I believe that getting away from work for a while is a good idea. I like to work hard and I also like to play hard. The same is true for my family. They work hard in school, their activities in their jobs. Having a break helps all of us recharge, refresh and renew. We are then better positioned to tackle new challenges.
It has been a family tradition for me to take the kiddos on at least one super awesome summer vacation. We have had some of the best times during these vacations. We’ve circumvented the coast of Florida, camped in various locations including VT, NH, FL, SC, and GA, hit our nation’s capital and so on.
Prior to Covid, we had been discussing going the CA beaches this summer. EVERYONE in the family loves the beach. We were excited about the prospect. We even looked at Air BnB’s on the coast.
As Covid lingered and lingered and then escalated, it became clear that we would not be hitting the beaches this summer.
We were all disappointed. My girls were really disappointed, especially Juju. It seems like she was impacted a lot by all the Covid crap. In truth, they all were.
They kept asking and asking about going to the beach. I kept telling them that this was not the time to go. Of course, they did not like that answer. It’s not that they didn’t necessarily agree with my assessment, they just really wanted to go to the beach!
So they got smart.
After they talked among themselves, Mariana eventually came back and asked about going boating for a day on the lake. We all love the beach and we all love boating. It solves the problem of being on a crowded beach or at a crowded hotel or restaurant. It would be just us on the boat, with our own cooler full of food, and we would be outside away from all other people.
It was a terrific idea.
The challenges was going to be finding a time that everyone would be able to go.
It would have to be a time when we could all go.
Well, that time was last Wednesday, on my birthday.
I found a boat at a marina on Deer Creek Reservoir and we rented it for four hours. Everyone was very excited.
As soon as we got out on the water and became familiar with the boat, the Tubalooza 2020 began. Everyone made it out on the tube and everyone had some type of super groovy wipe out. We also spent a little time just floating around and swimming in the water.
Speaking of the water, it was so refreshing and not as cold as we thought it would be. We shot the slo mo video below during one of these times.
WIPE OUT CENTRAL
One of the things that I really like about tubing is that when you wipe out, you swim back to the tube, pull yourself up and go right back at it. I think it is a great analogy for our work and personal lives. We are certainly going to face challenges and have “wipe outs”, and just like as on the tube, we can pull ourselves up and get right back at it.
Here are some wipe out scenes from the day.
Other Fun Pix
While being out on the lake was fun….like tubular dude, the best part of the day was driving back home and hearing how happy my children were. They said, “Today actually felt like summer.”
And there you have it. Our summer vacation boiled down to 4 hours on the lake. And we are grateful for it!
The Umenum 