Silver Mountain Resort, Kellogg, Idaho

Webster’s Dictionary defines the noun vacation as a “period of rest, from work, study, etc.” Seems obvious, right? As with most words, vacation has different meanings depending on basic demographics, such as age, gender, and social status, as well as economic trends. The way people romanticize vacation changes throughout their lives. For example, my idea of vacation when I was 10 was anything with a pool within a one-hour drive.  In my 20s, vacation was anything free, with or without water, as long as I could rock the right swimsuit. As an exhausted and full-time mom in my late 30s, I’m realizing vacation has way too many meanings and my definition of it would make me sound worse than a Bellevue housewife! Which brings me to summer vacation 2011.

For ten years, my hubby and I found it necessary to spend our summer vacations in Wisconsin visiting our families. When it came to planning for summer 2011, we both decided it was time to take a trip somewhere else, somewhere different, and have a real vacation. Initially when my hubby suggested the Grand Canyon, I blew it off and figured he’d forget the suggestion by the time we would need to book the trip. The closer we got to summer, the GC had become a huge point of contention, as I viewed it as too far of a drive with three children ranging in age from 2 to 10, whereas, the hubby viewed it as an adventurous opportunity to make memories and see something different from Wisconsin. We watched the Brady Bunch Grand Canyon episode with the kids—desperate for inspiration. I tried, but wasn’t feeling it. The more we’d mention said plan to friends and family, we’d get the same response: Why would you ever take a 2-year-old on a road trip to the Grand Canyon? By July, we settled for an August trip to and around Idaho—a beautiful state we had driven through many times, but wanted to further explore—beginning with a stay at an indoor water park resort in Kellogg, and concluding the expedition with Boise (see Vacation Lessons, 1).

Our day one of the big Idaho vaca was perfect. We had set out early, stopped as many times along the way as needed, took a ton of pictures, and appreciated the huge scenery. We loved the Columbia River and Thundering Hooves sculpture in Vantage, Wash., the rolling hills and sagebrush of Eastern Washington, the changing topography as we approached Spokane, and the unbelievable beauty of Lake Coeur d’Alene. We had arrived at the Silver Mountain Resort in Kellogg, with plenty of time to take on the lazy river and relax. Our vacation had a perfect start for four of us. But we quickly learned our 2-year-old son is terrified of water (see Vacation Lessons, 2). By 9:30 p.m. we were exhausted, tucked in and ready to crash, except for our 2-year-old son who was chatting up a storm with his sisters from his Port A Crib thinking he’d take full advantage of sharing a bedroom for the first time ever. Periodically he would shout, “Me no go back to wa-wa park!” He went to sleep at 11 (see Vacation Lessons, 3).

17 Minutes on World's Longest Gondola, Kellogg, Idaho

By day three we had taken the advice of the wonderful visitor center expert and toured some great, local attractions. First we toured an abandoned mine. Everyone seemed cool with it, therefore, I didn’t want to mention my fear of mines. We headed 500 feet into and 900 feet under a mountain donning some plastic “hard hats,” stopped along the way to learn a few things about rocks and minerals and made our way back toward the oxygen-rich entrance. We headed outside for some gold panning—a dream of mine since I was 5. We found gold dust, amethysts, jade, and any treasures we could fit into our tiny, souvenir Ziploc baggies. I even found my birthstone! From the mine we took a ride on the world’s longest gondola to the top of Silver Mountain, which had tested our senses to a different extreme, but provided a breathtaking end to an adventurous day (see Vacation Lessons, 4).

Leaving the resort life ended up more sad than we had thought. We decided to take a scenic byway out of town to help make the route to Boise more memorable. We had a huge breakfast, which we thought would be a nice treat. Along the winding scenic byway to St. Maries, I found myself clutching my left armrest to stop the minivan from plummeting into the lakes below, yet I loved the views. With our daughters quietly playing in the back our son was whining louder and louder in the middle seat, which wasn’t typical for our little trooper. I had looked back and noticed a familiar greenish hue on his face and began calmly shifting all travel items—camcorder, camera, game bin, EVERYTHING—away from his part of the van. I suggested to my husband to slow down a bit as our son didn’t seem to be feeling well. We were too late. He lost his McBreakfast. Our 6-year-old shouted, “That’s why I will never have children!” The rest of the five-hour trip to Grangeville—our mid-way stop on the way to Boise—just wasn’t the kind of memorable we had in mind. But we did decide to take highways the rest of the way (see Vacation Lessons, 5).

