The End to another Glenn Traveling Summer

We are home for good again. Living here in this state that we've made our home alone with no family is really tough sometimes, but on the other hand I feel so incredibly blessed and fortunate that we are able to see them as much as we do. Because of our jobs as teachers, we take advantage of the summer and winter holidays to see our families at least those two times a year, and if we're lucky they each hopefully make it here in the spring sometime to see us. However, every year this gets tougher and tougher. Raising a family requires much more money than I ever imagined. Imagine that, right? Aren't we all a little niave to the expense of children? Now when I had hoped we would see our families more because we have children that we want to see their grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins, we probably actually see them less than when we first moved out here and were childless.

Somehow through a lot of anxiety sweating about money, we manage to load up that family car, with the dog included sometimes, and make those memorable trips to grandmas, grandpas, and nanas' houses or to those vacation spots to make lasting family memories. These trips whether to see family or vacation together as a family to us are extremely important.

Life is way too short to not take the time to reconnect with your family. The four us live crazy, hectic busy lives, and I've always found this time such a valuable way to recharge to take on the craziness of life.  My oldest has always fallen into our crazy, unscheduled, lack of any routine kind of summers without blinking an eye. We are not homebody, routine kind of people. My husband and I spent a summer literally living out of suitcases between the end of our apartment lease and closing on our first house. My youngest though is a much more scheduled kind of person; she's more similiar to mine and Nate's sisters than either of us, but she took the Glenn kind of summer like a champ this year. She was soooo good, and at the end of each summer I always feel so incredibly blessed and fortunate to watch the joy these two girls get from spending time with their family, discovering and trying new things, and just exploring this world with their mom and dad.

This summer we did not make the long drive out to Missouri because my family came out here to see our new house and save us the long trip this year, but we did make it the following places: Harper's Ferry, West Virginia; Mrytle Beach, SC;  Gettsyburg, PA for a day trip; Warren Co, Pa; Buffalo, NY with a two hour trip into  Ontario, Canada.  Within the last six months if we go back to our winter MO trip we have seen all the grandparents, great grandparents, great aunts and uncles (minus one set in Texas), and all our cousins except five of them. Maybe I focus on keeping track of crazy stuff like trying to make sure we've seen everyone in the last six months to a year to ease my conscious about the choice to raise my children so far from family, and quite honestly I'm afraid one day because of money or time (as much as I see those two things shouldn't keep us from making it happen) this will get harder and harder and years will go by without seeing our families.

So even though I worried and stressed that we wouldn't be able to do this summer again this past summer, thankfully we did because it was so great to see everyone and spend so much quality time as a family. Here are some pics from our last trip of the summer.

                                                            Niagara Falls, Canada

 

                                             The girls with their cousins, Alaina and Dylan

                                   Love this picture of Nate with his grandma and the girls

                                            

      Nate's been surrounded by girls his whole life. Her with his mom, grandma, and sister and the four kids

                                                               Nate's mom with the girls.

                                                        Kenzi loves her Nana.

                                                                Kenzi and cousin Taush

                 Averi helping Nana blow out her candles (Averi's middle name Lorenza is after Nana)

                                                     Grandpa Fred with his granddaughters.

                                                  Hanging out with Aunt Jody, Nate's sister.

Click here to read the other post I wrote about family after my family left in July