Family Vacation: Our Priorities

This has been a challenging year for our family, our loss, Jeremy's schedule, new pregnancy with a difficult first trimester. On top of that Owen stretching his toddler wings and giving us a nice big dose of his independence. Our time together, the three of us, is very limited.

Jeremy gets 4 days off per month. Those days go by quicker than you can imagine and are filled with things we HAVE to do like car inspections, apartment "stuff" (seal the windows for winter, hang a picture here or there, grab the window AC units and install them) but mostly we try to save his days off for fun together. Still, it's hard to do.

Three weeks (completely unscheduled, random weeks that we rarely know about in advance) out of the year (and a few days around Christmas/New Years) Jeremy is ON VACATION. It is the ONLY time that we don't have to wait while he answers his pager, or sit in the car while he runs into the hospital (even on his days off) to see a patient.

We made a decision that any extra money we had at the end of each month would go into our savings account and spent on time together. Our trip to Hilton Head in October was such a special time for us. The weather was perfect, there weren't crowds and we relaxed the entire week enjoying each others company.

We drove away from the island wanting nothing more than to plan a time to go back. Jeremy was given a week off in April, but he pushed for it to be moved to the first week in May so that we could enjoy some nice weather at the beach. It was approved a month prior and we scrambled to find a place to stay.  We knew this would be our last vacation until the December holidays, because his fall vacation week will have to be used when the baby comes. We also knew it would be our last trip as a family of three and while we are bursting with excitement to welcome our new addition it was nice to just cherish our firstborn a little and wonder how different things will be when we visit the beach next spring.

Owen could not have been happier the entire time, despite a small cold he caught on the way there. He played in the sand with his Daddy for HOURS and absolutely loved everything about the ocean and the beach.

This was a very special trip for the three of us, and one we will remember for a long, long time.

Read more about our Babymoon on Kveller.