By Caitlyn Murdock
This time last year we were putting the finishing touches on our road trip that would take us to Mount Rushmore. It was our first big trip since COVID. This trip amounted to 10 days of driving through 13 different states, a total of 4,729 miles! This marked my oldest children reaching their 30th state and my youngest reaching his 18th (he is catching up!).
A family goal of ours was to visit all 50 states before my oldest son graduated high school. Due to COVID and a lack of time, it feels like this goal is no longer obtainable for us.
While our oldest just finished up his freshman year of high school, he works diligently through the summer and even spends his vacation time helping his aunt and cousins. Add to that a week of Marine Biology Camp this month (August)!
My daughter just graduated the 6th grade and is headed to middle school and is an avid field hockey player so besides some tournaments, field hockey camp and the like, she’s also heading to Florida for two weeks with a friend after her brother comes back from Marine Biology Camp.
My littlest guy, well, he will be missing his siblings all summer, but he’ll still be able to visit the parks and town pool. Unfortunately, with so much happening across the family in all these scheduled trips, our summer is gone. We didn’t plan a big family trip this year and I realized recently that if we didn’t get into the car and drive somewhere for a night, then we might not do anything as a family all summer.
So that’s exactly what we did! We all jumped into the car one random night and drove straight to Maine!
Live in the moment and be spontaneous! Planning is great but the unexpected trips are the best and they can create great memories too.
“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” -Ferris Bueller.
Working in Financial aid can often feel like this; fast paced, packed weeks, and days flying by before you know it. But with so many changing regulations, we at FAS have to stop and look around as often as we can so we never miss those little things!
About the Author:
Caitlyn Murdock is a Federal Financial Aid Administrator at FAS. Outside of work she loves spending time with her family watching her kids play sports and traveling. When she isn’t running her kids to and from their practices she enjoys crafting.