Here is the place to share your ideas for vacationing. Are there things you can do to make your vacation less stressful? Something that really blessed your husband?
June 18, 2009
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My husband really doesn’t like to stop for food and drinks all the time, so I pack a small cooler and make sure to put some of his favorites in there.
Comment by KristysRedBarn — June 19, 2009 @ 5:10 am
I thought I would share that 2 years ago in 2007, I planned a vacation to WDW (Walt Disney World)as I have never been and he hasn’t been since it was Magic Kingdom which is a long time ago. I made all the hotel & dinner reservations and
somewhere along the trip, my wonderful DH said to me, “You did a great job and this is a lot of fun thank you” that complement made an impact on me knowing I blessed him. The little things counted… What I mean by that is, I love seafood, my DH does not. I planned a reservation at the Coral Reef which is in Epcot but before doing so, I checked the menu to see if there were other alternatives for my DH. He was delightfully surprised. He also said that he didn’t want to go there every year.. guess who was the first one to say they couldn’t wait to go back? LOL.
Needless to say I again have planned a trip back to WDW for this upcoming September… When I asked him about where to make the dinner reservations he wanted to go back a few of our DD favorites (we have a 6 yr old girl) Let me share something as you maybe interested. One of the ways we can afford to do this as I learned about a thing Disney often does but it is not guaranteed to do it is called “FREE DINING” this saves us so much $$$ and allows us to be able to go. This year the FREE dining starts:
Walt Disney World® Resort
FREE Disney Dining Plan
When you purchase one of these 5-night/6-day Magic Your Way hotel and theme park ticket packages, your family will enjoy the Disney Dining Plan, Free. Valid for stays most nights 8/16/09 to 10/03/09. It’s the Disney vacation you’ve been dreaming of. Rooms fill up fast. Book through June 21, 2009.
Don’t worry, as they have extended the booking date by until July 26th!
If you go through a place called Smallworldvacations.com (I have *NO* affiliation) I have used them in the past and again this time, I personally use Annette but there is a list you can chose from, she was our agent before so I am a happy repeat customer!
Anyway, you only need $200 down as a deposit and then you have till 45 days before you arrive to pay your trip off.
You can also book it right through Disney.com
I am blessed by blessing my husband!
It is more affordable than you think when you go during FREE dining…
You can also get a FREE estimate with no obligation or junk mail.
I am glad I can bless my husband and take the stress out of having to plan a vacation which he so richly deserves so that he can just enjoy himself.
Have a blessed day!
Comment by RichlyBlessed_KY — June 19, 2009 @ 5:53 am
My husband loves to sit by the window during flights because he is a private pilot and likes to see who we are going. While I also prefer the window seat, I let him sit by the window because it is something that he truly enjoys and relaxes him.
Comment by reidld — June 19, 2009 @ 6:13 am
Recently we took a mini family vacation to Ottawa (Canada’s capital) and to Quebec. This was our first vacation with our 3 and a half year old son. My husband has been working very hard and doing a lot of hours at his job lately so he was DUE for a stressless get-a-way. I brought my best assistant along and directed her to be completely in charge of our son’s care and be his “travel buddy” so that I could truly be my hubby’s travel “buddy”! My assistant did an excellent job of balancing our son’s time with us and time away from us. Our son had a SUPER first holiday and we all enjoyed a few stree free days!
Comment by pfraser — June 19, 2009 @ 6:21 am
My husband sometimes would stress out knowing he would drive, so I would offer ahead of time to drive, you could just see the tension melt. Also in the packing of the car I would do as much as I could ahead with the kids so when he came home from work there was just a few things left.
As far as where to go we often have a few spots we visit regularly: beach, camp, family out of state.
When we do go elsewhere, we research spots together and what to do there but my man likes to finish the details of transportation or lodging, tho I have surprised him (sticking to our budget of course)
Enjoy & Relax each other this summer!
Comment by iamloved60 — June 19, 2009 @ 6:24 am
My husband and I love to travel. We especially love it when the travel lands us in a nice hotel with great places to eat nearby but one year we just couldn’t afford that kind of splurge so we chose the beautiful surroundings of a state park instead.
But this time it was no ordinary camping trip. We pulled out all the stops. No paper plates and cups for us. We prepared a new gourmet recipe together and set our table with linen cloth, our good dishes, and candles. We sipped wine and enjoyed our meal as we watched the sun sink below the horizon. And as for our bedroom “suite” we added a feather bed, sheets, comforter and pillows to our air mattress to make it comfortable and luxuriant. We even removed the rain fly of the tent so that we could gaze at the stars as we drifted off to sleep.
