Category Archives: Vacation

Spring Break Vacation

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Destination: Backyardville

Backyardville

My kids are on vacation for spring break this week.  Because of some poor planning on my part, I got the same time off too, but at the last minute.  Since my son started school, in previous years we only went on short 2 or 3 day vacations.  Had I planned better, we could have gone on a bigger longer vacation.

But since I’m stuck in backyardville, I’m going to do the following exciting action packed activities:

    • Do Income Taxes (yes this is a rare year that I’ve procrastinated).

Personal Finance Ninja is have a free Turbo Tax Deluxe giveway

  • Change my car battery (I hate to spend the money!!!)
  • Change my car’s squeaky brakes.
  • Mow my lawn (Nooooo)
  • Spread organic weed and feed  on my lawn (this is the first year I’m trying this).
  • Golf, some more (or at least a trip to the driving range) 🙂

If all goes well, next year I think I’ll plan something a little more extravagent!  At least a trip to a major beach, or maybe a 5 day Disney Vacation (but probably not, I’m sure it’s super crowded during spring break).  Most likely it will be a quick trip to the beach!

We’ll make the best of this vacation, but it sure chould have been better!

Reader: What did you do for vacation this spring break?

-MR

Hilton Head Daydreaming

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This past summer, we vacationed in Hilton Head for a week.  As I look out my wintery window (This post was written on January 23rd, 2010), the weather which reminds me of a grey cloudy horror movie setting, I keep daydreaming of the great time we had at Hilton Head Island in SC.

Hilton Head looks like a shoe

Hilton Head has a little bit for everybody, but it is mainly oriented towards families with kids.  The island is covered with some great bike paths, and HHI (Hilton Head Island) has a warm, friendly feeling practically everywhere.  The problem with Hilton Head is that if you rent a house for a week, it can get pretty expensive (thousands of dollars).

We usually go to the Sea Pines area to eat at “The Salty Dog” at least once.  It’s very touristy there, but it’s still cool in its own little commercial way…

One of the things I keep coming back too in my memories, was the kayaking ride with dolphins.  My son had such a great time seeing the dolphins continually surface as we paddled up the inlet.  I even perked up when I saw how close the dolphins were coming to the kayaks.  As expected, the rest of the Island was great too, the beaches were perfect, not too many people.  Dining was but good, albeit a bit pricey.

The reason I’m writing about HHI, is because I want to go over a few point of interest.

  • If you rent a house, it’s cheaper to get one across the street from the beach.  The walk isn’t far, and really it’s not really that different.
  • Consider renting an apartment for a week down there.  The have some good deals on these versus renting a house.
  • Bring sunscreen 😉
  • Rent some bikes!  It’s worth it.  If you have a young (and not quite ready to ride alone yet) child, consider getting a tag-along attachment.
  • Bring golf clubs.
  • Visit the “Harbour Town Lighthouse“, while the lighthouse isn’t anything too amazing (good view though), the history (look at the pictures and captions) during the climb up the lighthouse is pretty fascinating!

When we first went, we had no idea how laid back the bike riding would be…  They have special trails that make it a lot of fun.  I was intimidated by the golfing aspect of HHI, but they are many different levels of golf courses.  Since I’m a beginner, we went on a cheap one.  We had a blast, the only problem was the houses were too close to the course.  My ball kept going into home owner’s yards.

My son is very unfortunate in that he’s been stung twice by jellyfish (once at Hunting Island and another at HHI) on separate occasions.  So we don’t go far in the ocean anymore.  But typically the water is nice and warm.

I don’t know if we’ll go there this year since we’ve been have went there for the past 2 years.  But it’s definitely worth it to go at least once.

Beware of the palmetto bugs (big cockroaches), if you have a phobia of these type of bugs make sure they spray the house really well!

Pre-Vacation Nightmare!

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Let’s travel back in time to last Sunday 11/01/2009, it’s 4:39 am in the morning and I’m about to get my son up to leave for our vacation flight.

Being half asleep, I bumped my son’s hamster cage by accident, but his hamster doesn’t move…  Hmmm, I bumped it harder this time ( intentionally), but again the hamster doesn’t move. 

This is not the way a vacation should start!

Yes, unfortunately, my son’s hamster is no more…  So I had a decision to make, tell him then, or not…

I decided “not“!  I called my mom and had her drive over and put the hamster in the freezer via a ziplock bag, so I could delay the decision until after we got back.  It was a hard choice to make…

My Options:

  1. Buy another hamster that looked identical to his, and possible lie to my son.
  2. Tell him then and there and deal with it.
  3. After we get back, tell him the cat ate it (just kidding).

After a lot of internal debating, I decided to go with option 1) “Buy another hamster that looked identical to his, and lie to my son.”  I would hate to lie to my son, but he’s only 9 and he still gets very attached to his pets (we already dealt with a gerbil dying a few years ago, not a fun ordeal).  After breakfast, the first thing he wanted to do before going school was to check on his hamster.  Luckily, since we decided to let him get an extra hour of sleep instead of riding the bus, he didn’t have time to do that.  At least that is what we told him.

So I went to PetSmart, to buy another Russian dwarf hamster.  Of course, the batch of hamsters that they had were not the right color.  His hamster had grey fur with just a slight bit of brownish tinge around the edge of it’s back, and a white underbelly.  The latest batch of hamsters had no grey and almost all brownish colored fur on their backs with a white underbelly.

Just my luck!  So, that would not do…  So I bought a different species of dwarf hamster that had what I thought was close enough coloring. 

It cost $15, not a lot of money for the price of a potentially happy kid (or at least not sad kid)…

So, did it work?  Sort of…

He said that “Twirly” looks like he’s a different color, but that he hasn’t seen him for a while and maybe he forgets what his colors look like…  I didn’t say anything to that remark…  So far, he hasn’t commented other than that statement.  If he continues, I won’t lie to him…

I’ll be walking on eggshells for the next few days!

Forget the Economy, I’m going to Disneyland

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Well, actually I’m going to Disney World, but hey… close enough!

Disney's Cinderella's Castle

Disney's Cinderella's Castle

WOW, I really underestimated the costs that are involved with a Disney vacation in Florida! I thought the trip would cost around $2,500.  It turns out that booking the tickets, flight and dinning plan has a price tag of $4,500!  Ouch! I’m sure the final cost will be closer to $5,000 dollars 🙁

I don’t like spending that much money!  But with my son approaching double digits in age (he’s 9), we figured we should go now while he is still young enough to enjoy it with us.  This might be the last trip to Disney we take, it really depends on how much the kids enjoy it.  But with a price tag that will approach $5,000, I’d rather use the money towards a good quality, used car 3 years from now.

On the new experiences side of the trip: The flight to Florida will be my daughter’s first ride on a jet.  Also, this will be the first time we’ve went on a vacation with friends instead of our family.

How am I paying for this?  I’m charging this trip to my credit card.  But wait, I’m not going over to the dark side of financial balance sheet!  I will pay this trip off next month!  We are just using the credit card for convenience, and the reward points.  This will be the most money I have ever spend on vacation.

This is one of those life balance milestones, that I can now check it off of the “need to do at least once” list…  Disney will be a great memory for kids, and I’ll make sure plenty of pictures will be taken.

-MR