Summer Vacations - Family Style

Summer is consistent for me in as many ways as it is not, it turns out. Jobs, schedules and styles all change, but from year to year, I know a few things for sure. I'll complain about the D.C. humidity, but never as much as I complain about ice falling from the sky in the winter. I'll fall in love with fresh white corn and tomatoes all over again (go away, Salmonella, go away.) And every July, I'm likely to be in North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, for a weeklong family beach vacation that is much a ritual as a getaway.

This time is as sacred to me as all the church services I've ever attended rolled into one, especially as my family has gotten collectively older and busier and we don't see each other very often these days. This trip to Myrtle means a road trip down I-95, with stops at the Cracker Barrel and a few entertaining convenience stores, where my sister and I unearth treasures like dill pickle potato chips and that Bible keychain from a few years ago that played the Hallelujah Chorus when I pressed the button (sorry, Mr. Convenience Store Man. I couldn't help it.) It means Apples to Apples, tacky gift shops, bare feet on hot concrete, sea oats, beers in the afternoon at Harold's on the Ocean, tacky piano bars and Kroger. It also means huge amounts of food - vacation doughnuts for breakfast, beach snacks, Mexican night in the condo, and Painter's Ice Cream more often than not in the evenings.

Best of all, it means a string of days on the sand with a revolving lineup of aunts, uncles and cousins, margaritas and magazines. It means reacquaintance with what I call the golden hour, sitting on the sand until the Carolina sun sets, when my uncle, a reliable creature of habit, is guaranteed to look around and say "I don't know why people go in so early, this is the best time of day, man this is just perfect," and I sit there and look at my mixed up, excellent immediate family, my parents, my sister, my father's brothers and their wives and children, tear up a little behind my sunglasses and feel deeply satisfied with where I am and who I'm with like I do at few other times in the year. And then the great-aunts and uncles come down and laugh at our immediate group, none of us with little kids yet, because they went off the beach at 3 or 4 to get their rapidly growing crew of grandchildren bathed and fed for another night of beach sparklers or the Grand Prix.

I make sure I get there every summer because with so much about life - in general and mine, specifically - changing, I figure it's worth it to keep the few remaining traditions going, especially one that's lasted about 60 years. My dad's side of the family has taken a beach vacation every year since he was a child in the early 1950s. His father was the oldest of 18 kids, most of whom packed up their children and then our generation of grandchildren to go to Wildwood, New Jersey, for two weeks in July or August. I loved it there, loved the boardwalk, the backyard shower, the neon Jersey motel signs and the impossibly tan, white-haired man who trudged the sand selling magazines out of a big white bag. I took an ex-boyfriend there years ago on a trip back east when I lived in Ohio, and as soon as I saw that he couldn't see everything awesomely tackily perfect about this place, or at least couldn't see that I saw and loved it, that he wasn't the guy for me (there were other, more valid reasons, to be fair. He didn't think What About Bob was funny - that was the real deal-breaker.)

In 1983 we shifted south to South Carolina. My grandfather died in 1988, but many of his surviving siblings still stay in the same condo community with us, meaning in some years I've had about 80 relatives on the same stretch of sand at the same time. We're into great- and great-great grandkids now, and I admit that I can't keep track of who belongs to whom anymore.

This will be our 25th year there, the first year without my Uncle Franny, who died in February, and whose dearest love was to initiate the little kids into a card game called 31 - hopefully not just to steal their quarters - and whose prime responsibility was to stake out the umbrellas at an ungodly early hour every day. This will be the first year in a new condo, across the beach road, without the ocean view, the tiny bedroom with the cranky door and the balcony where I usually sleep on at least one night. it'll be another year at the beach with the family, and as much as that can be annoying at times - I mean, let's not sugar coat it, please, what with everyone's special needs and talking while you're reading your book and forgetting the 112 spf so you only have the 72 and not wanting to eat where you want to eat and taking eight years to get ready and essentially grating in all of those particular ways that only family can- it's okay. So much will change - is changing every second - in ways I can't predict and probably shouldn't, but of all the things that have sustained me for these 25 years, this week is one of my favorites.

Lady Jaye is in East Tennessee with her brother, his wife and kids.

Today marked the first day of my family vacation. My brother and his
wife and three kids are up in beautiful East Tennessee for a week.
Tonight was kind of a reunion night for me since I haven’t seen any of
them since New Year’s.

My youngest niece, Rowan adores me and I’ve enjoyed having her around. It’s good for my self esteem.

Tomorrow it looks like we’re heading to a local park and a new
archaelogical site where they have set up a dinosaur museum. I hope to
have a load of pictures tomorrow.

Traveling with groups and changing times and sleeping situations can be rough on big people, so little ones can definitely struggle. But Nortorious just got back from Newport Beach with her husband, daughter and about a dozen extended family members and friends, and little Mimi looks like she took it all in stride. (Note: this looks like a fun group.)

Vatsap talks about how to make a great family vacation video.

As tough as it can be to wrangle groups, Shelli of Bagmomma.net wrote on the New Jersey Mom's Blog about wishing that she and her husband had brought some family members along on their recent vacation.

One of us was always "on duty".

At
dinnertime, only one of us had drinks. And we couldn't go to the
very-quiet-exclusive-romantic restaurants. Those practically had a KEEP OUT
sign on the door for kids. We just gazed at the extensive wine list and
menu at the door and kept on walking. In the evening, the outside bars
had live music we could only listen to from a distance.

About 72 hours into our relaxing beach vacation we turned to each other and said, "Why didn't we BEG someone to travel with us?"

We know what's it's like on the flip side. Last year, we vacationed,
twice, with my parents on one trip, and my husband's parents on the
other.

It was bliss. Because we had a backup. We got a quiet dinner alone. Even (gasp!) time alone during the day for a few hours to do something together.