DigiScrap: Nov and Dec 2009

Planning Future Vacations

How do you plan your vacations?  Do you pick someplace to go on a whim or have you planned it out?

That was the question posed by Jill Savage in one of her books.  She has a wonderful blog and is the founder of a non-profit company, Hearts at Home, focused on encouraging stay-at-home-moms.  She tells moms to think of their job as a profession.

Part of professionalizing motherhood is to plan things out to give your children the best experiences possible.  In light of that, Jill suggests planning out your future vacations.

Ever take your 2 year old to Disney World only to have them scream the whole time and you wonder why in the world you chose that as your vacation for the year?  That choice of vacation for that time in your child's life may not be giving them the best experience possible.

So how do you go about planning your future vacations?  The thought of that may seem daunting to you, but it's really not that hard.

I love spreadsheets, so my first step was to create a new spreadsheet (I suggest Google Docs because then you can get to your spreadsheet from any computer).  We used headings of "Place," "Year," "David's age," and "Julie's age."

Next make a separate list of all the places you want to go as a family and how many times you want to go there.  Want to take your kids to Disney World 2 times while they are kids?  How about New York City, is that a place you always wanted to go?  Want to do an RV trip out west?  Put it on the list.  Be realistic about cost.  Maybe you can only afford a "big" vacation every 2-3 years.  Make sure you don't put 20 "big" vacations on the list or it will never happen.

Our list spans 13 years and we have put a "big" vacation every other year - 2 times to Disney, 2 cruises, 1 Washington, DC trip and 1 New York City trip.  In between the "big" vacations, we have planned beach trips.  For us, beach trips are less expensive and more relaxing so they are a great filler for the "off" years.

Now back to your spreadsheet...Fill in the years and your children's ages first.  Then look at your list.  At what age do you think it's best to take your children to Disney World?  Want to go once when they are little and once as teenagers?  What about Washington, DC?  Is it best to wait until they are older and have studied more US history in school?  Really think about what age your children would most enjoy each place and would get the most out of the experience.  Then start placing your future vacation spots in the list.

On our list, we planned a Disney trip for when the children were 6 and 8 and again when they are 11 and 13.  (The first age is always David's and the second is Julie's.)  The first trip (which we took last May) lets them see the wonder of Disney while they are still young enough to believe in the magic but old enough to remember it.  The second trip will be when they are older and want to ride all the faster, scarier rides.

Our cruises are planned for ages 9 and 11 and again at 14 and 16.  The 9 and 11 was strategic because we know the cruise line puts kids ages 9-11 in one group during the day and we wanted our kids to be together on the cruise.  Not everyone will feel that way and that's OK.  This plan is tailored for you and you need to put down what works for you.

Our last big vacations are Washington, DC at ages 12 and 14 - a lot of US history gets taught in middle school, so they should get more out of the trip since they know more about history - and New York City at ages 16 and 18.  I've always dreamed of taking my teenage kids to Broadway plays so that's why this trip is so late in their childhood.

That is our plan - what works for us.  Now it's time for you to make your vacation plan.

Remember this is just a plan.  It's not set in stone.  Maybe your family dynamic changes at some point - new baby, new job, etc. and you need to change the list.  That's fine.  This is just a tool to help you be more purposeful in your children's lives.

What about you?  Do you like the idea of planning vacations?  
What future vacations do you want to go on?

I wrote about this back in Oct 2010.  You can see that post here.

DigiScrap: Painting and Halloween

Getting closer with finishing 2009.  All the way up to the end of October now.

NetGalley: Girls Uncovered

Girls Uncovered: New Research on What America's Sexual Culture Does to young Women by Freda Bush, MD, Joe McIlhaney, Jr. MD and Stan Guthrie

(from Amazon)

Any parent can identify with the feeling that girls growing up in America face a treacherous future; Girls Uncovered unveils the facts. In a follow up to their eye-opening release, Hooked, obstetricians Joe McIlhaney and Freda Bush present stunning scientific research on the development of young girls in America's increasingly reckless sexual culture. They survey the reality of prevalent sexual behaviors and attitudes as well as their psychological, social, physical, and spiritual effects. Despite the harrowing facts revealed by their studies, McIlhaney and Bush give us hope through their expertise as physicians and parents of daughters. Girls Uncovered provides fundamental wisdom and practical advice to help parents, counselors, and church leaders guide young girls safely through the challenges they will face so they can achieve their potential and enjoy full health, hope and happiness.

My Thoughts:

Every parent of a daughter who is going to be a teenager one day needs to read this book!  Girls Uncovered was phenomenal.  In no-nonsense language Bush and McIlhaney tell the truth about STI's (sexually transmitted infections), teenage pregnancy, the social stigma and the psychological effects of teenagers and young adults having casual sex and multiple premarital sex partners.

Although listed in some places as a Christian book, there is no references to the Bible in the book and no references to abstaining from premarital sex because of religious beliefs.  What Girls Uncovered does say is that abstaining from premarital sex is in a teenage girls best interest physically.  

The book is chock full of statistics that tell the real story; how, as Bush and McIlhaney put it, "sex is sexist."  Meaning that most of the bad things that result from casual sex - STI's, teenage pregnancy, bad social stigmas - happen to girls, not to boys.  The premise is that society used to protect our girls but now we, as a society, have done the opposite.  We have sexualized our girls so much in the media that teenagers feel like that are abnormal if they aren't having sex.  Bush and McIlhaney make the claim that we need to work together to remove that image from the media, to tell our girls the truth about what can happen when they have sex (and the true statistics of how often those things happen) and to help keep our young girls covered in society's protection.

