like a part of me was missing. It made me think of a quote I wrote down in my quote book a long, long time ago by Elizabeth Stone

" Making the decision to have a child-- it's momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body."

Our children are really parts of us and there is such a feeling of wholeness and completeness when you have them near you. It made me realize why my parents and in-laws get so excited when all of their children are going to be home at the same time. Being all together as a family is the ultimate feeling of connectedness and wholeness. I can only imagine what an incredible place heaven is going to be when whole generations of families will be together for the first time... it will probably be a blast.

I'm sure Jon and I will take more vacations together without all our kids and will have a fantastic time, but I realized this trip just how much becoming a parent changes your perspective on life. As nice as it is being by yourself or with your spouse, it is just more fun being all together than apart.