So you may have heard me mention a time or two in previous posts that our mantra, if you will, is “It’s an adventure!” It’s our way of reminding ourselves that we need to roll with it, the good and the not so good. Traveling together as a family is so important to us. We really want our kids to see the world outside of our wonderful little community; for them to be aware that they are truly global citizens and to learn to appreciate the differences among people, within a country and around the world.

Traveling also provides an excellent opportunity to teach our kids to try new things, to be flexible and accommodating, thus the roll with it part. For this particular trip, we had to remind ourselves of this even before the vacation began. Two months prior we had booked the plane tickets to Tucson, the car, the hotel. We were ready to go. Why Tucson, you ask? Well, it fulfilled our two main criteria: 1. the kids have never been, and 2. It’s warm. We found the hotel, largest water slide in Tucson and all. By the grace of God, Eric happened to be on the hotel’s website one week prior to our trip, and in very small print at the bottom was a notice about the pool being closed for renovations, which included the week we would be there, which was spring break, which was really crazy that NO ONE from the hotel contacted us.

So let me get this straight…we were going to get away from the achingly long Chicago winter and take our kids to the dessert with NO pool?! My quick-thinking and problem-solving husband immediately started searching online, and before I knew it we were booked at a fabulous hotel, water slide, lazy river, laser tag, ping pong….done and done. The only thing is that the hotel is in Scottsdale, and no changing our tickets to Tucson with days to go. So, we roll with it, all the way from Tucson to Scottsdale.

Reading material, check.

Coffee for Mom, check.

Electronics and snacks for the plane, check, check.

Ready for wheels up!