The Vacation Episode

During our latest podcast episode recording, my four sisters and I remembered our many family vacations growing up.

We started with a little poem I wrote for all you parents out there called:

An Ode to Parents on Vacation

Whether you drove, flew, took a train, or walked-the journey to your vacation spot was probably not easy. 

To all the parents who drove through the night to make the journey easier on the rest of the (sleeping) family, we see you’ve poured out your rest for them. 

I see you cleaning up puke from those who got carsick. I see you pulling over to change poopy diapers and dispose of them quickly, so we don’t have any more puking kids in the car. 

I see you trying to save money by loading up the cooler ahead of time with pbjs, juice boxes and chip bags. 

I see you attempting to keep the kids from fighting by lovingly threatening them “don’t make me come back there” or “don’t make me turn around!”

I see you encouraging your kids to hold their pee as long as possible so you can make good time, unaware that you’re actually strengthening their pelvic floor-good job. 

To all the parents who have sacrificed the relative ease of routine for a brand new place, bedtime, daily schedule, and all the tantrums that flow from it. We see you’ve poured out the ease of routine for them. 

I see you trying a new makeshift routine to get your overstimulated and overtired kids to nap or sleep for the night or just watch this dang movie so I can try and sleep a little. 

I see you attempting to help your kids eat new foods, attempt new games, and try new adventures. 

To all the parents getting their small kids ready for the beach, packing and applying the sunscreen, the hats, the towels, the sun tents, the sand toys. You’ve temporarily traded in your overloaded diaper bag to an even more overloaded beach bag. We see you've poured out your arm's circulation for them.

I see you, attempting to stop baby hands from shoveling handfuls of sand in baby mouths or incessantly dusting off cranky babies who hate sand. 

I see you parents at the pool who can’t relax because you are constantly scanning, keeping tabs on every single child so they stay safe and happy and pale. 

For all you parents who have spent a significant portion of your savings for a trip to Disney and for your young kids to only remember the highlight for them: the hotel pool. We see you've poured out your savings for them.

I see you and how you freely spent your hard-earned cash so they could have the best vacation ever. 

I see this whole vacation has cost you your precious time, money, energy and excitement.

You’ve poured it all out for them. 

Family vacations aren’t really for us parents. They are opportunities to share adventure, beauty, gifts, and the best junk food with them. We see you and we know you because you are us. 

To vacations big and small in 2025!

Catholic Family Vacation Wisdom

After reflecting on the vacations we took as children, remembering the things that went wrong that make us all laugh today, remembering the struggles my parents must have had that we were blissfully unaware of helped us glean some wisdom about family vacations that we wanted to share with you.

This is the OG Guzman Family with Grandpa and Ninive in the middle!

It's not all about getting there quickly, it's about the journey!

In order to get to our vacation destination, my dad drove through the night so we could arrive making excellent time with as little bathroom breaks as possible. We never really remembered the journey's there or back with the exception of some car sickness and epic movie marathons or when my mom accidently gave my dad poor directions... it was a colossal setback!

As adults, we all feel that getting to the destination doesn't have to be rushed. we can slow down, split the trip up and enjoy the journey. We can stop and visit some Catholic sites along the way using this blogpost which shows some great Catholic sites along your way split up by state. (Thanks Teresa!). She also recommends Masstimes.org to see if you can sync up your stops with some sacraments!

We don't mind pulling into an Embassy suites hotel halfway through to swim in the pool, enjoy the complimentary happy hour and inhale the free breakfast. For some kids, this pitstop can be the highlight of the entire vacation!

Trying to keep the family tradition of painting nails alive!

It's not about the itinerary, it's about connection

We've found that after shelling out hundreds, often thousands of dollars in traveling, hotels, restaurants, activities, etc. our kids tend to remember the times we connected as a family, like when Kim's family loved playing cards together that first night.

My kids have said similar things about our family reunions at the beach. Their highlight is often playing boardgames at night with their aunts and uncles and cousins.

When planning your vacations, do you plan time for resting together, connecting with games and laughter? Rarely is that planned, but maybe it should be? Or at least make room for the possibility of spontaneous connections like this to take place!

Some epic family board game nights!

Even the kids loved the game time!

It's not just about the vacation, it's also about remembering

One of Lauren's favorite memories of vacation was actually things that helped her remember her vacations such as the family t-shirts our Aunt Shirley designed each reunion or the list of memories, quotes, inside jokes and hilarious moments that my Aunt Terry would send everyone the day after our vacation ended.

How appropriate given our Catholic charism to remember. Each Eucharist remembers the Last Supper, each All Saints Day remembers the dead, each Ash Wednesday remembers that we are dust and unto dust we shall return, etc.

Is there a way your family can set up something to help everyone remember their vacation times? Scrap books, t-shirts, a list of memories, etc. all work well!

One of the best memories from that year's reunion was hunting for sand crabs late at night! Uncle Matt (Sirkis) organized that one!

We hope you enjoyed listening to our podcast episode all about Vacations! We'd love to hear all about your memories, wisdom, tips and tricks from vacations both growing up and now! Feel free to comment on this blog post and I'll make sure we all read them!