Nothing says good times on vacation like almost losing your swim trunks in front of a few dozen strangers.
This outstanding life event occurred recently at the Big Kahuna’s water park in Destin, Fla. The park has numerous water slides and lazy rivers that are a fine time indeed. But the highlight of the park, in my humble opinion, is the Honolulu Half Pipe.
Having logged a lot of miles with the family over the last few weeks, I feel it is important to remind everyone of some important things to take note of when you are traveling as a family, or encountering those doing the same:
Ah, summer. That time when we were kids when the days were endless, the adventures were everywhere, and the sunburns and mosquito bites were aplenty.
When we become adults, however, summer’s magic seems to have gone away. Most of us still work during the summer. Teachers who have the summer off still have their grown-up responsibilities to tend to. Summer, for adults, just becomes another season in the grind, albeit an exceptionally hot one.
Small spaces are a little boy’s enemy.
If there is one thing that a little brother can’t stand, it’s his big sister telling him what to do. I am reminded of this roughly 54,00 times a day.
This was on exhibit recently when I was at the movies with my kids and my two nephews, who are both seven. I opted to take four kids to the movies because I am a brave, brave man.
If you recall the John Candy classic movie “Uncle Buck,” there is a scene in which Macauly Culkin’s Miles character rapid fires questions to his newly met uncle:
Miles has nothing on my son. Parker is 10. If there were a book entitled, “Every Question You Could Ever Conceivably Ask,” he would have more questions than that.
So my family was at a restaurant the other night. We were situated in a booth, strategically arranged as usual so that (a) my two left-handed kids had free reign to swing their eatin’ arms and (b) there was no brother-sister under-the-table leg kicking capability. (Team Gibbons getting situated at dinner often looks like a well-choreographed dance. We’re fun that way.)
When I was in high school, I attended a Metallica concert. It was the loudest thing I have ever experienced. Until I chaperoned a middle school dance.
There were actually two school dances that night – my son is in fifth grade, and the first dance was for fifth through seventh graders. That would be my detail. The second dance was for eighth grade and up. My daughter is in eighth grade. She would be fine with me at home, thank you very much, she informed me.
When I was a kid, I played one year of football. I was probably about 10, and I was a small kid. I quickly learned that having much larger kids run you over was not fun, even if you had pads on.
When I got to college, I was introduced to flag football, which is football for people who don’t like to be crushed by larger people. Being small and quick is advantageous, as the way to down a player in flag football is to grab a flag off of a belt, not knock the person into a different week.
As a parent, you rather quickly develop a sensor that gauges the severity of your child’s peril. For example, you can quickly tell if wails of anguish are a result of an argument over possession of the remote control and the screams of horror are mainly an attempt to get a little brother in trouble. But you can also tell when it’s something real. And I knew it was something real.