Increasing Family Complexity

Jim Dickens May 2026

When I ask my wife, Lori, “Where would you most like to go for a vacation?”. She answers, “Where all my kids will be.”.    So the next step is to figure out where all the kids will go if they have to be with us.  However, there are ever increasing levels of complexity to pull this off.

The complexity expands in many ways so let me give you just a few examples.  They don’t live close by and need to get on a plane which is cost and time.  They all now have busy jobs with limited vacation and days they should be at work.  They are all married to working spouses who also have full time jobs.   They are now members of other families who’d like to see them further limiting time and effort available. Finally, there is this nuisance of a grand daughter who needs a place she will enjoy and not be endangered.  It’s several degrees of difficulty harder than before.

So we zoomed and emailed and texted. We struck down my Santa Fe idea and arrived at a beach vacation next to Charleston.  Our kids said we should invite their Philly cousins so we threw it out to them. They zoomed and emailed and texted.  Amazingly they all agreed to come as well.  So 22 of us all agreed, remarkable!

My sister in law, Nancy, found a giant house to comfortably fit everyone.  My brother, Tim, organized a golf outing.  Lori, figured out some games and activities.  Nancy got everyone organized around making meals.   Secretly, logos and T shirts were made by cool creative geniuses.  

We had high times in the low country over Mother’s day weekend.  Golf, beach excursions, Charleston excursions, barbecues, pool games, table games, musical play lists and very little drama.  The worst injury was a scratched cornea.  The grand children were highly entertaining.  Got lucky and had great chefs cater a wonderful mother’s day brunch.  It’s just so wonderful to be around really really good people.

I said good bye to everyone and stayed continuing to Hilton Head.  See previous blog post.

On a side note,  If you decide you want to play the Heroes of Paris Island golf course on the way to Hilton Head, make sure you read the reservation fine print and complete the background check.   The armed Marines at the guard house get frustrated if you don’t.  And they really get agitated if you drive off the wrong way towards a restricted area.  Maybe next year.