Vacation Math OR How to share a beach house?

If you rent a vacation home with extended family (a week at the beach or the mountains, for example) -- how do you do the math? Once upon a time the grandparents paid for the house, our parents paid for the food. The grandparents are gone, but the tradition continues! My siblings and cousins and I (the next generation) are trying to develop a new financial model that's equitable?

It's not like we have 4 families and can divide by 4 ... Hardly anyone's married, no little ones (yet), some can't stay the whole week. How do we handle guests? Do we formulate a daily rate?

As for food, different families/couples/or other combinations of adults take turns cooking dinner. You're responsible to buy all the groceries for your night. There's a general grocery fund that covers some basics for breakfast and lunch, toilet paper and laundry detergent ...

Any/all suggestions are welcome!

Car activities?

How do you survive long car/plane rides with your kids? Many of us might be heading out on vacation in the next few months, so thought it would be good to share some tips.

I've done a number of long trips with my daughter - several on my own.  What's worked for me:

1. Eat lunch, snacks in the car. I've found that if we stop to eat, she's so excited to play, run around, etc., that she ends up not eating anything. So we pack food to eat in the car, which kills time in and of itself, and then maybe make an extended stop at a rest stop, a park we find on the way or even a Target to kill some time. You can spend less on a new toy in the dollar spot at Target than on lunch at Wendy's.

2. Get some cheap new toys and library books. And then I wrap them in newspaper comics or something. You kill time as they unwrap the "presents" and then as they play with the toys.

3. Books on tape. We don't have a TV in the car, but we do listen to books on tape that we get from the library. The whole John Lithgow series is great - The Runaway Pancake, etc.

4. Activity book, blank paper, stickers, markers and other crafty items. 

5. If I'm taking a plane, I don't board at the beginning when they invite young children on. I wait until they call the last zone or until near the end of boarding (but before they're making the last call). I imagine if you have a sleeping baby, it might not be that big of a deal. But I don't see any reason to coup up a toddler or preschooler on an airplane for longer than you have to.

What do you do? 

Great Wolf Resort opening in Concord

Anyone else seeing all the TV ads for this new Great Wolf Resort that is opening in Concord near Charlotte?

It looks kind of interesting - a resort-like hotel with an indoor waterpark for the guests. The rooms are designed to look like cabins, etc.
Perhaps opening at a bad time what with the economy the way it is.

But the prices aren't bad especially if you can chip in with another family maybe? Of course, I'm guessing you have the extra cost of food still. But suites have microwaves, refrigerators.

Here's a link to find prices. It's opening April 10 and I guess it's part of a chain. Anybody been to one of these?

A Quick Family Getaway..........................

Hi There. This is gonna sound crazy, but here goes. We just moved here 4 months ago from New York. We thought as my husband started his job, we would settle in, try to spend more time with the kids, not work as much and ya know, enjoy life.  WRONG!!! Just the opposite. My husband works nights and gets home just as I am going to work and the kids are getting on the bus. As I get home from work and the kids from school, we have about an hour together and then he leaves. Same old, same old day in and day out. On days he has off, they either call him in, or he just sleeps. Life is too short for this, but the bills keep coming, eventhough I changed my address..hahaha... Anyways, Supposedly my husband will have a couple days off this weekend. Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. I am new here to the south and am wondering where we could go that might be another state or a beach, not that far, but just enough to consider it being away, if you know what I mean. I am also looking for it to be inexpensive but have some things to do... either a fishing pier, a museum,beach... something. We are considering going to Florida. It's only about 6-7 hours to the border, I think. Does anyone have any ideas??? I would really appreaciate it. It has been so hectic since we got here, I would love for us to just spend some quality time... Thanks in advance............

Travel

I am the mother of a 2 month old and my husband and I are planning a trip around his first birthday to visit relatives.  We will have an 8 - 10 hour trip.  When is the best time to travel with a one year old?  There are some early morning flights and some middle of the nigh/red-eye flights. 

 Thanks!

Road Trip !! $400 in gas, 2800 miles later

The family road trip is highly under appreciated. Flying somewhere, having a week of relaxation and fun at a great location, has its charm. But the sense of discovery, interaction, and togetherness of a family roadtrip can't be matched. It used to be a rite of passage to have a family road trip -- kinda like bumming with a backpack across Europe as a teenager or young adult. Travel for the sake of travel is becoming a lost art in this country. Yes, I spent $400 in gas over the last two weeks, and enjoyed every dollar of it. The charming, family-run, simple b&b's, the green mountains of Vermont, the white mountains of New Hampshire, the coast of Maine, as well as friendly Canadians in Toronto and Montreal, made the driving time all worth it. Mostly, amid the gorgeous scenery and friendly towns, we reconnected with family stories somehow never told. My teenage daughter was full of questions of my life as a teenager and in college, questions she may have never asked and never heard the answer to. We shared music and conversation, not dvds and not ipod music --there is plenty of time for individual video escape at home to waste the time on a road trip with electronics that dominate our lives the rest of the time. The last similarly long family road trip was 2000 miles in Scandinavia, not New England, when the kids were four and eight years old. I remember my friends saying, "my kids would have killed each other next to each other for so long." And I thought, "My kids never get along so well as when forced to be together and share their lives on a road trip."

