Why We Travel as a Pack

Recently we traveled to St. Louis, Missouri for SEEK24, a young adult and family conference hosted by Focus. Originally, this was scheduled as a work trip for Renzo. His day job was sponsoring the event and he was asked to represent the company. When he first shared the news, I immediately asked if we could tag along. Thankfully, he works for an incredibly family-friendly organization, and they agreed to help cover some of the costs of us all making the journey including offering childcare (for all who attended the event). They even invited me to help chat up the new initiatives of the company at the sponsor booth.

So it was settled, we were all going to go!

Why are we doing this?!

As we began packing for the long road trip and several overnight stay far from home, it became clear that this was no “vacation”. There were car clothes, Mass clothes, bathing suits, and regular clothes to pack. Add to that: snacks, school work, and some activities to help entertain the kids during the 16-hour car ride and the hotel room.

While I was organizing all of these bags, I asked myself “why are we doing this?!”

As the actual adventure began, people at the rest stops repeatedly remarked on our handful of kids. At our overnight in Ohio, the kind women behind us complimented our overtired and understimulated kids at Vigil Mass despite their wiggles. And when we finally reached our destination and began exploring the vendor auditorium, Catholic creatives kindly thanked us for all making the trip.

Mealtime was chaos. Keeping kids quiet in the room was impossible. And avoiding snack crumbs was a pipe dream.

Mid-week, I began to feel my cortisol border fight or flight trying to balance parenting with homeschooling on the road with working with the team. “Why are we doing this?!”

This is hard.

I’m ready to admit it. Yes. It was crazy for us to make this journey with Renzo. I’d been previously talking up how excited we all were and how simple the decision was to go. But in the midst of the reality of the work trip, it was clear that it was hard.

Still, we continued to grind. We got good leads for the company. And the kids had a great time. Only one lamp was broken.

On the way home, we decided to stop overnight. We were too tired to drive safely the whole way. But it meant another dinner on the go and another night not in our own beds.

Renzo snapped a picture of the six of us watching a movie, eating chicken tendies, and staying up past our bedtime.

This is why…

It was then that it hit me.

THIS is why we’re doing this!

We were doing hard together instead of apart. We were doing life together. We were bonding over traveling together and being a superfan of daddy and his work, instead of missing him while he was away.

We were living our mission: Two Become Family.

“The family finds in the plan of God the Creator and Redeemer not only its identity, what it is, but also its mission, what it can and should do. The role that God calls the family to perform in history derives from what the family is; its role represents the dynamic and existential development of what it is. Each family finds within itself a summons that cannot be ignored, and that specifies both its dignity and its responsibility: family, become what you are. - St. John Paul II