Sounds like a lot of work but well worth it. With a little planning you can take something very ordinary and make it into a very romantic memory. Just a tip—if your schedule will allow choose midweek to get away. The campground will be less populated and more private. ;>)
Come, my lover, let us go to the countryside, let us spend the night in the villages…” Song of Songs 7:11
*Another idea—Can’t afford to get away at all. Pitch your tent in the backyard or even your living room. A change of venue can add to the adventure of romance.
Comment by titus2gal — June 19, 2009 @ 6:31 am
My husband had never traveled as a child, they had 6 kids. So vacations and traveling were new and very stressful to him, but after 18 years we have learned how to travel together. I believe one of the most meaningful things to him when we travel is I send him postcards from all the stops along our trip. Many of the times I write how special something was to me or how I enjoyed doing an activity on our vacation with him. It is fun to come home to the mail and remember the trip! I have saved all of the postcards and placed them in a photo album that is “see through” on both sides so both picture and the writing can be seen. (He has started sending them to me too!) If you are traveling state side bring your own postage (and address labels–use the ones that come in the mail or make your own)–saves trouble of trying to find post office and you can mail it from hotel and the city’s postmark will be on it.
Also, we have started collecting Christmas tree ornaments from the places we travel to together. The are usually small (easy to pack) and inexpensive souviner from the travels we take. Makes for fun decorating the tree with “Remember when we went to…..”
Comment by his_bonita — June 19, 2009 @ 9:29 am
One year I was reading about the life of Abe Lincoln, and I asked DH if we could take a trip and see the places mentioned in the book. He said, “just tell me the places and the sequence and I’ll work out the mileage and cost of the gas.” We absolutely loved the trip; it took about 10 days in our motorhome, and we learned a lot. He got a new interest in history (and in my reading). In the winter we wound up the Lincoln trip with a visit to Springfield IL and the new Lincoln Museum. Fabulous! He asked me to plan another trip, and 2 years later we did half of the Lewis and Clark trip all the way up into North Dakota from St.Louis, MO. We are hoping to fly to Helena MT one day soon and rent a car to go over the L&C trail to the Pacific Coast in Oregon, where they spent the winter before returning. Really awesome.
Comment by Buddee — June 19, 2009 @ 10:05 am
by the way, I love the little purple quilt square you assigned as my avatar. I see it’s unique.
Comment by Buddee — June 19, 2009 @ 10:08 am
We bought a GPS (actually a Christmas gift for my husband from my parents and I). This is not within everyone’s budget, but many reasonable models sell for $80 or less now online.
Having a GPS takes stress away from road trips because wrong turns are no biggie. GPS gets us back on track usually without even having to turn around! Little time is lost and it minimizes frustrated arguments over which turn to take or who made a wrong choice in directions. We can focus on other things because no one has to be the navigator. It also makes it much easier to find restaurants or sites along our route.
Comment by Amy — June 19, 2009 @ 11:36 am
I love the idea of sharing vacation ideas!
As a blended family we always had the issue of which children to take and how did we make the schedules work. Needless to say, it was a major headache 90% of the time but we managed it. I’ve always been the planner and implementer so I ended up with the biggest headache (of course, my ex is much more reasonable so that helped immensely).
Now that the youngest is 18, we have more opportunities to slip away just the two of us. We spent Monday and Tuesday in Niagara Falls just doing what we wanted. No schedule of things to do (DH’s children all have autism spectrum disorders at various levels), no planned meals, no set times. It was wonderful. We walked, talked, laughed, held hands, giggled and, of course, had some incredible intimate moments.
Since DH had the entire week off (we had planned to be gone longer but a sick doggy changed our budget and plans) we spent Thursday at one of the National Parks nearby. It was incredible. I’ve lived here 11 years, DH 25 and we’ve never really been there. We hiked, had a picnic lunch, drove through more of the park and made plans to go back. It was like being the childless newlyweds we never were.
Vacations don’t have to be major events. Simple works just as well sometimes.
