Our Ten Year Family Vacation Plan

Ten summers ago, my husband Andy and I had just tucked our kids, aged 8 and 5 at the time, into the hotel beds and we sat on the balcony enjoying the views of the Maine coast, relaxing from a lovely day in Acadia National Park. It was on that evening, while experiencing a wonderful family vacation, that we came up with what we thought at the time was a great idea.  We would make a vacation bucket list, a plan of the destinations that we most wanted our kids to see and the travel experiences we most wanted to have as a family before our eldest left for college.  We made our list, then had a blast over the next 10 summers, planning and checking trips off it (plus enjoying some great spring break trips as well).  We learned a bit about family travel along the way, and in the interest of encouraging other families to pursue vacation experiences, I share a few observations here.

 

Some family travel recommendations:

1.  Start 'em young.  Don't postpone travel because you think your kids are too young.  We had a fabulous time traveling around Europe for two weeks when our daughter had just turned 1 year old.  We've driven a 2,100 mile road trip with toddlers, and roused sleepy youngsters at 3 in the morning to catch flights.  With a little preparation you'll be surprised at how well your kids can travel
•  Intersperse more adult (art museums) with more kid friendly (parks, zoos) activities
• Discuss and set expectations with your kids about activities in advance. We love visiting art museums, so it was important that our kids learned how to behave in museums from the beginning.  We started practicing for shorter time periods when they were very young (plus you'll get some funny stories to tell later, like the time our daughter started a major screaming tantrum in the Louvre that forced our hasty retreat to the basement, where she eventually fell asleep in our arms and we lugged her around a few more exhibits while she snored). Praise and reward your kids when they do well "tolerating" more adult focused activities for a period of time
• Keep the food and snacks coming.  Kids (and adults) are at a bigger risk of meltdowns if they're hungry.  Carry plenty of snacks and water with you at all times.  I once pulled a jar of peanut butter out of my purse in an hour of need, thus earning the nickname "Mary Poppins" for the rest of the vacation
• Break up episodes of sedentary travel with plenty of opportunities to move and play.  Book hotels with pools, and throw your kids in the pool in the mornings before you leave and in the early evenings so they sleep well
2. Put an emphasis on trip planning, and invest time in it.  We've taken some amazing trips as a family, and none of them would be possible without hours of advanced planning.  This is Andy's specialty.  He researches each area we're going to visit to pick the most interesting destinations and sites. His final product is an itinerary of where we will be each day, what we'll do, and where we'll stay that night, all organized in a 3-ring binder with accompanying tickets, maps/directions, hotel information, etc.  While this might sound overly rigid to some folks, it has really maximized our time, since we can pre-book admission tickets (no waiting in long lines or sell outs) and avoid showing up at the museum on a day it's closed, etc
3. I can't say I like packing much, and I find it takes time to do it well, but I have streamlined my process over the years.  Here is a link to my packing lists (different versions based on type of trip) that I've refined over the years: packing lists
4. Just like you'll be managing a pack list, you'll be managing a prep list. Here is mine: Prep checklist
5. Boost your memory value from your vacations
• Take a lot of pictures- routinely ask bystanders to take some photos of the entire family.  You can use these pictures in slide shows, scrapbooks and other great projects when you get home (link to travel pillow blog post)
•  Keep a daily trip journal- this becomes pure gold for reading later (often while on future family trips), and to remember fun family experiences, locations and funny family quotes
• Start a family collection of items from your trips- this could be Christmas ornaments, sea shells, or even little bottles of sand from your various destinations 
  

Our family's trips, including the ten year plan:

Year	Family Trip Destinations and Highlights
1998	Chicago (Meg 10 weeks old) Philadelphia
1999	4-months in Europe for work, traveled on weekends and 2 weeks at the end
2000	Maine, Providence, Cape Cod, Boston
2001	Chicago (Will about 10 weeks old)
2002	Driving loop: Cleveland, Buffalo, Niagara Falls, Toronto, Detroit, Chicago
2003	Montreal, Vermont, New Hampshire, Acadia, Maine, Quebec
2004	Chicago, Milwaukee, WI Dells
2005	Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
	Chicago, WI Dells
The start of the “10-year plan”
2006	Driving loop trip through Badlands, Rapid City, Custer State Park, Hotsprings, Wind Cave NM, Jewel Cave NM, Estes Park, Rocky Mountain Natl Park, Colorado Springs, Red Rock State Park, Denver, Lincoln, Omaha (Henry Doorly Zoo)
2007	Cozumel, Mexico
	California- Rented a car in San Francisco and drove down Route 1 to San Diego.  Sights include San Francisco Maritime Natl Park, Alcatraz, Monterey Bay Aquarium, Disneyland, Universal Studios, Sea World, San Diego Zoo (SoCal City Pass)
2008	Carnival cruise-Grand Cayman, Belize, Roatan Island (Honduras), Cozumel, Tampa (Busch Gardens)
	Flight into Seattle.  Took ferries to San Juan Island, Victoria Island (Canada).  Olympic NP, white water rafting in the Columbia river gorge, Portland, Seattle.  Took the Amtrak back home from Seattle with sleeper car.  Highlights included Butchart Gardens, and a sturgeon stocking area outside of Portland
2009	7 days in Disney World, Orlando
	Took the Amtrak to Whitefish, Montana (sleeper car) and picked up a rental car which   we drove back home. Glacier NP, Yellowstone NP, Grand Tetons NP, Cody (saw a great rodeo), Devil's Tower NM, Rapid City
2010	Montego Bay, Jamaica
	Zion NP, Bryce NP, Lake Powell, Antelope Canyon, Monument Valley, Flagstaff, Wupatki NM, Sedona (Pink Jeep tour), Grand Canyon, Lake Powell, Glen Canyon NP, Hoover Dam, Las Vegas
2011	Maya Riviera, Mexico
	Atlanta, Great Smokey Mountains NP, white water rafting on the Pigeon River, Gatlinburg, Myrtle Beach, Charleston (Fort Sumter), Hilton Head, Savannah (Fort Pulaski NM), Macon
2012	Disney Cruise (4 day, Bahamas, Castaway Cay), plus 3 days for Universal Studios (Harry Potter), Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios
	New York City, Philadelphia
	San Diego
2013	Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
	Northern Minnesota- Hibbing, Virginia, Chisholm, Ely, International Falls, Voyageur's, Big Bog, Bemidji, Itasca, Charles Lindberg State Park
	Washington DC, Mount Vernon, Hershey PA (Hershey World), Gettysburg, Shenandoah NP, Williamsburg, Virginia Beach
2014	Cozumel, Mexico
	Flew into Dublin.  Dublin, Trim, Kilkenny, Rock of Cashel, Bunratty, flew from Shannon to London, Oxford, Bath, Stonehenge, Salisbury, Winchester, Cardiff (Wales), Cotswolds, Stratford-upon- Avon, Warwick. Flew from Birmingham to Dublin and from Dublin home
2015	Punta Cana, Dominican Republic
	California- Lake Tahoe, Mammoth Lakes (Devil's Postpile), Yosemite NP, gold country state parks, Santa Cruz (family wedding), Hearst Castle, Paso Robles (wineries), Solvang, Santa Barbara, Las Angeles (Paramount Studios, UCLA, Disney Land).  Flew into Reno and rented car, flew out of LA
2016	Playa Del Carmen, Mexico
	Meg picked France in honor of her graduation Brussels, Leuven, Bruges, Ghent, Paris (including Disneyland Paris), Bayeux, Omaha Beach, Mont St Michel, Loire Valley (Tours), Orange, Arles, Avignon, Cassis, St Tropez, Nice, Monaco.  Flew into Brussels, rented a car in Paris, flew out of Nice
2017	Guanacaste, Costa Rica, day trip to Nicaragua
	Alaska- Anchorage, Seward, Celebrity Cruise (Hubbard Glacier, Skagway, Icy Point, Ketchikan, Vancouver)
2018	Huatulco, Mexico
	Durango, Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Los Alamos, Roswell, Carlsbad, Fredericksburg, San Antonio including 7 National Parks: Mesa Verde, Aztec, Pecos, Petroglyph, White Sands, Carlsbad Caverns, and the San Antonio Missions
2019	Montego Bay, Jamaica
	Will picked Switzerland in honor of his graduation, and we threw in Italy  Rome, Florence, Venice, Milan, Lugano, Como, Lucerne, Interlaken, Grindelwald, Zurich
2020	Covid pandemic This was going to be a great travel year. Our daughter had a capstone internship lined up in Ireland just before graduating from college, and we were going to travel there in the Spring to see her. Her internship was cancelled, and we had to cancel the trip, as well. We also had to cancel a trip (including a cruise) to Norway and Sweden we had planned with Andy's parents. We did some camping, including a first-time visit to Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota

2006 West

2007 Cozumel

2007 California

2008 Cruise

2008 WA, Oregon, Victoria Island

2009 Disney

2009 West

2010 Jamaica

2010 West

2011 Maya Riviera

2011 Southeast

2012 Disney Cruise, Orlando

2012 NYC and Philadelphia

2013 Puerto Vallarta

2013 Northern Minnesota

2013 Washington DC and area

2014 Cozumel

2014 Ireland, England

2015 Dominican Republic

2015 California

2016 Maya Riviera

2016 Belgium, France

A Year's Worth of Garlands

I love the look of a garland hanging from the mantle to give a little touch of decoration or celebrate a holiday.  Over the last year, I developed a series of garlands to hang at certain times of the year

 My garland "adventure" started with Halloween.  I bought yellow, orange and white felt and made candy corns, attaching them to a piece of ribbon.

Here is a link to the pattern I used, print on regular 8.5" x 11" paper:
Candy Corn Pattern

For the fall, I bought some inexpensive silk leaves at a craft store and sewed them to a ribbon, creating a fall leaf garland that took me through Thanksgiving.

I didn't make a garland for Christmas, since I put stockings up on the mantle then.  For after Christmas, a snowflake garland seemed appropriate.  I got these felt snowflakes online for cheap and stitched them together.

 For Valentine's Day, I drew a bunch of hearts using a cookie cutter on a remnant of wool felt I had, and then sewed the hearts together with some spacing on my sewing machine.

Next up, for Easter, I did a garland of yellow Peeps, using felt leftover from the candy corn garland. Here is the link to a pattern I found on this website:
http://www.madeeveryday.com/

Peep pattern

For the summer, I wanted something a bit nautical, so I ordered inexpensive sand dollars and starfish from the internet and sewed them to a rope length I bought at a hardware store.

Finally, I decided we should have a garland at the family's cabin, so I bought some cheap used fishing bobbers off of Ebay and sewed them to some rope.

In 2022 I decided we needed a shamrock garland for March. I used a cookie cutter to cut out wool-blend felt and sewed them together by hand.

Creating a Photo Collage Pillow

I wanted to make a pillow that celebrated many of the wonderful family vacations we’ve had over the years as a high school graduation gift for each of our kids.  I thought the pillows would be fun reminders and a comfort when the kids were away at college.  Here are the steps I followed to create the matched pair of pillows:

1. Determine the size of the pillow.  I went with a standard 18” square pillow so that I could get two pillows from a yard of printed fabric.  I ordered two inexpensive 18” square pillow forms from Amazon
2. Curate your photos.  My theme was pictures from our various family vacations in which all 4 of us were in the photo.  These were a bit hard to find and I had to dig through a lot of photos- this was a good reminder to me that we should do a more consistent job of asking others to snap a photo so that our entire family can be in the picture.  Gather copies of the photos you want into a folder on your computer so that they are grouped together and easy to upload
3. Determine your collage format.  There are many choices, but I went with a basic grid of 16 photos per collage, 4 by 4.  Your collage format will be influenced by the number of photos you want to use.  I liked the 16 photos version, as this way each photo on the pillow would be about 4.5” per side and a good size for viewing.  I used the free online PicMonkey website to create 2 separate collages (a different one for each side of the pillow).  PicMonkey is easy to use, and they have a lot of information on the site, like this article here:
http://www.picmonkey.com/blog/learn-collage-before-another-butterfly-dies/
4. Important PPI settings:  For printing fabric on Spoonflower, the pixels-per-inch (PPI) ratio is an important function for what size the image will be printed on the fabric.  Spoonflower’s standard for printing fabric is 150 PPI, so if you want panels printed at 18”, you need to create your collage image to be 2,700 pixels by 2,700 pixels.  The formula for calculating print size is:
                           Size in inches you want X resolution (ppi or dpi)= pixels
Note: I did not attempt to include seam allowances in my fabric printing calculations.  I just planned on narrow seam allowances when sewing the pillow.  So, set your size on PicMonkey to 2,700 pixels by 2,700 pixels before you begin making your collage
5. Upload the photos you want to use from the curated folder you created.  Organize the photos into the collage as you like.  PicMonkey lets you zoom and adjust images so that you frame the best portion of your photos.  I was careful not to use photos on the outside edges of the collage that had a person right on the outside edge of the photo- you want to give yourself a little room for seam allowance without sewing through someone’s head.  PicMonkey lets you adjust the spacing between your photos (I used 22) and the color of these gaps in between the photos (I used a dark gray, background color 444444)
6. Once you have your collage photos organized as  you like them, save the collage as a Jpeg file on your computer

