Summer Vacations

I know I haven't been around much this year.  We've made a few changes recently, and we are still adjusting.  We're just now getting fully adjusted to my sister living here, and she's been here since the end of January.  We're also doing a fair amount of remodeling and rearranging to make everyone more comfortable.

I can't believe it's already May.  My son has less than 3 weeks left of kindergarten!  Our summer is going to be really busy, too.  We're going "home" to Missouri next month for a big birthday party for my dad (he turned 65 yesterday, but since we live so far away, we decided to wait until June, when everyone can come).  I think we will be there about 2 weeks.  Then in July we're taking another vacation, to Washington state.  My little sister is going with us to Missouri, but she'll be staying here to take care of the pets in July.  One of my older sisters and one of my aunts are driving up here in July, and then going to Washington with us, though, so that should be a lot of fun.  My sister in law will also be flying into Seattle and spending a long weekend with us.  We're renting a beach side cottage, and getting a great deal on it, so the vacation will be pretty frugal. 

We had originally planned on skipping a family vacation this year, but ultimately decided to go ahead and do it for a variety of reasons.  My husband hasn't seen his sister for at least 2 years, and possibly even longer.  She was planning on coming up here, but with the remodel and everything, I was trying to figure out some way to make it work better and more comfortably for everyone.  It turns out that flying into Seattle, and then helping us pay for a few nights on the beach actually saves money over flying into North Dakota.  So it works out better for her.  Plus we've been wanting to visit Washington, and neither of us have ever been.  When I said something to my sister she said she wanted to go to Washington, too, so we invited her along.  And then invited my aunt as well.  We've already managed to save over half the money we need for vacation, either from online earnings, credit card cash back, or just money we didn't spend  on certain areas of our budget.  We should be able to save the rest of it pretty easily between now and July without dipping into the money that is supposed to go toward debt every month.