Grangeville was nice. We got to clean out the van and scrape up enough change to do a lot of laundry, including the car seat cover. The girls couldn’t wait to swim again. The heater must have been broken in the pool. When the motel employee walked in we mentioned the coolness of the pool and she reminded us, “That’s what the hot tub is for!” We missed the resort life (see Vacation Lessons, 6).

The rest of the leg to Boise was beautiful. We loved the sandy beaches along the Salmon River. We discovered McCall—a town situated 5,000 feet above sea level on Lake Payette with every tourist trap imaginable. We had tried booking a night there, but everything was full. We ate lunch and hit the beach before heading back on the highway. We fell in love with the Payette River and the white-water rapids. We saw hundreds of rafts full of adventurous families making memories. We were jealous and wanted to be them (see Vacation Lessons, 7). But we had Boise to look forward to and we needed to bottle up all of our excitement for our final destination!

We finally had made it to Boise—south of the mountains, north of Nevada and far away from the rivers. We  found our hotel without a hitch, unloaded all of our belongings in the 97-degree heat and collapsed into our air-conditioned hotel room. We swam and then we listened to our son chit-chat again until 11 p.m.

The next day we took a tour of the one suggested tourist attraction: The Old Penitentiary. We had gotten there nice and early before the temps would get too hot. Five minutes into our tour our 2-year-old son fell off a curb and broke the fall with his head… on a rock… at an old prison (see Vacation Lessons, 8). We ran him back to the “gift shop” to seek medical care and realized, a: medical care didn’t exist, and b: with a quick trip to the restroom and a few Band-aids, he didn’t need stitches. All I could say in my head was, “Thank God we didn’t go to the Grand Canyon!” We hightailed it out of the Old Penitentiary. We asked some locals what else to do in Boise with children and found out there was nothing to do in Boise with children (see Vacation Lessons, 9). We swam some more and made attempts to walk downtown in the 98-degree heat. After day two in Boise we had decided to end our vacation a day early and take the 8-hour trip back home.

The Cascade Mountain Range East of Snoqualmie Pass, Washington

When we got home I tried to hide my excitement. Everything looked different. I mentioned how it seemed we had been gone for a month. Our 10-year-old rebutted, “I felt like it was two days!” Summer vacation 2011 was memorable, meaningful and different from Wisconsin. Our girls loved the swimming and family time the most. Our 2-year-old loved sharing a bedroom with his family at night and making us laugh until 11 p.m. My hubby loved being off from work, with his family and exploring new territory. Me? I loved panning for gold and finding my birthstone. I loved staying in a clean, high-end resort for the first time and booking a massage to have some me time. I loved not caring how I looked in a swimsuit. I loved not going to Wisconsin. I loved being away from home for six days and missing it enough to feel like Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz when I saw the giant Cascades again. Most of all I loved learning about my family and what matters most to each one of them. To my family, Idaho was a vacation. And that’s all that matters.

—–

Vacation Lessons:

1. Never plan the most exciting and pampering experience in the very beginning of a family vacation. Moving forward, everything else looks and feels pretty down-hill from there. Lesson: Save vacation pinnacle for the very end. Anyone could have told us that!

2. Find out if your entire family will enjoy the vacation activities such as swimming before booking a vacation which revolves around those activities. Lesson: Just because older sisters are mermaids and on the swim team doesn’t mean water parks are for everyone!

3. Practice having a toddler sleep in a room with family before trying it in a hotel room. Lesson: Toddlers love a late-night audience during bedtime.

4. Don’t save fear conquering for vacations. Lesson: When conquering fears such as mine exploration or record-breaking gondola rides, don’t ask tour guides too many questions. The answers could make matters worse, or distract the tour guides.

