Planning a family holiday that makes everyone happy can be real pain, especially when all the travel planning seem to fall one way, your way!
However planning the perfect family vacation is not pain as long as you know what everyone in your family enjoys from their holidays and what travel options are available for you have at your disposal. Before you start the planning process of for your family’s next trip, their are some great sites and just running simple search on the “best family holidays” should yield you some terrific family travel blogs and forums to help in gathering those ideas so you can build a great family vacation with the kids.

As many of the you may know I’m a father with two little nomads and understand the process required with creating a family trip that appeals to everyone, but with a little homework and planning you should be on your way to taking a great family holiday in a perfect destination that fits everyone needs.

Submitted by Bizymoms at T-3!

There is probably nothing more important in a child’s life than his or her parents. On top of this the role and the profound impact a father can have in a child’s life is not only a less known one but is also much deeper and more cherished than we all assume. Having a father to guide and of course lean on shows children the need for strength, courage and of course compassion at the right time. A father is probably the best role model for a child when it comes to learning responsibility and taking on challenges. A father can wield immense power in providing moral guidance to the child with interesting examples and occasionally stern advice which will help mould the child into a responsible citizen someday. This is why most children look up to their fathers as heroes.

"What do you guys want for breakfast?" I ask my three pajama-wearing kids flopped sleepily over two couches on a promising Saturday morning. They’re with me every Saturday morning as part of a divorce agreement. We call it "Lazy Dadurday." And lazy it is. We wake up late, then trek to the bookstore, the pet store, the mall, or the pool, and just let it all hang out.

"What is there?" the kids ask absent-mindedly.

My children have faced the same breakfast choices since they were old enough to chew: frozen waffles, cereal, and toast. No more and no less. It's their version of death and taxes. Nonetheless, the sweetly inquisitive response — what is there? — is always the same.

It's as if they'd been replaced overnight with benevolent alien imposters who'd carefully studied everything about us but our breakfast rituals.

Who would have thought that the story of how fathers managed to get into delivery suites is documented in a book called “The Trouble With Women”. The book is the story of NZ’s Parent Centres put together by Mary Dobbie. As a dad who recently had the opportunity to exercise the right to be present during my son’s birth I am grateful for the numerous people who fought bureaucracy and ignorance so that fathers could be present during labour. No doubt this story is replicated the world over with many unsung heroes paving the way. In Wellington where I live, it wasn’t until 1972 that fathers were finally allowed in the delivery suites.

The ‘50s ideal of the nuclear family is clearly a thing of the past as most statistics readily confirm. Divorce is rampant and the definition of family is undergoing constant scrutiny and redefinition. For my family, we’ve been dealing with a new Step-Mom, as I just got married, this past December 27 (2008). My new wife might argue that she is going through the greatest adjustment, while my boys and I might argue otherwise. I’ll let you be the judge, but first I want to officially introduce my family members, not by name, but by nickname.

One of the clichés about volunteerism is the fact that you often get more than you give. In my case, it was in ways and means I least expected. I’ve just become a Big Brother, again, to a 7-year-old boy and a Mentor to a 22-year-old young man. As these relationships are new, I don’t yet know what lessons I will learn. But, I know well the lessons I learned the first time around.

I became a Big Brother, long before I was married or a parent. My life, at that time, was pretty heady. In my early 30’s, I had a successful showbiz career in which I was paid way too much for having so much fun, I lived in a lovely home in a chic part of town, had two cars, and no one to worry about other than myself.

As Mother’s Day rolls around once again, I find myself reflecting this year on the different obligations we feel towards those mothers in our lives, at different times and passages in our lives. As this is the second Mother’s Day since my own mother died, I can’t help but remember her with the fondest recollections, avoiding the sad, last, and declining years of her life when a stroke took away her sparkle and delightful personality.

The journey from child, to teen, to young adult to parent seems to have similar stops along the way for most everyone. My college years were during the "age of stupidity," as a man I greatly respect refers to the ‘60s and early ‘70s. As a love-child and soon-to-be yuppie, I was thoroughly convinced that I would be a different parent to any children I might have than my parents were to me.

Over the past few weeks I have noticed how our little man started leaving bread crusts behind on his plate. At first I didn’t take much notice but after a while a realized that he does it on purpose (and not because he can’t bite it or isn’t hungry any more). It struck me as odd that he would this though since nobody in our house leaves bread crusts behind or cuts them off. Well – it took as a while to find out what was behind this new habit.

Call me a pedantic but for me there's something fundamentally wrong with not eating bread crusts (or even worse: cutting them off on purpose like some people do). It's like wasting food and the crust is a perfectly good part of the bread that can be eaten just like anything else. Especially when it's actually the healthiest part of a slice of bread (see research article here).

Today is ANZAC (Australia and New Zealand Army Corps) Day, the anniversary of the first day of the Gallipoli campaign, it is a reminder of a very important episode in New Zealand's history.

A campaign during the First World War that as far as military campaigns go was a tragic and very costly loss to both Australia and New Zealand, ANZAC Day is certainly not about victory but about the bravery and ultimate sacrifice these young men gave to their king, country and each other. Read more...

What inspired me to post ANZAC Day today was a letter that was featured during the day.

The letter is from a British soldier who came across the torn backpack of a dead Australian soldier. Lying there amongst all the horror and destruction are two pale-blue baby shoes and a woman's silk gloves - obviously the dead young man's most treasured possessions.