Vacation Planning

This year, my husband has a milestone birthday. It’s the type of milestone birthday where some people buy little, red sports cars or other large, rather silly purchases. Luckily, my husband isn't requesting sports cars or other frivolities. Know what he wants for his milestone birthday? A family vacation to his beloved Colorado. Sign me up!

The last time we took the big boys to Colorado was in August 2008. (Note, we had plans to go last summer, but baseball and my work schedule foiled those plans.) Again, it was a fabulous trip and we really had a wonderful time, even with a boulder killing our driver-side front tire (and I'm convinced that it was trying to kill us) and Caleb "redecorating" the car on the way home.

We took Sam to Colorado when he was about 6 months old and Bryan was running the Denver Rock-n-Roll Half Marathon. It was a nice trip, and we got to see some great friends and beautiful fall foliage. Oh, and Sam learned to crawl on that trip, too.

Have you noticed a theme here? We've been to Colorado twice since Bryan and I married, both times with kids, but never with all three at the same time.
What I'm discovering as we try to plan the trip (and we're still very much in the early stages of planning) is that it's rather difficult to plan family activities when the kids will be almost 12, 8.5, and just over 2 at the time of the vacation. Colorado is a boy's paradise. Hiking, zip-lining, horseback riding; all things our big boys have voiced wanting to do. But what does the baby get to do? The baby, who, remember, idolizes his big brothers and wants to do everything they do.

I'm really afraid we're looking at planning two vacations - one for Bryan and the big boys, and one for Sam and me. Someone experienced in planning family vacations with large age gaps between the kids tell me it's not as complicated as I'm making it! (If anyone's curious, we're looking at the Buena Vista, CO area in early July.)

Julie Daneman is wife to Bryan, Stepmom to Jacob and Caleb, and Mommy to Sam. They are a boisterous, loving, happy interfaith family.