Vacation (with kids)

One of the great joys parents have while on vacation is the long trips, whether it’s by plane or car, they share with their children. Especially with the constant updates on the arrival and departure times; “Are we there yet?” or “Can we go home now?” But recently during the family vacation I did not have the luxury of these “helpful” updates from my two boys. Mainly due to a recent invention that keeps them as quiet as a mouse, the Nintendo DS system. Once I purchased this item for them, they stop being so helpful in making sure the next vacation never happens again.

Each with their Nintendo DS as both are constantly plugged into the cigarette lighter so they stay fully charged, they stayed glued to those little screen games during the long hours of car travel time. It is so quiet now that my wife and I can actually have a conversation about what we want to talk about. Not that I don’t care about Sponge Bob.

As the vacation was coming to an end, we got a hotel for the final night so we could be well refreshed and home by the afternoon the next day. But which hotel to choose from out of the many that was all planted together along the road. They all looked like a puppy at the pet store; “Pick me” “No pick me”. I chose one based on the rumblings of my stomach and parked the car at the hotel next door to a Wendy’s, which also happened to be the only fast food place anywhere nearby.

It is the Marriott Residence Inn that made my kids and wife wished we took our vacation there instead. We got the two bedroom with kitchenette suite. Each bedroom had its own bathroom and TV set. As soon as we got settled in, the boys automatically picked out the room they wanted and crashed on the bed with the TV set on Cartoon Network and their heads buried into their Nintendo DS’s. Not a peep out of them for hours.

It was heaven. My wife disappeared into our own bathroom for a nice long soak in the tub, boys in their room playing games and I’m in the living room watching TV while stretched out on the couch. Dinner time we simply walked over to Wendy’s, had a great dinner. Picked up some grocery items the hotel sells in the lobby and back in our hotel room a short time later. The next day as we were packing up and leaving, both boys and my wife want to come back to this place for our next vacation, which we most defiantly will.

This vacation cost a pretty penny but finding such a wonderful place to where we can still be in a hotel room and still keep some sort of privacy was a blessing. Also the Nintendo’s did help out greatly. If only the hotel which gave us free internet access didn’t keep cutting off on us all the time.