5. Don’t assume everyone is free from car sickness. Scenic and winding byways trigger car sickness. Lessons: Practice winding roads with all family members before vacation to rule out car sickness. And bring plenty of plastic bags in vehicle during road trips.

6. Sometimes transitioning from resort to motel can be shocking. Lessons: When booking hotels, ask questions such as, “Is the pool heated?” or “Does the hotel smell of dogs?” or “Is there only one hotel in your town?” Camping is always an option.

7. Never miss out on something really cool along the way during a road trip. Lesson: Research all recreational opportunities and fun cities well in advance and plan them into the vacation before they’re booked solid by all the cool people.

8. Do not tour old prisons. Lessons: Old prisons are dangerous and depressing for all ages and not well-maintained. When researching vacation destinations, if an old prison is listed as a city’s one tourist attraction, take it as a hint and change the destination.

9. Always do vacation planning homework months in advance and make a plan B.

10. Never take a 2-year-old on a road trip to the Grand Canyon.

Sequim Lavender Festival 2011

Sequim Lavender Festival 2008

Sequim Lavender Festival 2008

Sequim Lavender Festival 2011

Sequim Lavender Festival 2011

For more information about Sequim, Washington, and the annual Lavender Festival, visit: 

http://www.lavenderfestival.com/visitorinfo/gettinghere

One little reason I have stayed away from Facebook is the well-documented and criticized security issues associated with the site. People have lost their jobs from unwanted “friends” viewing their pictures and reading their posts. Some users have had their identity stolen or borrowed. And, of course, some users “friend” people to spy on other users. But my favorite security reason for avoiding Facebook is a little more than the in-your-face obvious ones. I have a problem with the seemingly benign, under-the-radar affiliate marketing tools which track users and obtain their personal data to share with paying partners. I know MSNBC ran a special about it, but I’m not sure anyone watched it. Nor do I think anyone outside the marketing world would understand what it really means. I appreciate marketing, but not dirty marketing, especially when grandma is on Facebook purely to keep up with the grandchildren and has no idea how BENGAY(R) ads keep popping up on her sidebar!

My most frequent concern about Facebook and biggest reason for not participating in the trend, has everything to do with morality. If I was a lonely husband or wife having a nagging problem with my spouse, and felt completely desperate to escape my relationship without appearing to do anything wrong outside of my marriage, the first place I would turn to would be Facebook. I know if my husband and I would join the site, within a month we would have friend requests from people we never should or would have gotten in touch with in the real world. Then if one would accept a “forbidden friend” the other spouse would do the same out of fairness. Thus, you have an arrangement similar to that of Modern Family’s Phil Dunphy and his ex-girlfriend. Let’s just say, things get ugly! Every married person I know has somehow, through pure fate, reconnected with an old buddy as nothing other than a Facebook “friend.” And, voila, somehow Mr. Founder brilliantly is making billions on the most socially accepted means to open marriage ever known to man. When someone tells me they’ve divorced within the last few years, I automatically assume there is a high school “friend” on Facebook involved, and usually I’m either dead on, or off by a few years.

As if my moral-impact-on-the-marriage reason for avoiding Facebook isn’t enough for me to stay far away from it, there is my mom-on-a-soap-box reason for not joining the charade: Shouldn’t someone be kind of busy trying to raise educated and socially functioning future members of a real society? I have heard all the exciting reasons other moms are on Facebook and why I should be their “friend.” I have been asked and emailed several times to drink the… well you know. I have learned to listen to their pleas and I quietly nod. Then I see them giggle at their phones while we have coffee and they think they’re successfully multitasking while their neglected darlings color on my wall with Sharpies and I try explaining why I have three weeks to live (not really, but to make my point) and I don’t get a reaction. I understand my mom friends are as addicted to Facebook as I am to coffee and HGTV. I get it. But the children of these Facebook addicts don’t understand why they have to live with these screen staring zombies as their mothers!