CPR/First Aid/Fiearms/CCH Class/Unarmed Self-Defense

I'm a Paramedic Certified by the American Heart Association to teach CPR, AED, Choking Management, and First Aid for infants, children and adults. The first 2 to 3 minutes in an emergency is the most critical time in a medical emergency, and the average person can learn lifesaving techniques in 3 to 4 hours. I believe this is a must for all parents. I can come to you, or set up a class. A minimum of 8 students is required.

I'm also certified to teach the following:

Pistol, Rifle, Home Defense (NAR).

Concealed/Carry Handgun Class (N.C. Department of Justice).

Unarmed Self-Defense (Martial Arts Experience).

Contact me for more information.

Van

Almost New Jeep Overland Jogging Stroller

For Sale:  Jogging stroller bought new, only used a few times.  Grey with turqoise stripes.  I can send picture or you can come see it.  Asking $120 919-389-7970

Teen Social Bullying

"Bullying" is a term that will bring different pictures to the minds of people.  We all know toddlers and young children will 'bully' each other with and without menace, as they are trying to figure out the social rules as they grow.  But bullying in the teen years has changed dramatically since this mom was that age.

Teens today deal with all the 'usual' social angst and insecurities that we grew up with, but today it's compounded by instant communication via phones and Facebook.  A situation that would cool down by separation of angry teens is extended and expanded exponentially through these electronic medium.  And today, sadly, the consequences of bullying are far too often traumatic for not just the child bullied, but innocent bystanders as well.

Recently, my son's group of five close friends went through a bad stage.  It seemed that each week one of the guys was on the outs with the rest.  Too often lately, it'd been my son.  It peaked on a day when first the rest avoided him around the neighborhood and then, when they met up at a park, them leaving him there alone.  It ended that night with Facebook exchanges that definitely upped the ante.  It was devastating for him, and heartbreaking for me.

I realize our kids need to learn how to deal with such situations, but I have also learned in 20 years of parenting that we parents need to step in much more often than we're led to believe, because the fact is our teens are NOT adults, and they need guidance throughout the teen years.  I have learned that even when I was sure they weren't listening, they were doing so closely.

So after I said goodnight late that night to an extremely sad young man, I decided to email one of the boys' mothers, one I knew better than the rest; one I had learned through casual discussions on the sidelines had a similar parenting philosophy.  This was not a decision I made lightly.  You never know today how parents will react to being told their kids have done something wrong.  I have been called a liar, told my son was one, told I just needed to let them handle it and all too often been told there was no way their child could've done what I said.  So I was trepedatious, but I wrote it anyway.  I explained what had happened,  and admitted that the next time it could very well be my son who'd be one of the bullies instead of the 'bullee'.  I said I knew we could not force them to be friends or to talk, but that we could guide them to either be friends to each other or not, and stop the emotional roller coaster they'd been putting themselves on.  I asked for her advice and opinion, and requested that she tell me if she knew of ways my son had contributed to the current situation.  And then I sent it off, trusting cyberspace to convey my heartbreak, my fear and my questions the way I felt them, borne of a piercing pain deep in my heart and soul.

The next morning, I found a new 'village.'  You see, I've always believed in the idea of it taking a village to raise a child.  I grew up in a blue collar area where every mother was my mother, or just as well was, since I couldn't take a wrong step without it being back to mom before I got home.   Well, this mom called me first thing.  Her son had already told her the night before what they'd done, and she'd been appalled.  My note was the icing on the cake.  She called the other mothers and told them what had happened, and they too were on the same page.  The group of us talked and realized we each had found a heretofore unknown support system, right in our neighborhood.  They made it clear they agreed that it had reached the point for parental guidance, and handled it with each of their sons. 

The boys?  Well, let's just say that each of these parents got to see that the seeds of conscience that they'd spent 15 years germinating in their boys flower that week.  On the bus home from school, before they'd even heard they were in trouble, they had apologized to my son, righting his world with a few words.   They weren't off the hook at home, but the fact they'd owned up to their actions on their own was huge. 

It was, after all was said and done, both the best and worst of weeks.  All of us involved grew a bit more, and our boys took a few more step toward being responsible, compassionate young men.  I feel a sense of support I'd not felt before, and know the others feel the same.

Our boys will fight again, and no doubt they will drift in and out of friendship over the coming years.  We parents can't control that and shouldn't.  But through this incident I was reassured that no matter how fast society tries to hurry our kids along to adulthood, it's too early to throw in the parental towel during the teens.  And I have kindred spirits out there who have learned the same thing.  As I always say when talking about parenting teens, there's safety in numbers. 

Overseas travel for teens without Mom!

What opportunities have local parents used for their teens to travel abroad without them? I am especially interested in the volunteer, less expensive and more service-oriented, or academically oriented opportunities that teens can participate in. Expense and safety are the major concerns. My niece is doing AFS this summer, which is great. Other general ideas are language schools and church-related work. I'd like to know of some specific abroad opportunities for economically disadvantaged teens. THX.