UPDATE: This giveaway is now closed.
All this week I’m on vacation with my wife and kids in beautiful Vail, Colorado. We’ll be hiking, biking, playing on playgrounds, throwing rocks in the rivers, and basically anything else we can’t do in Dallas (okay, so we can do all these things in Dallas, but the scenery and the weather aren’t even close to the same!).
While I’m away drinking coffee every morning by the river and generally being lazy each day, let’s do a giveaway!
Here’s what you could win:
- A copy of my book, A Simple Marriage, AND
- The 2 marriage jams we currently offer (one about parenting and the other about communication in marriage)
In case you’re not familiar with these products here’s a bit more info.
A Simple Marriage covers and provides:
Some foundational principles that are present in every marriage and how to use these principles to your advantage. – An understanding of where you currently are in your relationship. – The tools and steps to help create the relationship you desire.
This book is specifically written to assist you in experiencing more in marriage, with your current spouse. Click here for more.
The marriage jams offer in-depth teaching and discussion on common issues and concerns found in almost every marriage. Click here for even more.
How To Enter
Leave a comment on this post answering this question: What are your favorite things to do while on vacation with your family?
For a second entry, Tweet about this giveaway on Twitter. Be sure to use the url of this post and @simplemarriage so I can see it. Or to make it even easier – use the Retweet button at the bottom of this post.
This giveaway ends Saturday July 24th at midnight CST
UPDATE: This giveaway is now closed.
My favorite things to do with my family while on vacation are hike, bike, climb, and just hang out and enjoy each other’s company.
My favourite thing to do with the family is to go for a picnic in the park with them during the weekends..and just spend the time there playing ball etc.
We like to cook meals together and play games at night.
Well, we just got married two months ago, but we like to go for walks in the park (seriously, not just the cliche) and when we leave town…we like active vacations: hiking, zip lining, horseback riding, etc.
We love going for walks as a family or playing games. Anything that lets us relax and have fun!
I think the best part of our family vacations — no matter where we go, or what we do — is when we tell family stories and share our running family jokes (repeatedly, it seems!) Its fun to realize how many things we share, and how they’re like our little secret fun — no one else knows what they mean or why they’re so darn funny to us!!
We love being active – hiking, biking and cross country skiing. We also enjoy visiting botanical gardens, eating great food and spending quality time with family.
family vacations….a dream right now since we have a new baby in the house, but what i do look forward to in the future is the adventures that await us, and seeing the world through my kids eyes…..the best!
We love to explore anywhere we are, whether that’s hiking a trail or walking around sipping coffee in a downtown area. A vacation to us would also include anything on the water, whether it’s swimming, surfing, or kayaking!
I love watching my kids explore and discover new things (and of course taking lots of photos while they do).
Have a great vacation!
My favorite things to do with my family are look at local history museums or sites, explore parks or lakes, and meander through small towns just enjoying a laid back day and doing things as the whimsy takes us.
Throwing rocks in the ocean and looking for crabs and starfish is the kids favorite thing to do.
We love to visit family that live at the beach in Oregon. Exploring in tide pools, digging in the sand, just listening and daydreaming. Love it! Beach trips are my favorite childhood memory and I hope they will be my kid’s favorites, too!
We like to play board games and tell stories by the campfire
Hiking, exploring, and just enjoying each other.
This is a hard one to answer quickly… my wife and I enjoy so many things: trying new foods, new restaurants, travelling, hiking, camping, visiting family, and so much more. Ultimately, we like getting a break from our routines and spending time with one another. Those are the important parts of a vacation for us.
Thanks for the giveaway! There are so many things we like to do but the first one that came to mind was hitting cute coffee shops together, instead of making it at home like we usually do
The kids love to get a special drink and it is a great atmosphere.
We just got back from vacation. We generally love to visit family who live an hour from the ocean. Enjoy the Greats and then take day trips with the kids to the ocean… as there’s not much of that in VT!!!
