But my kids are too little, they won't remember it!

The excitement of this year's trip makes me look back on previous adventures that we have experienced. Last year, our son was just 18 months old and we took our first big family vacation. Again, with the help of our brother and sister in law's time share we took off for beautiful South Carolina, Myrtle Beach! We actually were so nervous about this trip that we debated and debated about whether we should ACTUALLY go at all, practically right up until the minute we left. Because we had so much baby stuff to take (we had not yet learned about a neat baby travel light service from the Williams family blog) we decided that driving was the only real option. Directly before our trip the transmission gave way on my forevor unreliable Volvo, and so we tentatively set out in what was a new "used" car. Given that we had such a wealth of experience with cars breaking down...a story for another day...we were a little nervous about that aspect. Luckily that was just wasted energy. It was however a very long 20 hour drive. I nearly abandoned Joe about Tennessee. Someone was really always crying, and sometimes it was me! We would drive until someone either threw up or threatened to bail out. By the time we got to South Carolina we were nervous about whehther the trip could really be worth it! The time share condominum turned out to be so lovely that I nearly shed tears when I saw it! We tried to keep our nap schedule the same and eating the same. We ate mostly in our condo, with only one meal in a restaurant where Will promptly threw up all over me while Joe was at the buffet. Aaah good times. We spent the week visiting local atrractions, the acquarium, the alligator park, the ocean, and the pools at our time share. I hear people all the time say that they haven't yet taken family vacations because they are waiting for their children to get older so they will remember it. I am here to say that Will is probably not going to remember that first time he saw the ocean...but I will NEVER forget how he looked when he saw it. The experience was primarily for me, and I feel like that's well worth the money. I still have the photos of that trip revolving around on our digital picture frame, and I never tire of looking at them!