Innovation: The Parallel Vacation

The blog has been quiet this week because we are on vacation in San Francisco. I desperately needed a vacation, WITH my family. I love San Francisco and actually being here makes me nostalgic for our years in the Bay Area.

I have a lot to blog about that I may not get to, but I wanted to post a quick note about a bit of serendipity that has made our trip even better. Last week, through the kid grapevine we found out that one of my daughters' classmates was also coming to San Francisco with her family. They happen to be staying a block from our hotel! (So close that we can send window signals back and forth flashing the lights.) So we've gotten together several times with the other family, for Dim Sum brunch, inviting them to swim in our hotel's pool, a trip the Exploratorium. Since we both have only children it's been wonderful to bring another kid into the mix. We traded "date nights out" as well, giving each couple a chance to enjoy a dinner out on the town alone. And what's really cool is that I also thoroughly enjoyed the night we had both girls at dinner. We've just about reached the age of reason!

The nice features of this arrangement are that we didn't have to plan together, and we aren't obligated to each other every minute of the day. We've done our own thing most of the time. We are friendly with the other parents but not best friends. It's more important that the girls really like each other--the grownups are much easier to please in that department. So in the future I'd definitely look for the chance to arrange a parallel vacation like this one. You can plan to be with another family without being joined at the hip.

Thank goodness the girls figured out that we were going to the same destination the day before we left. I would have been really disappointed if we had missed out on this opportunity.