We love piling on top of beds and snuggling A LOT. Vacation gives us an excuse to break out of normal patterns and spend relaxing time reconnecting.
More than the stuff we do while on vacation, I most enjoy the stuff we don’t do—the relaxing in a pool, the not hurrying from one thing to another, the joking around and especially the fun conversations that happen when we’re all relaxed and simply enjoying being together.
No matter how many “big things” we plan and do, it seems that a long walk on a beach or through a park or preserve ends up being what we remember most. (And meals where we laughed a lot)
We love hiking and whitewater rafting!
Just being together, reading, playing games, hiking, swimming at the beach. Spending time just talking and playing.
We’ve only been on one family vacation, my husband daughter and I went to Hawaii last summer. My daughter was 4 and had never seen mountains or the ocean (we are from the mid-west, she hadn’t seen anything but corn and beans!) I loved that every afternoon, after her nap, we’d walk down the beach to a buffet restaurant for dinner, eat over-looking the ocean and then we’d walk back to our hotel at sunset along the beach – it was sooo relaxing!
Every summer my brother’s family and my family meet each other, either at his place or ours for a family get together. We cook lots of childhood favorites, play together, tell and retell family legends and stories. My kids get to spend time with their cousins. Our favorite is the July 4th picnic and fireworks. We also plan one short sightseeing trip every summer. We all look forward to our time together.
Our favorite things to do are build sandcastles and collect seashells. And watch the sunset over the water.
We just returned from a beach vacation and I love walking the town in the morning and the sand in the evening.
Coming originally from Germany a vacation to me is not a vacation unless it is 3 weeks. When I was little those vacations were spent in the Black Forrest or in the Odenwald where there are Pansionen – Hotels with breakfast lunch and dinner all combined in one price – where you rent a room and stay there for 3 or even 4 weeks. From there you go exploring, hiking, riding or just plain being lazy soaking up the sun. You don’t have to worry about cooking or cleaning it is all done for you. I miss that over here in the states where most vacations are just a few days and most hotels are not set up like this. Employers have to give 3-5 weeks of paid vacation – it;s the law and not a benefit. This whole concept is a lot healthiser because you get the rst that you need getting away from work and every day stress. And when you get back to work your employer gets a rested and relaxed worker back. So that would still be my favorite vacation but unfortunately I have not been able to do so in years. So for now I am just lazy on the weekends if I can and take my dogs for walks and enjoy nature.
My favorite thing to do on family vacation is to sightsee & just enjoy being in a totally different environment. Everyone is more relaxed and bickering seems to be at minimum. Makes it hard to go back to “the real world” after a vacation.
If my husband and I go to the mountains we love to hike, especially around waterfalls. We also like to drive around and stop every once in awhile to take pictures of the scenery. I have yet to go during the fall which is when I hear the mountains are extremely gorgeous! If we go to the beach we like to play put-put at the campground we stay at, walk on the beach at night, and play in the water during the day. We also hop in our golfcart and cruise around looking at the different campers, houses, and other golfcarts cruising around. Some people get very creative with their golfcarts!
My favorite thing to do it spend time sitting and talking with my husband. No agenda, no time constraints, just time with one another. LOVE it!
Our children are 1.5 and almost 3 so we have yet to take a family vacation. I think I need to lower my expectations first and then just go somewhere to hang out.
I love watching my kids faces when they do new things.
My family loves to travel…we like exploring the local culture and cuisine. I also love to do outdoor activities like hiking, kayaking, etc…and evening/late night conversations are fun as well…along with cards or board games.
Since we are still ‘newlyweds’ but have know each other for quite some time, I always tell my husband that my favorite thing about vacations are doing and trying anything new that I would normally not have the pleasure of experiencing at home. For instance, trying a new food, doing something very adventurous that is not available where we live (thanks, kansas). I feel as though we bond even closer when all expectations are gone! My favorite saying about vacation (one which I will probably remember for the rest of my life) stated: A vacation (and the reason we call it so) is because it inherently allows us to be in a place usually unfamiliar to us, existing in a manner that no one cares about. In a location with no ties, no chance of recognition, nothing but ones self, family, and anything they want to do with it!
