Remember the Disney cruise we went on? You know that multi thousand dollar vacation we paid for by refinancing the house a few years back? It was great wasn’t it? It truly was. I could probably bore everyone beyond the immediate family with stories from the trip for days on end. And the neat thing is my stories would be different from every other family members stories. That’s what makes it so fun to get to reminiscing sometimes like at family gatherings. The sort of reminiscing that is a favorite part of family life for me personally. Everyone has their own little piece to contribute. Right from the four hour delay on the flight out through the space shuttle take off we witnessed as we waited for the plane ride home, it was fantastic. Now an indelible slice or our family life pie.

Making memories through doing things and going places is something we learned some years back so we have quite a few of them. One particular favorite of mine is taking family vacations instead of doing the Christmas present extravaganza. We didn’t do it every year but I fondly remember the times we did. If you ask me, we could have done even more than we have. The vacation memories last long after the presents are discarded and forgotten.

But here’s the thing: Vacations and memory making episodes don’t have to be mega-dollar extravanganzas like that Disney vacation was. If you can afford those and even more expensive ones, more power to you. But you know what? Even the simple family fishing or camping trip, or trip to the city or to the country or to the beach or to the mountains or ballgame or whatever it is your family enjoys does equally well.

We live a few hours drive from the Black Hills area of South Dakota. When the kids were still little, we discovered a silly, kitschy little campground there called “Flintstone Village” with flat painted Flintstone figures, tiny train ride, and worn out putt putt golf holes. (Not a full course mind you, just a couple of holes.) Our kids loved it and therefore so did we. And it was cheap for us! Not something we had to go into hock to afford. We just packed up our crappy camping stuff, drove a couple hundred miles, and paid a few dollars entrance.

Did I ever tell you the story of taking the kids to the midget car races while we were staying at Flintstone Village in South Dakota. Well, you see…