Are you ready for that super fun great vacation with your family? I mean, are you really ready? Well, I’m really excited, but not about my vacation. I’m excited because next week I will be beginning a four part series on planning for your family vacation.

Vacations provide a great way to spend time with your family away from the distractions that constantly assail you at home (cleaning floors, dirty dishes, laundry - you get the picture) - just relaxation and fun, fun, fun. Yea!! However, if you’re not well prepared, your vacation may not go as smoothly as you would like.

Here’s the good news.

You can bypass a whole lot of bumps in the road by making sure that you have a good solid plan. What I have for you are some tips that are going to make your vacation planning easier this year, thus resulting in a more fun-filled, less stressful trip.

Let me introduce you to the four segments in this series.

• Tips for Family Vacation Planning: Deciding Where to Go
• Tips for Family Vacation Planning: Budgeting
• Tips for Family Vacation Planning: Don’t forget to take…
• Tips for Family Vacation Planning: Playing it Safe

Each of these segments includes tips and information that will help you make the most of your vacation. I can’t wait to get started. This is really making me want to go on vacation now!

This series will begin next Tuesday. You don’t want to miss it. I will also have some vacation planning worksheets available for you to download.

You may want to subscribe to my RSS feed by clicking on the RSS feed icon on the righthand side of this page, or simply enter your email address in the box under the RSS icon and press the subscribe button. This way you’ll be sure to catch all four parts of this series.

Related posts:

1. Tips for Family Vacation Planning, Part 3: Don’t forget to take… On Wednesday, we took a look at budgeting for a vacation in Tips for Vacation Planning, Part 2: Budgeting, so...
2. Tips for Family Vacation Planning, Part 4: Playing it Safe Are you finally packed and ready to go on that long awaited and much needed vacation? I hope that yesterday's...
3. Tips for Family Vacation Planning, Part 2: Budgeting Welcome back to my vacation planning series. Yesterday in Tips for Family Vacation Planning, Part 1: Deciding Where to Go,...

It’s official, I’ve been tagged. Sherri at Serene Journey tagged me last week. So, what does that mean? It’s means I get to tell you seven things about myself that you probably don’t know. Well… this could be interesting, or not.

Before I begin, here are the rules:

1. Link to your original tagger and list these rules in your post.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself in the post.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names and links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they’ve been tagged.

The funny thing about being tagged is I was thinking about doing a post to tell you a little more about myself, and I was trying to decide when to do it. I guess, now I know. Today. So, here we go.

1. I absolutely love chips. When I was in high school, I would literally come home from school and eat about half a bag of Doritos and drink a soda. Of course, I didn’t eat breakfast or lunch, so I was half starved. Yes, I know. I cringe at the thought now. How unhealthy! Thank goodness, I eat much better these days. I still eat chips, but in moderation.
2. The most exciting trip I have ever been on was a trip to Greece. My husband and I have friends who are missionaries to the Middle East, and they were living in Greece at the time. We were able to go over and stay with them for several days and tour some of the ruins. It was really exciting to see some of the places in the Bible, like where the Apostle Paul was imprisoned and where he preached on Mars Hill.
3. Okay, I’m going to freak many of you out with this one. I do not care for the beach. Sorry, but the salty water and the sand are just not exactly my style. I much prefer going to the lake and swimming in muddy lake water. My brother actually taught me to wakeboard last summer. I’m not very good at it though. Trust me, you would laugh if you saw me.
4. My favorite dessert is a blueberry dessert that one of my aunts makes for all of our family gatherings. I’ll be sharing the recipe with you before too much longer. It has graham crackers, cool whip and pudding in it. Yummy!! I like to eat it for breakfast too.
5. My hometown actually has a monument to a boll weevil, yes the insect, in the middle of downtown. It symbolizes how the boll weevil ate cotton that farmers were growing, which forced them to find something else to grow.  The diversification of crops yielded much better monetary returns than growing cotton alone. Therefore, the monument was erected in honor of the boll weevil. Who would have thought a pest could be a blessing in disguise?
6. I really enjoy singing. I’ve been in various choirs, in church and in school, and occasionally sing solos. The best choir experience I’ve had was being a part of an all-state youth choir. It was so fun to meet and sing with people from other areas within my state. We practiced for a week at youth camp, and then toured around the state for a week singing at various churches. It was an awesome experience.
7. I am incredibly stubborn (just ask my husband), but the good thing is I’m always right. Yeah right. I wish.

So there you have it - seven things you probably didn’t know about me and may wish to forget now that you do know. Either way, I have to tag seven people now to pass this along, so here they are (in no particular order):

1. Kim - Forever Wherever
2. Chrissie - Flipflops & Applesauce
3. Jendi - Jendi’s Journal
4. Heather - Just Doing My Best
5. Theo-Ann - Outside the Box
6. Brianna - Heart(h) Management
7. Kim - Mommy Knows

Have a great day!

I’m off today, but you are welcome to browse my site and check out these links I’ve listed for you to enjoy.

I’ll admit, I’m like most women I know - I love chocolate! As I was browsing blogs this week, I ran across several recipes with that oh-so wonderful ingredient.

• Just take a gander at these Fantastic Fudgewiches at Plum Pudding. Kids would totally love these little fudge sandwiches.
• Who likes Chocolate-Covered Strawberries? If you don’t know how to make the chocolate dipping sauce, Flipflops and Applesauce has got you covered.
• If chocolate and strawberries aren’t your thing, maybe you’ll like this Chocolate Covered Cherry Pie over at Bunny’s Warm Oven. Can you say yum!?!
• Here’s an idea from Jendi’s Journal for when you need to whip up a dessert on the spur of the moment - Pudding Pie.

This really isn’t helping my chocolate craving right now.

Thanks for stopping by! I’m off to play!!

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