It's all about Family

You've heard the sayings a million times:  Blood is thicker than water...Family comes first...and there are many others you've heard.  But have you really ever given them a second thought?  I've heard them too but for a while now I've been paying little attention to them.  Oh sure, I made it to all of Heather's year end activities while she was away at college.  And I made it to all of her Special Olympics performances.  When Chris was young I was at every ballgame and most practices.  One year I even coached his baseball team. (If any of you Dads are thinking of doing that, call me...Please!)  When the girls were little I took them to swimming lessons and gymnastics lessons and suffered the indignity of being the only father at Mom and Tot activities. 

I spoke with my parents fairly regularly when they moved away and saw them as often as we could.  Many times on a 3 day weekend Judy and I would pack the kids in the car Friday after work.  We'd drive to Limon and stop for chicken nuggets at McDonalds followed by ice cream at the railroad car across the parking lot from McD's.  Then we'd bundle the kinds in their jammies and drive the rest of the night to Wichita and spend a couple days with my parents and sisters.  It was a bit tougher when my Dad retired from Boeing for the second time and moved to Holdenville, Oklahoma but we still tried to see them regularly. 

I'm not sure what happened or when but after my Dad and then my Mom passed, we started visiting Judy's parents more often.  We made the occasional trip to visit my sisters and their families but not nearly as often as before.  And over the next several years they dwindled to almost never.  Oh sure, we made a point to visit for the Bean family reunion in 2007, and I made a quick trip to Wichita in 2009 for my High School reunion, but visits there as a family have been virtually nonexistent. 

I haven't helped much either.  The past few years I've exhausted my vacation time on solo photo trips.  When my kids or my sisters started bugging me that we haven't visited Wichita enough it was easy to justify by saying  there is no vacation time left.  There were visits from both my sisters and some of my nieces here in Colorado from time to time but trips to Wichita were only for special occasions and my family is starting to get restless. 

Recently two visits have caused me to rethink my vacation time and how it's spent.  In October I visited Phoenix and spent a wonderful evening and morning with my Daughter and Granddaughter before heading out on a photo trip.  Yes, I admit it...I spent more time creating images than I did with my girls and it hurt when I had to leave. 

Most recently two of my nieces rented a cabin in the mountains west of Colorado Springs and were there for Thanksgiving.  We arranged for my family to visit them and I cooked a turkey and stuffing for the meal.  We had a great visit and, again, I was sad to leave.  All the way home I was thinking of how I've neglecting my side of the family.  It's not been intentional, just inconvenient.  And that's got to change.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not going to stop taking photo trips.  Those solo jaunts are what keeps me sane.  Cutting off the photo trips would be a very bad thing for me and Judy and the kids.  So that's not going to happen.  What I can do, though, is to take long weekend trips instead of devoting a full week to trips.  And in doing so I can save some vacation time for visits to family either in Kansas or South Dakota.

By now you're probably wondering why there is a photo of a Christmas Cactus accompanying this essay.  Well, it's got to do with a family visit.  My daughter, Erin, and her family are coming home for Christmas.  They live in Phoenix and I figured I needed a way to make them feel at home so today when I put the lights up for the season I included the cacti.  Should do the trick, right?