We just got back from our first official Dixon family vacation. My parents were able to give us a few days at a North/central Arkansas community called Fairfield Bay. We loaded up the girls on Thursday and headed for a 6 hour drive into the mountains. With no plans other than cook dinner, swim, hike and love on our babies, we accomplished just that and it was valuable.

Growing up my little bro and I were blessed with the opportunity to go on many family trips and stay at all kinds of cool places similar to the Arkansas setup. We loved theses trips growing up and my parents always made them fun for us. Plenty of swim time, mini golf, chill time, site seeing, exploring, etc. and we always had a blast. Many great memories for sure.

It’s interesting – these family vacations now that I am in the parent role. Seems as though Traci and my desires were not about us, but what we felt our babies (yes, they’ll always be referred as such) would want to do. Weird how easy and self-less it was for us to plan it this way! Our main goal was to squeeze as many smiles out of those precious pumpkins as possible. Swim every day! No, no – swim twice a day, every day! Yippie! “Can I have another cookie?” “Heck yeah! Here’s TWO extra cookies!” I actually feel semi-awkward at how much I stared at their little butts while frolicking in the kiddy pools this week. I loved it and already miss the ever passing time we have with them in this stage. Family vacations are about the family which really is about the happiness of the kids which really is to increase the joy of  the parents… interesting revolution there. We didn’t get a lot of rest and didn’t come back with a renewed sense of “go get em” but enjoyed the time with these angels. Priceless.

You can check out some pics of the trip at Traci’s blog. Peace!