7. Now I had to figure out how to create the layout of my two different 18” collage panels to print effectively on a yard of fabric at Spoonflower.  This required me to work on a much larger scale of pixels than usual photo editing software allows.  After searching around, I found this solution:
https://support.spoonflower.com/hc/en-us/articles/204265944-How-to-Create-a-Large-scale-Image-with-Free-Software
I downloaded the free Gimp software and used it to create a layout that would print two each of two different panels on a yard of fabric, for two pillows. Once you manipulate the collages in Gimp as you like them (essentially an image that is 36” by 36” at 150 ppi), save the whole file as a Jpeg
8. Log into Spoonflower, and upload your large Gimp Jpeg image to make one yard of fabric.  One edge of the fabric is actually 42” rather than 36” so you’ll have a bit of a short section of repeat.  Make sure that the layout is good.  I ordered 1 yard of basic cotton, $18.75 with shipping
9. When you receive the fabric, run it through your washer and dryer- it tends to be pretty stiff after the printing process. Here is the fabric before I cut the panels for the pillows:

The printed fabric- four panels for two pillows

10. Iron it on the back side of the fabric, then cut out the panels for your pillow and sew the 4 sides, leaving a big opening on one side to insert the pillow form.  Slip stitch the opening closed.

The pillow displayed on our daughter's 2016 open house memory table

The pillow on display at our son's 2019 open house

How to Make a Personalized Graduation Book

Many families put out a book that open house attendees can sign when they come to a graduate’s open house, but I wanted family members to have a bit the opportunity to give a bit more time and thought to what memories and advice they’d like to share with our recent graduate.  I made a list of family members I wanted to include in the book, and I sent them all an email 1 month ahead of my intended deadline with the following request:

Dear _____,
In honor of Margaret’s graduation, I am planning on making her a little book with notes from those who love her.
I would like to invite each of you to write something for Margaret.
Here are some ideas:
-- a special memory you have of Margaret
- the most important thing(s) you ever learned
- some things you wished that someone had told you when you were 18
- a favorite quote or poem, and why it is special to you
- things you love and appreciate in life and why
- advice or tips on college and careers
These are only suggestions - anything will work- it doesn’t have to be profound.  It can be as long or as short as you want.
Please send your notes to me via email by April 25.  
I’m going to assemble everyone’s notes, along with some pictures, into a little book and give it to her for graduation.
Thanks a bunch,

It was so much fun to read everyone’s notes as they came in!  I had to remind a few people, but everyone got something to me.  Next, I went through our entire photo collection (this took time, but was a great trip down memory lane) and curated photos of Margaret with each of the family members that wrote a note.  I made folders to organize my photos.

There are many companies that make personalized books, I opted to go with Shutterfly.  I ordered an 8 X 11 hardcover book with 29 pages for $38 (look for discount coupons online- I found a $10 one just before ordering).  It took time to design each page with text and photos, similar to a scrapbooking process.  The process was pretty intuitive to figure out, although I wish the text box features were a bit more flexible- I had to stack text boxes together for longer pieces of writing, but it printed very nicely.  The company delivered it in 1 week, so I had plenty of time before graduation.

The book has been so meaningful for our daughter, and family members told me they really enjoyed writing their notes for her.

The book cover

A page with all pictures

A page with pictures and text

2019 Update:

I did the same thing for our son

Back cover, featuring the three dogs we've owned, Duchess, Sadie and Chester