This is a guest post by Josh from Raging Dad.

My family and I just returned from two weeks of vacation. I barely survived it.

Two years ago we relocated from Minneapolis to Portland, OR, for a job, leaving behind family and friends. Being apart from family has been very hard on my wife and kids, and so it was with great anticipation that we boarded an airplane and flew our family of five across the country.

For those of you who have to travel far to see family, you know how hard it can be. There are always high expectations, and inevitably, there are moments of tremendous disappointment when those expectations aren’t met. We had a tight agenda for our visit—our first trip back since last summer—and were unprepared for the pestilence of strep throat that sidelined us for most of the first week.

Sonny duels with his cousin.

With Mommy and our five-year-old daughter stricken with strep, I was responsible for keeping our three-year-old twin boys alive, something that I take for granted when I am at home and working most of the time. After the better part of three days, they were angry and I was ready to die. I kept thinking, if only I could get back to work for a bit of rest! During this time, we split our nights between my sister-in-law and my mother-in-law’s houses.

Like many fathers, I am in a passive-aggressive duel with my mother-in-law. She is a wonderful woman, and we have a great time ribbing each other and cackling like lunatics with shared twisted senses of humor. However, she can drive me into a rage in the flash of an instant when she begins to undercut my authority as The Dad. My MIL is always snacking on something: cookies, suckers, candy, soda pop—whatever—and when my kids are around, she is constantly filling their pie holes with crap! When I ask her politely not to “feed the animals,” I am suddenly a controlling troll of a dad. Nevertheless, she will usually ignore me and continue to pass out the goods.

Connie with her cousin

I digress. As the creeping death loosened its grip on my sickly better half, we began to re-examine our social plans, cutting out some of the visits that now were lower-priority. The middle part of our trip was to be spent in Northern Minnesota, where my wife and I both grew up. There, we would again split our nights between two houses: my mother’s, and her father’s. My mother lives deep in The Woods, and routinely has wild bears and deer walk up to her picture window. You’re also likely to find my dead father’s coffee mug right where he left it on the table thirteen years ago, which can make for an emotional atmosphere. My father-in-law is remarried, and lives in his new wife’s town home, and at times we feel as though we are imposing on her family when we stay there.

Throw in the visits with both of our grandparents—all of whom are struggling in their health—and you have the makings of one hell of a trial for three little kids! Before we’d even reached the halfway point, the boys were both ready to go home. Ah, another wrinkle: This was the first time that “home” was Portland, and not Minnesota, a development that we were ultimately glad to see, but it carried an undeniable emotional weight for my wife.

Michael catches a bullhead with grandpa

After returning to the Twin Cities for the final days of our trip, I was pretty eager to get back to our house, with our own toys, our own beds, and our own cats. It was great to see our family members, and we were constantly reminded of what we have given up by moving far away: cousins running around together in play; Grandpa’s visits to soccer practice; hanging out on Saturday morning watching deer out of Grandma’s picture window; hearing stories from my grandparents about my father’s childhood, and watching their moist eyes stare at my young kids with joy and amazement. These were all things that we took for granted when we lived here.

I was reminded of how important the trip was to our family, and of how important it was that I keep my attitude positive throughout. Next time, I must do better. It takes so much energy (not to mention money) to take the family on a long trip, and it was so terribly important for my wife to see her family, and for both of our families to see how our children have grown in body and in mind. Despite the many barriers thrown in our path, it was a wonderful trip.

Thank goodness we don’t need to do it again until next summer though!

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