Ahhh…Vacation erh, Staycation has come to an abrupt end. Preschool starts tomorrow and my moms group, WOW-Women of Worth, starts up again. But back to the point, we had an awesome week. In fact we have decided to try and do this every year. Joel gets three weeks vacation and of course we can’t afford to go away for three weeks so if we take an at home vacation for a week we can still go away somewhere too! We spent almost nothing for the entire week which was fun because when the kids asked for fries or something we were able to say yes because it would end up being our only expense for the day. How did we manage that you ask? It’s because we have memberships for the kids museum(Strong Museum of Play), Seneca Park Zoo, and the Science Museum which allow us unlimited visits for free for an entire year. We always join because not only can we get into our local museums but also hundreds of reciprocal museums, zoos, and aquariums around the country. So we very quickly save hundreds of dollars. And to cut down on the cost of those memberships we request from family members that instead of buying Birthday or Christmas presents that they would chip in on our memberships so it’s a gift the entire family can enjoy and it’s sure to be used. Also there are discounts on a number of the membership fees such as employee discounts or membership drives that offer % off the annual rate, and some will offer a discount on rejoining by a certain date to cut down on those reminder mailings. Memberships also give you discounts off extra tickets if you bring friends and family, you can purchase add a guest memberships when you sign up which allow you to bring one extra person with you each time you go if you like, discounts in the souvenir shops and restaurants.
So for example earlier this summer we went to Boston to visit a friend and we were able to use our Strongs membership to get into the kids museum there for free. And we were able to use our Science membership to get in free there as well, likewise we used our zoo membership there too. Which means on those days we only had to pay for meals and lodging. It’s a great deal and we have been using it for years. What can I say we are thrifty nerds ;P
Anyways over the week we did the corn maze, beach, zoo, science museum, my mom watched them for a day, and on Saturday we went to Seabreeze Amusement Park for the day. It was Xerox employee days so it only cost us $10 each and Mikayla was free because she’s still 2. It was so much fun, Joel has never been to Seabreeze ever! And I grew up going there every summer. I loved how much fun it was for the girls to get to ride and ride and the giggles of glee made it totally worth it. We are talking about getting season passes in the years to come because we would definitely get our moneys worth out of it. It’s a smaller park but that means lines aren’t that long so you can ride and get right back in line and ride again. And when the kids get bigger you can go two different directions without being that far apart. I was disappointed that some of my favorite things to do like the fun house are no longer there and have been replaced with newer rides. It’s funny going back for the first time in over ten years to realize how much smaller it really is than I remember as a kid.
Staycation was a smashing success. Yes I still did the cleaning, laundry, and dishes, and most of the cooking. Although I was able to guilt free order dinner a few nights since we were on vacation. I’d say we spent less than $200 for the entire week, including gas. And there are still a number of things we had talked about doing that we didn’t fit in, so we are already working on a list for next summer. Maybe we’ll send you a postcard.