My favorite thing to do on vacation with my family is visit with other family members we don’t get to see very often. Just hanging out with people you love is wonderful fun.
My favorite thing to do on family vacation is watch they kids get excited about, oh- anything!
My favorite thing to do when my husband and I go away for the night on our anniversary is well, besides you-know-what… sleeping with the lights out (the kids insist on the hall light being on all night)! Oh, and the massages that we get on our anniversary… and the time for just the two of us… and… and.. and….
We have a 2 year old, so we still keep things pretty simple. She likes the park, the zoo, the fish store. :~) We keep things pretty simple because extravagant and expensive is lost on a toddler. She’s just happy to be playing somewhere new with both parents!
One of my favorite things to do with my family on vacation is just find different ways to actually listen and communicate with my children…and to hear them laugh, and share with others what a wonderful time they are having…even if it’s a staycation! (they are only small for such a short time)
Its hard to beat a day at the beach with the kid.
For my family a quiet vacation with swimming, and sunshine is our favorite. But even on our winter vacations when the sunshine and swimming aren’t hand in hand we just enjoy relaxing with each other!
I love to relax and enjoy doing nothing. It’s just my husband and I so we’ll snuggle and read together or just take a walk.
A vacation with three children, ages 3 – 11, can be challenging and expensive. Our lives are so hectic anyway, that when we go on vacation we don’t want to have to do a lot of running around. This past summer, we rented a house by the ocean. The house also had a private pool. We spent the entire time just relaxing and enjoying the beautiful weather.
Just sitting in a quiet place, talking about simple things, can make the best vacations. My wife and I especially enjoy going to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival each summer. Great plays, bed & breakfast inns, a beautiful setting and great food. What could be more romantic?
Vacation? What’s vacation? No, as rare as it is, my favorite thing to do is go the beach and hang out picking up shells and just relaxing.
We like to soak up the new scenery as we visit new local places. Strolling around town, the beach, hiking trails or the view from the car there is always so much to see and talk about with each other during our vacations.
When on vacation with my family we usually like to go camping, visit amusement parks, go miniature golfing or just hang around a pool playing in the water and getting tan.
We spend most of our time together in the water, enjoying some ice cream, and watching the sun set. Vacations enable us to slow down and appreciate every moment together:)
On vacation we spend as much time at the beach as it is possible. The children love splashing in the shallows and making sandy sandcastles, while I just love soaking up the serenity that a sun soaked, wave crashing day invokes in me. My husband just loves the food that a days at the beach means… lots of fresh fried fish. Yup summer vacation means beach days no matter where we vacation.
My favorite things to do on vacation:
#1 NOTHING. (lol) this one doesn’t happen too much nowadays with 2 kids
#2 play at the beach – swimming, sand-building, frisbee, catch, etc.
My favorite things to do while on vacation with my family is to just relax and enjoy each other’s company. With both parents working, one at home and one at an office, our kids fall short of Mama and Papa time. This is the time we all get together and hang out, play games, go swimming, and just be silly!
Honestly, sleep is probably one of my favorite things to do on vacation. Love eating out and trying out new restaurants. I guess I love the slower pace, and the option to do whatever you want.
having a 2 yr old son that loves being outdoors makes it easy to find fun things to do- building sandcastles on the beach, jumping waves, and riding bikes (with me doing all the work, and him along for the ride, while daddy takes pictures).
My favorite things to do on vacation with my family… I love sightseeing! I like horseback riding and checking out museums. Because I love art and being outside. Food! I’m big on trying different food. Especially when we’re out of the country, and shopping – buying things from foreign countries that I can’t get in the USA is always fun.
Along with long days on the beach, we love to tryout the local crazy miniature golf courses. Just being together is always fun.