I thought this was an excellent book.  It was so honest, it was actually scary reading it as a mother of a soon-to-be preteen daughter.  But I want my daughter to know the truth.  I want her to know that when we tell her to save sex for marriage, we are trying to protect her.  This book is an excellent resource to get that truth across.  It tells story after story of heartbreak when girls didn't know the truth or chose not to believe it.  And, before you ask, no, I'm not going to read it to my 8-year old daughter at this point in her life.  But I am going to buy the actual paper version of this and keep it until she's older and ready to hear it.

I give this book 5 out of 5 stars.

I received a complementary Kindle version of this book from NetGalley.  All opinions are my own.

DigiScrap: Day out with Thomas, Circus Time

Continuing with my goals, here's my latest 4 digital scrapbook pages.

I use Creative Memories' StoryBook Creator software to create my pages (in case you are wondering).  They are having a big sale on the printed books (getting all these digital pages printed out in one big book) and it ends this Thursday.  So I would love to get all my 2009 pages done by then and order a book, but I don't know whether that will happen or not.  I still have Oct, Nov and Dec to go...and there are LOTS of pictures in those months.  Wish me luck...

Blogging for Books: A Sound Among the Trees

A Sound Among the Trees by Susan Meissner

(from Amazon)

A house shrouded in time.
A line of women with a heritage of loss.

As a young bride, Susannah Page was rumored to be a Civil War spy for the North, a traitor to her Virginian roots. Her great-granddaughter Adelaide, the current matriarch of Holly Oak, doesn’t believe that Susannah’s ghost haunts the antebellum mansion looking for a pardon, but rather the house itself bears a grudge toward its tragic past.

When Marielle Bishop marries into the family and is transplanted from the arid west to her husband’s home, it isn’t long before she is led to believe that the house she just settled into brings misfortune to the women who live there.

With Adelaide’s richly peppered superstitions and deep family roots at stake, Marielle must sort out the truth about Susannah Page and Holly Oak— and make peace with the sacrifices she has made for love.   

My Thoughts:

Wow!  This book totally drew me in.  I didn't realize until I was done with the book that I have read another book by this author.  As with the Shape of Mercy, this book was excellent!

The writing switches each chapter from elderly Adelaide's point of view to new bride Marielle's.  Both women, in their own way, wrestle with the haunting of the house - whether a haunting by ghosts or memories, neither can decide.

Adelaide feels her house, Holly Oak, has a grudge against any women born to its family, a grudge held over from Civil War times.  Marielle feels the house has an unnatural pull to the memories of its dead, former inhabitants, one of whom is her new husband's first wife and the mother of his children.

It takes the discovery of letters written during the Civil War to clear up the mystery enshrouded in Holly Oak.  One third of the book is taken up by these letters written from young Susannah Page (transplanted southerner) to her cousin in Maine during the first 3 years of the Civil War.  These letters are beautifully written and weave a story all their own, in ways connected with that of Adelaide and Marielle and in ways separate.  When I got to that part of the story, I literally could not put the book down.  It was that intriguing.  In beautiful imagery, these letters show the ugliness and unfairness of war, that no matter which side of the conflict you are on, no one really wins.  The victory only comes in the healing of a country and a family after the war is done.

I highly recommend this book.

I give it 5 out of 5 stars.


I received a complementary Kindle version of this book to review by the Blogging for Books program.  All opinions are my own.

24 Books I Plan to read in 2012

One of my favorite bloggers is Money Saving Mom.  Not only does she tell us about deals in stores and online, but she also has excellent posts on setting goals.

One of her goals is to read 24 books in 2012.
I decided this would be an excellent thing for me to do as well.
While I normally do read a lot, I still have loads of books at my house that I have never read.

So, my reading goal for the year is to read one fiction book and one non-fiction book each month that I already own.  I will still be reading and doing book reviews for Booksneeze, Blogging for Books, NetGalley and Tyndale throughout the year.  But I am going to make reading my books a priority too.

Here's "the list":

January - Crazy Love by Chan
               Unlocked by Kingsbury

February - Simplify Your Time by Ramsland
                 While We're Far Apart by Austin

March - Different Children, Different Needs by Boyd
             The Secret Life of Josephine by Erickson

April - Love Life for Every Married Couple by Wheat
           Her Mother's Hope by Rivers

May - The Power of a Praying Parent - OMartian
           On Every Side - Kingsbury

June - Bringing up Boys - Dobson
          Rebecca - du Maurier

July - Life Management for Busy Women - George
         Never Let You Go by Healy

August - Too Busy Not to Pray by Hybels
              Betrayal in Paris by Fell

September - Sacred Parenting by Thomas
                    Sadie's Song by Hall

October - Rocking the Roles by Hendricks
                Where the River Ends by Martin

November - Captivating by Eldredge
                    Burn by Healy

December - Wild at Heart by Eldredge
                   No One You Know by Richmond

I really wanted to put Mere Christianity by CS Lewis on there but it's an intense book.  I don't think I can just sit down and read it all at once.  So instead, I'm going to try to read one chapter a month.  Even at that, I won't finish it in a year.  But that's OK.  I think I'll need to think about each chapter for a while before I move on.

So there you have it.  My 2012 goals may not be that intense, but I am going to be adding to them with things like this little by little.  And now that I've posted this out there in cyberspace for all to see, then I'll be more likely to do it :).