One thing I give Facebook credit for is giving people a venue. Not everyone is happy. And when people aren’t happy they drink coffee, watch TV, shop, play games, and spend the rest of their time on Facebook describing these events. When the daily routine becomes too mundane for Facebook, people create more whatever to fill the picture–wilder girls’ nights out, better bikinis, darker tans, new toys, more family pictures resembling Eddie Bauer catalog shots, what have you. Essentially, the Facebook facade–that staged and scripted world people obsess over and polish before presenting it to a carefully selected audience–should really be a flashing red, light begging the question, “What is missing from my life?,” and a growing concern for everyone. Not just me. I, in the meantime, get to enjoy the real world outside the little ‘f.’ I love it here. And I know for certain I haven’t missed a thing.

Related topics:

Social Networking Boosts Teen Drug Abuse Risk from Thomson Reuters, by Molly O’Toole:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44263900/ns/health-childrens_health/t/social-networking-boosts-teen-drug-abuse-risk/

Not Me Dot Com — Want an Internet that doesn’t know your pant size? A guide to regain your privacy from The Wall Street Journal, by Luke O’Neil:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303714704576385700129279210.html

How to Get Hacked on Facebook from MSN Money, by Stacy Johnson:

http://money.msn.com/identity-theft/article.aspx?post=7428a57c-3ed8-4ec7-9b46-5e13ad5dc161

I enjoy our family Wii, don’t get me wrong. And my husband and I encourage our children to play educational computer games at pbskids.org and certain other site games which offer math-fact practice and keyboard familiarity. I’m not fond of the interactive video game sites where kids are allowed to freely “chat” with other players, young and old. Nor do I care for any trendy video games children need to play every day instead of wanting to play or do anything else. Call me way too traditional for setting an only on weekends, one-hour limit, but I am not giving in. I want to keep my kids. Yet it seems the rest of America gobbles up the status-symbol technology which effortlessly silences and socially stunts its youth. By the time parents take a break from Facebooking their high-school sweethearts and Google “video game addiction” their kids are long gone.

My third-grade daughter tells me she’s the only person in her class who never has played Club Penguin. She doesn’t seem to mind missing out on the colorful online chatting she hears them bragging about every morning, especially when she sees how twitchy and bouncy these students are during the school day. She tells me one of her classmates wakes up every day at 3 a.m., plays video games, takes a shower, plays more video games, does his homework and then goes to school. Some of these addicted kids play video games all night long and show up at school barely awake. One student even falls asleep while reading to me in the hallway on Tuesdays when I volunteer. Fortunately my daughter knows she’s better off for not falling into this category, but she has a huge growing concern for her friends whose parents don’t seem to care how and where their children are spending the majority of their brainpower.

In a June 2006 story featured at CBSnews.com called “Detox For Video Game Addiction?,” by WebMD writer, Amy S. Clark, experts suggest gaming addiction includes any video game abuse including online and cell phone game dependency. The article discusses the growing numbers of addicted boys and young men who are seeking help in Amsterdam for the addiction–which is defined and described the same as any other addiction–an escape “to the fantasy world, that makes them feel better,” essentially taking over what would be normal, social behavior and growth. The article lists warning signs of gaming addiction and necessary steps parents need to take in determining whether or not their child already has a problem.

Todd (a made-up name) is one example of someone I know who actually has the problem. He and my nephew grew up as best friends in a picture-perfect Midwest town. They spent their summers jumping on trampolines, skateboarding off homemade ramps made out of milk crates and pine boards or taking camping trips with their families. They made the most of their play time together. But when Todd discovered video games, he stopped playing anything else. He stopped hanging out with his family and his friends. Todd never wanted to let go of the high. Soon, to deal with the lows when he wasn’t playing video games, Todd started using drugs and lost his friends. Once a straight-A student, Todd started skipping school. Eventually the video games switched to online gaming and to pay for it Todd stole his grandmother’s credit cards. At age 17,  Todd had to be escorted to one of America’s top gaming addiction facilities where he would spend the rest of his high school years. My nephew misses his old friend.

One popular tech site, Techdirt, naturally claims video game addiction is “a symptom of something else.” But as one reader suggests in the Readers Comments section: “Be a responsible parent and spend time with them yourself. Watch them play outside with other kids. Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo may be good entertainment companies, but they make lousy parents.”

