Ohana
Staycation 2025 started the afternoon of the 3rd. J worked a half-day and I finished up my work on Wednesday. We look forward to our staycations because we love our home. It’s where we invest our time and money. It’s where are grown children return for family dinners, holidays and random visits. We detach from life and focus on just hanging out with each other doing the things we love together. We’ve watched friends and family come home from traditional vacations exhausted and needing a vacation from the vacation. That’s the polar opposite of what should be the result of a vacation.
We celebrated Independence Day quietly on the 5th. The family did their BBQs and blowing up the sky with fireworks separately. Our youngest worked, our oldest did yardwork at his place and our middle? Well he was the one lighting up the sky in his neighborhood with fireworks. Though he did say that his was relatively small while neighbors for several blocks were setting off fireworks from 7:30PM until 2AM. They’d just gotten to sleep when they were woken by the sounds of sirens because a house around the corner was on fire. There’s always some sort of drama in Middle Son’s life.
My biggest win of the holiday was getting this photo.
The entire family in a photo without having to sync everyone’s schedules or coordinate outfits. They were lounging in the living room, napping, while a movie played and I was doing dishes. The thought popped into my head to ask them to go outside so I could take a picture. Mind you, I didn’t expect them to comply. I asked once and went to set up the tripod in the yard. Slowly, one-by-one they ventured out and lined up perfectly without any direction.
Ohana
Altogether I got about 20 shots during which they wandered, fidgeted, looked at the sky, made faces and funny poses. I need to make a photo book just them.
As I sit here and write this post, I feel so incredibly thankful for how close we are as a family. The next Ohana image I want to capture includes my nephew and his family. They live a couple miles from me but are equally important. They weren’t part of this one because my immediate motley crew was exhausted. Between the fire, overtime and mental exhaustion from jobs, J and I decided to keep it very low key.
Off to enjoy the rest of our time off from life.
Peace,
Nim
