Today on the A to Z Challenge we are up to V. Since summertime is nearly upon us, I thought vacations would be an excellent topic.
We are planning a trip to Disney World in Florida this June. As anyone who has planned a vacation to Disney World knows, this is not a cheap endeavor, especially if you plan to stay on Disney’s property as we are. Last year, we chose to stay closer to home. We went to Corpus Christi for just a few days and actually ended up tying the trip into a conference my husband was attending.
Actually, that is typically how we vacation. Or I should say I and the kids vacation. We tag along every summer to South Padre Island for a three-day conference that my husband attends. We spend our time at the beach while he is at the meeting. But my husband doesn’t get much of a vacation that way.
Here are the kids and I at Disney World in 2012. My husband didn’t join us because he started his own law firm 6 weeks before the trip. My mom joined us instead.
So this year’s trip to Disney World will be his first real vacation in quite a while. See when you have your own business as he has, it is harder to take off time from work. He is the sole attorney in his practice so if he isn’t billing clients, no money is coming in.
But even for those who do get paid vacation time (and roughly ¼ of Americans don’t get a paid vacation), taking off time is not always easy to do. According to an Expedia survey, the average American employee has two vacation days left over at the end of the year.
Reasons for not taking their full vacation time included not having the money to take a trip to not wanting to be away from work because they think it will affect raises or promotions or simply there is too much work to be done that they can’t be gone.
This last excuse is why many years my husband didn’t take his vacation days. When he worked for a law firm, there were always cases to be worked on, and he rarely took a day off. Those that he did take were often used for medical reasons.
So now that he is his own boss, I hope to get him to take a day here or there as well as our eight-day trip to Disney World because after all, everyone needs a break from work now and again.
Into Another World 
Hope you get your vacation! My hubby is working for a startup and the hours are insane. We either haven’t taken a vacation in about 20 years or else we take 4-5 short ones a year, depending on how you look at it. We take our horses to endurance rides, often out of cell phone range, for 3 day weekends. Feels like a vacation even though there’s still a lot of responsibility. In fact, we’re heading to Santa Fe in about 30 minutes.
Marlene at On Writing and Riding
We run into the same thing. Since I teach, I can take the girls somewhere in the summer time. But we’ve often used up all my husband’s PTO on sick children and appointments, etc. during the school year . . .so he doesn’t have paid time off left to go with us. 😦
(Visiting from Balancing Act: http://bit.ly/1k14f6w)
Vacations are very important!
Hope your husband enjoys the break!
anna
Deeply Shallow