My preschooler tells stories about one of her classmates who plays video games all day long. A preschooler. His mom seems nice in passing when she’s not Facebooking from her cell. Her son is one of dozens we know whose parents willingly enable this daily regimen. Not us. When our children ask my husband and I why they can’t play video games for longer than an hour during the weekends, or why they can’t go online without us, or why they won’t get their first cell phones until they’re MUCH older, we simply tell them we love them. And they get it.

For further reading, visit:

Social Networking Boosts Teen Drug Abuse Risk from August 24, 2011, by Molly O’Toole of Thomson Reuters:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44263900/ns/health-childrens_health/t/social-networking-boosts-teen-drug-abuse-risk/

www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/07/03/health/webmd/main1773956.shtml

Not since the days of Atari had I spent any significant amount of time playing video games. In the 1980s I thoroughly enjoyed Frogger with its joystick-controlled, enlarged pixel-shaped frogs and simple theme song complete with hopping and splatting sound effects. From my family’s 2-inch, cable-free TV box, I would play against my older brother who would beat me day after day, but I put up with it because it was fun. My parents loved that we were out of their way and not killing each other—in real life that is. We didn’t have Pac-Man, which was my favorite game, but I would play that one on a huge, arcade-style machine at Pizza Hut during birthday parties. I loved the chomping sounds, the lights, the shapes and the levels. For perhaps a year, to girls and boys everywhere, video games were everything. I loved all the discussions, the hype and the pop culture that went with it. But similar to Michael Jackson’s moonwalk, by the time I had mastered Atari—it just wasn’t cool anymore.

By middle school video games and their operating systems graduated to more advanced graphics and realistic subject matter. Meanwhile, I discovered boys. A gigantic, never ending video game in and of itself, the pursuit of boys came complete with soundtracks, point systems and levels of nemeses—all in an effort to make me lose or quit every game out of sheer frustration. My friends and I would chase boys while the boys would chase Super Mario or other lame, fictitious video characters they thought were cooler than girls. At about that age I had developed quite an aversion to video games simply because they took attention away from me. And that distaste for such—in my priceless opinion—a boyish hobby, significantly worsened as I neared adulthood.

 Geeks Come in All Shapes and Sizes

Then a few months ago, for my husband’s birthday, out of complete desperation as well as temporary insanity, I had decided to surprise him with a Wii. He had been researching the thing for a while and I figured, “Hey, it must be something cool enough for him to mention it a million times a week. Perhaps I should take the buzzing as a hint.” One random Friday, I walked into Target, approached the electronics department vidhead and said, “I’d like to buy a Wii. Could you please tell me what one looks like?” The kid had the nerve to snicker at me when he answered, “You’ll have to come back Sunday morning when we get our next shipment. The doors open at 8.” I walked away, so cool and so above all the Wii knowledge, as I told him I would go somewhere else to buy one as I was in a hurry. He kindly informed me I would need to get in line Sunday morning, hours in advance, because the Wii was sold out EVERYWHERE. I actually said this, “Oh. The Wii must be pretty in-demand since it just came out. Nintendo must have done a great job marketing it.” Pathetic and lame, all at the same time! I could almost hear him making fun of me in his head as I walked away practically stumbling on the tail between my legs.

Two days later, while my husband soundly slept, my father and I made the ridiculous mission to Target at 6 a.m. In my mind there were two options: Either I was going to be the first and only person there and would be labeled a complete and total geek the rest of my life, or I would be the 100th person there with 99 geeky teenage boys pointing and laughing at me while I approached the Wii line from hell. Wrong. I was number 15 behind 14 respectable moms and dads free of pimples and black T-shirts. “Wait?” I asked one of the other Miis, “Is this the line for the Wii?” Then a kind Target employee handed me one of 80 tickets which guaranteed I would get a Wii without having to participate in an as-seen-on-TV stampede. “Let’s see the ticket!” I heard from a distance. I glanced up with the ticket in hand and “click” my dad took a picture. I threatened, “You dare not show that picture to a single person or I will never hear the end of it!”