Thanks!
snorkeling
While on vacation, the first thing I like to do is just breathe….Just to remind myself that it is time to relax and enjoy my family. After that, anything goes. It’s nice to just sit back and watch the water, and reflect on all of the good things in my life. I just wish I could take more vacations every year.
Visit with friends and family and beach time. We rarely ever go on VA and when we so we even more rarely get to see my husbands family so that’s what we strive to do, but we also love the beach, my son who has autism loves it. It is like he has found where he is meant to be and just has such joy and excitement it is contagious.
Funny timing to ask this question! We are about to take our first vacation since our honeymoon 6 years ago! So I suppose we will learn what our favorite things are! Thanks for posting the question–I think it’s a great reminder to enjoy the one we have ahead, and discover the answer to it!
My favorite thing to do with my husband on vacation is people-watch!
My favorite thing to do on vacation is have long talks with my husband and son while relaxing at the lake. I get to rediscover how funny, kind and interesting they are all over again.
My husband and I love to take each day slowly, eat at places that we don’t have in the town where we live, and see friends and family.
I love visiting places like aquariums, zoo, botanic gardens. Seeing things we all think are cool and haven’t seen before. Thanks for the giveaway!
Spend time with our kids
I love that when we are on vacation we talk more about new things. It doesn’t matter where we are or what we are doing for our vacation, it seems just a change of scene leads us to places to learn more about each other. Not that we don’t talk every day, but so much of our lives at home is discussing the things we do and people we know and life we lead here. When we are away we have new experiences, and we grow together through our mutual learning of a new environment.
I love that for as long as we are ‘us’ there is still so much to learn about each other.
When on vacation with just my husband, we both like to just relax and enjoy the freedom of doing nothing. When we have our son, watching him experience everything for the first time!
We don’t generally do big vacations due to money issues. But we have a friends of the zoo membership and we really use it. We go to our local zoo whenever we feel inspired. And then, if we want a more vacation-like experience, we’ll drive an hour and a half to a different zoo that’s bigger and nicer and spend a day out of town.
We like to play on the beach together and make sand castles with our kids.
We like to camp,do stuff outdoors, go to festivals and fairs.
We like to sleep in, explore by hiking and eat lots of good food!
My favorite thing to do while on vacation with my family is to relax, explore, and take plenty of pictures.
Our favorite thing to do while on vacation is to spend alot of time together. We all spend more time in the kitchen together cookinng and trying new recipes, game nights, movie nights and popcorn (our favorite), and mini photoshoots to take lots of pictures.
My favorite thing to do on vacation is to learn more about my family. When we are relaxing or eating or whatever there always seems to be something that I find out about their dreams or fears that I wouldn’t have learned if we are doing our same thing everyday.
Just my husband and I? We like to hike and explore new places.
With the kids? Still hike (just not as far), go to the park and the zoo.
My favorite thing to do on vacation is do nothing… turn off the TV, the computer, and even put away the camera and just be together.
I love seeing my wife. On our last vacation I just look at her where ever we are and I am still amazed that she is mine. When I see her nothing else in the world matters to me and I am memorized. I enjoy introducting her to new things she has never experienced and seeing her reaction. On our most recent vacation we rented a small cabin and when to the ski lodge. We did not ski but sat in the bar and watched pepole. This was my way of introducing her to the idea of learning to ski without the picture. After several hours we were leaving and i decided to take the Gondola Ride (with my fear of heights). The scenery was magnificient and my wife commented to no one in particular that “This is the best day of my life”. Since we are both in our early 50′s that made it more than special to me because it was a day that she and i shared together and it meant the world to her and it meant the universe for me to hear her say that. so next vacation i have to outd do the “best day of her life” and for me just coming home to her every day after work is like a perpetual vacation.
My favorite things to do with my family while on vacation is to disconnect from the day-to-day grind and get to know my family all over again. This usually involves some adventure such as getting outside away from technology and simply spending time with them either camping, backpacking, kayaking, hiking…recreate to re-create your relationships. As John Muir says, “Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.” John Muir