Making Memories

Lucas on the Wild Jeep Tour, Sedona AZ 2002




Over the past five years, I have tried to take each of my kids on vacation. Sometimes together, but often separately. They are ten years apart in age, and my daughter Emma really prefers walking through cities to road trips or beaches (as I discovered when I took her to Bermuda for a week in 2000, when she was 15. She spent almost every waking minute in the air-conditioned room, reading 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy".) She did deign to come to Orlando with us that year (that's her at MGM). She also traveled to Europe with my mother in 2001 (my mother was 80 years old but they had a great time together) and went to London with her dad. She and I also went to Atlanta, where she loved visiting the Margaret Mitchell house.

Lucas is a great traveler. We went to Jamaica in 2001 when he was 6 (stayed at a place called "FDR Pebbles" which assigns you a family nanny when you arrive. She entertained and watched after him the whole week, whenever I wanted time to myself. It was incredible. Not the greatest beach, but great for traveling with small kids). Like my cornrows?




In April of 2002, Lucas and I flew to Phoenix and met up with my sister Loretta. We headed north to Sedona, which was like visiting another planet. After driving for miles along dry, dusty and brown landscape, the road turned and suddenly we were faced with enormous red "rocks" (mountains, really). While there, we took a drive up to the Grand Canyon but it was so windy I was afraid Lucas was going to be blown into oblivion. Here's a picture of us atop one of the red rocks.




The year 2003 wasn't a travel year for us. Tony (Lucas' dad) had gotten sick and I was reluctant to go too far from home.

Last year was a BIG travel year for Luke and me. In February, we did our now-famous marathon drive to Florida. Then, in April (he had two weeks off last year), we took Kelso to a dog-friendly bed and breakfast in the Catskills. We were the ONLY people there, which was great. Even the owners were away on vacation, so we only got to meet them on the last day. The woman who owns the place was SO affected and strange! As it turns out, she had been Klaus Von Bulow's girlfriend during his trial for killing his wife.




In August, we decided to take a "Science and History" trip to Boston for a long weekend. We stayed in Cambridge and visited the MIT Museum and the Museum of Science. We walked to Faneuil Hall, went to the Aquarium, and saw Spiderman 2 at the IMAX theater. We walked through all of the historical cemetaries. It was a blast. Lucas loved eating at Legal Seafood every nght, too.




I honestly think my primary job as parent is making great memories for my children. Based on all of the nostalgic posts we see here in blogdom, my blog included, the things that are burned into our brains as kids stick with us forever. For better or worse. For all the bad memories I have of my own childhood, one of the very best has to do with a major road trip we took when I was five. That, however, is fodder for a future post...