Comment by Gabby — June 19, 2009 @ 2:16 pm
My husband and I are on vacation at Hilton Head Island right now. As a Father’s Day gift I gave him 18-holes of golf on the Harbour Town Course (the one where a PGA Tour event is played). Although I always encourage him to take his clubs and play golf when we are on vacation, he rarely ever does because he is so sweet and says that he doesn’t like to spend a day away from us to play golf while on vacation. He was really excited when I told him he would need to take his clubs for this trip because he would be playing at Harbour Town on Father’s Day! He always does so much to pamper me and I wanted to bless him by giving him some time on the links doing one of his favorite past times.
Comment by annahm — June 20, 2009 @ 6:39 am
We are lucky enough to live in the thumb of Michigan. We have a trailer for camping and our preferred campground offers sites right on the beach. To bless my husband and consequently myself, I make a menu for the days we will be gone. I pre-cook my bacon, beef, chicken, etc. for things like tacos, spaghetti, fajitas, etc. Then all I need to do is microwave the meat to warm it. This virtually eliminates clean-up so I am free to enjoy the activities my husband likes to do with our kids. He likes to boat, scuba dive, hike, canoe, bike, swim, etc. If I’m stuck cleaning pots and pans at a campsite it leaves him to do those things alone with the boys. I appreciate not being bogged down with clean-up as well. We also do cereal and toast most mornings to reduce time and clean-up so we can get our day started.
Comment by Amy — June 20, 2009 @ 3:39 pm
BTW, my avatar picture was taken at Mackinaw Island, MI during a Celebrate Your Marriage conference at Grand Hotel. Another way to bless us both on a quick vacation was to spend two days celebrating our union. The conference is just plain fun and uplifting. Jay and Laura Laffoon do a superb job.
Comment by Amy — June 20, 2009 @ 3:46 pm
My husband have a set a “goal” for ourselves. We want to make love in each of the 50 states! We leave later today for a trip from Iowa to Colorado, and I’m so excited because we’ll be able to put a little star by two more states in our atlas! We have two boys (ages 12 and
and they have no idea the reason we MUST come home via Kansas is because of our little goal. It has made for some very interesting trips in the past. Once when we were on a trip in the Washington DC area, we decided we wanted to “do” West Virginia. We ended up driving through some absolutely beautiful countryside, enjoyed some great food at a little diner and saw a part of the country that we might not have ventured into without the goal. It has made vacation planning lots of fun!
Comment by IowaTiger — July 17, 2009 @ 3:23 am
My husband is an academic who often travels overseas to conferences. I used to get a little grumpy whenever he left. Here he was hot-footing it all over the world and I was left home with our children. (With one income and three children it is not yet possible for me to go with him.) Then I changed my focus. During one exceptionally long trip, the kids and I went to the library and took out travel books on the places my hubby would be (The DK Pictoral guides are great for children!). We each chose something we wanted him to find during his free time. We made a list and told him about it the next time we spoke on the phone. For each item he found, he would get a kiss from each of us. (This list included a kilted gentleman. A “special” kiss from me could be collected when this item was sighted.)
Whenever my husband checked in with us via phone or email or text, he reported on how many items he’d found. In his last night in Scotland, he spotted a man in a kilt. He texted me before he’d even returned to the place where he was staying!
This kept our minds off of being apart and helped us to feel less “abandoned.” We felt a part of his adventures instead of feeling apart.
There were seventeen kisses to be collected in all…plus an extra special one from me! What a happy hubby to come home to kisses rather than grumpiness.
Now the following quote sits in a heart-shaped frame on the windowsill in my kitchen:
“My darling, be a wife, be a friend, write good letters, do not mope, do not torment me.” Anton Checkov, Russian Writer
Comment by klpettigrove — July 18, 2009 @ 7:11 pm
Our vacation we’re going on this weekend is also our anniversary gift to each other to refresh & strenthen our marriage. We are going to a marriage conference through Family Life http://www.familylife.com/site/c.dnJHKLNnFoG/b.5461135/k.B5B1/Conference_Details.htm . There won’t be too much free time, and we have to get back that Sunday to get our kids from friends to have them ready for school that next Monday. However, there is a scheduled date night for each couple, and we also searched nearby attractions to try and work in when/if time permits. We’re hoping to atleast be able to see the Tennessee Aquarium, and take an hour long train ride at a local train depot for just $14 a person. I’ve also been putting some money aside for awhile for this trip and have a fairly good amount of spending cash to surprise hubby with so we don’t have to worry on splurging on “us”.
Comment by spotnapp — November 9, 2009 @ 9:17 pm