Let's Make a Memory

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We didn't take a lot of extravagant vacations growing up. My mother was a single mom for some of our upbringing...and even when she wasn't, she worked hard to provide what we needed. Most of our vacations consisted of camping trips in southern Ohio or the occasional stay in a log cabin in the mountains of Tennessee. We went to DisneyWorld when I was five or six. And when I was a young mother, we traveled to Myrtle Beach to show young Timothy the ocean.



One summer before mom was too sick to go, we took my little brother, Sean and my oldest son Timothy on several day trips. We would pack a lunch and load up the car with hopes of some fun and the promise that no matter what...we would make a memory. Good or bad, my mother always viewed our experiences as memories that we would someday laugh about or smile reminiscently as we remembered. The time it rained all night on a camping trip, while we laid huddled in a little dome tent trying to avoid the rain seeping in the holes of the tent...it was just another memory. And, it became even more memorable when we started sliding down the hill due to the increasingly wet mud beneath our tent! Oh...how we laughed! The giddy excitement mom displayed when she could finally buy a brand new tent, cooler and pie irons for our camping trip (instead of the hand-me-downs chocked full of character we had always used before!)...it was a memory. The bickering, sweaty little boys we drug to a restaurant after a long day at Sea World...another memory. Getting lost...almost everywhere we went...memories. The dark walls of Ohio Caverns...the ghost town...the lazy river at Cedar Point...and the deep belly giggles as we were knocked down over and over again at the wave pool in Soak City. There are a million examples of mom saying..."Well, at least we're making a memory." I guess it came from a lifetime of experience making lemonade from the lemons life handed her over and over again. But, she was grateful for the little things...and she taught me to be the same way. It is a gift to be content with the simple gifts of life...and I'm so glad she passed it on to me.


As spring blooms and will soon slip into another summer, I hope you will take the time to make memories with your family as well. It doesn't have to cost a lot. And the conditions don't even have to be perfect. Everything can fall apart...expectations can go unmet...you can get lost...never even make it to your destination...sleep in a leaky tent...tip the canoe and watch your lunch float down the river...and you can still smile, knowing with confidence that you are "making a memory"!