Hours later the husband got his wish. Nope… my parents were still in town, but his precious little Wii was hooked up. He was impressed I had bonded with the people in the Wii line well enough to find out which accessories I needed, how many to purchase and that “numchuck” was actually “nunchuck.” Then it happened. Somehow while I was hiding out upstairs, probably writing an article on “How to Tactfully Discuss Generational Differences in Parenting with Your Parents,” I overheard my husband and my father yelling, cheering and laughing together. I tip-toed my way to the top of the stairs and witnessed the two men playing virtual golf. “Great!” I yelled down. “Now my dad’s turned into a vidhead!”

I hesitantly joined the family solely for the purpose of obtaining hideous videotape footage of grownups making complete fools of themselves whilst playing video games. Soon my husband demonstrated to our children how to pretend bowl. I stood with arms folded and rolled my eyes. My eldest reminded her daddy, “My brain will turn to mush if I play this thing!” Then she got a spare and jumped for joy. My concern had reached new heights when my dad had asked my mom to try bowling and she gave in without a fight. I sadly watched her as though she was my last hope for a video-game-free world. I wanted to jump in front of her in slow motion and block the TV in an attempt to save her and yell, “No! Don’t do it, mom! There’s no turning back!” Faster than I could say gutter ball, the little woman raised her remote at the end of a perfect lunge, and there it was… a STRIKE! My mom followed that up with the most amazing victory dance I had ever seen from a sixty something grandmother of 12! Purely to make a point and put an end to the painful immaturity, I hip-checked my husband and stole his remote, “Move over Munson, let the Kingpin show you how it’s done.” I aloofly dropped a curve ball and with one eye shut I somewhat watched the ball move toward the pins. I pretended not to care about the score as I walked away. But somehow out of nowhere I had gotten an indescribable yet familiar adrenaline rush. Then I remembered it. And boy, did it feel good.

Within the first few weeks of owning a Wii, I played with the same enthusiasm as the days of Frogger and Pac-Man. My husband and I created our own Miis—characters who compete against each other in Wii games—which made the games even more engaging. Our children began requesting family bowling nights. And weekend movie nights, which had typically involved very little interaction or conversation, were replaced with mommy and daddy Wii tennis matches and golf outings. On one occasion a Wii boxing match turned into a perfect therapy session, complete with a knockout. And I won. The next day when I told my husband I would need a few days off from the Wii to rest my overstrained muscles from the “therapeutic boxing” he giggled and asked, “Now who’s the vidhead?” In my best-ever “Rocky” impersonation I raised my arms high in agreement and hung my head low. Then I asked my husband if he could find it in his heart to forgive me for all the years he had to listen to the ridicule, name calling and whining when he would play Madden NFL. I explained that most of my life I never understood the appeal of video games or the people who played them. But for the first time in a long time, I had become a kid again when I played the Wii. My husband agreed that it was a side of me he had never before seen. “Better late than never,” I said. “I sure am glad we got a Wii.”

]]> http://jamtastic4.wordpress.com/2008/04/26/how-a-wii-saved-my-marriage/feed/ 7 jamtastic4 http://jamtastic4.wordpress.com/2008/04/01/hello-world/ http://jamtastic4.wordpress.com/2008/04/01/hello-world/#comments Tue, 01 Apr 2008 01:43:58 +0000 Sheridan Editing Services ]]> While taking time off from my writing and editing career, I had started this project as a place where I would write my personal accounts about life. My goal with this blog had been to honestly write about the real and simple stuff going on in pop culture—the flip side of all the advertising, marketing and public relations stories I had created for years.

I had started out writing weekly/monthly blog articles and received plenty of readership. Just when I started thinking my two children were getting manageable enough to begin freelancing, along came baby number three. While life is fantastically busy, I occasionally need to share my unpopular take on some annoying aspect of pop culture.

I decided to leave some of my favorite posts on the site, while removing some of the outdated entries.

Enjoy it. Take it. Or leave it. Not my concern… just my take.

–Ms. Nonconformity–