Last week I took the kids and met my cousin in Disney World. I thought it would be fun for the kids because Caroline is really into princesses and dress up and Joey loves rides, legos and hanging around with his cousins.
When I was a kid, my parents had an RV and we traveled all around the country in it. We went to Disney a few times and drove cross country in it. My parents were hippies and my dad was a history teacher so we would take off every summer and go camping. It was one of the highlights of my childhood and some of my fondest memories took place in that camper. I used to ride in the front seat (before air bags) with my dad and he would tell me the history of every state we drove through. I remember camping in the Rocky Mountains, fishing in the Colorado river and buying turquoise from local Native Americans in Arizona.
So when my cousin who lives in Florida asked us to come stay in her RV with them in Fort Wilderness, my first thought was- this is going to be a disaster but then I thought about it. I thought about my kids and how much I loved it as a kid so we decided to go. At the last minute, we decided to rent a cabin in Fort Wilderness and the kids had so much fun. They had horseback riding, a Disney movie on a big screen every night where you could go and make smores first, a big pool with a slide, multiple playgrounds and a nightly BBQ dinner with Mickey.
Every morning we would wake up super early to get to the parks when they first opened. We would stand in line for Caroline to meet the princesses and for Joey to go on rides. After an hour of being there, all they did was beg to go back to Fort Wilderness where they could drive around in the gulf cart and swim in the pool with all the other kids. I kept dragging them all over the park to wait in more lines, after all we paid for these Disney tickets so I wanted them to ENJOY Disney. After three hours at the park, I just couldn’t take the whining and the constant asking of going back to the cabin. 
And after I took Caroline to get her princess makeover that was completely destroyed an hour later when she wanted to go back in the pool, I decided that I was going to throw in the towel with Disney and just hang out at the campground for the rest of the trip. We went out to dinner a few times but for the most part the kids just loved running around exploring the campground and swimming in the pool, the two things I didn’t actually have to pay for. 
So when I look back now, Disney was fun and I am sure my kids will always remember it but it is as simple as this. When I look back at driving cross country with my family, I don’t remember one thing they ever bought for me. I remember running around, playing near the Rocky Mountains, swimming in the Colorado river, catching my first fish, taking in the way people around the world lived , excited to sleep under the stars and most of all, spend time with my family. As parents we always feel like we have to have these elaborate experiences for our kids to enjoy but at the end of the day, the most beautiful thing about being a kid is seeing all the simple joys in life. Something that we as a adults always seem to forget about.
