Vacation Memory

The topic for this week's family history journal, sponsored by Evette is earliest vacation memory.

I have two. When I was young, we traveled from Phoenix to Salt Lake nearly every summer to visit my grandparents (mom's parents). I remember one summer we traveled with our neighbor, Linda (who moved away when I was in about 2nd grade but later moved into our stake after she remarried while I was in high school...) and her children. We drove in their station wagon. I don't remember much about the actual time in Utah. I'm sure we went swimming and went to the library near my grandma's house and picked raspberries and apricots and did stuff with my aunt Elaine and uncle Brent who were both still single young adults. What I remember the most was this long ride with 4 or 5 kids in the back of a station wagon. I remember singing lots of songs to the tapes that Linda had brought. "Sing, sing a song. Sing out loud, sing out strong. Don't worry that you're not good enough for anyone else to hear..." Janene Brady songs. Safety Kids. Favorite Things. We sang and sang. And while it was a long drive, it was fun.

My second memory is not actually my earliest vacation memory, but I still need to record it. As I mentioned, my family always went to Utah in the summer... nearly every year. But these were basically our only vacations. But the summer after I was in fourth grade, we took a vacation to California. My family went with my grandparents. They drove down from Utah, and then we drove from Arizona to CA in their motor home. We went to Disneyland which was so fun, of course. Then we went to San Diego. We got to walk on the beach and wade in the ocean a little bit. We also went to Sea World. This was so exciting for me and so much fun for all of us.

Interesting side note... When I was a senior in high school, Linda and her husband were taking a trip to Disneyland. I believe that combined they had 7 children, although they left the baby home with a family member. So they asked me to come along and help with their kids. In exchange they paid for me to get into Disneyland. I had such a great time. Their kids were so fun and they playfully argued over who would get to go with me on each ride. It was another great vacation.