L is for Leave
Leave is essentially vacation days for the military, and who doesn’t love a day off! Everyone uses their leave a little differently. Some let it add up and find themselves trying to quickly use up all their extra right before the end of the fiscal year when they are in use or lose time. Others use their leave a little more freely and rarely find themselves in the predicament of needing to use up days before they lose them.
Regardless of which kind of leave user you are I am sharing some great ways to burn some of that well deserved time off!
Take a Vacation
Sometimes you just need to get away. And thanks to some awesome resources out there for military families you can find the right vacation on any budget. There are great opportunities like, the Armed Forces Vacation Club and Space-A, which is available just for military. But if you want something specific you can often find other deals for military families with just a little research.
Vacations can be as simple as going to spend some time with extended family, taking a long weekend to go camping, planning a fun road trip (even with a toddler), or as extravagant as going and exploring somewhere completely new!
Have a Family Fun Day
Visit a local attraction, spend a snowy day building a fort in the living room and watching movies, spend the day walking through a park. Do whatever the mood hits, and just spend some time having fun and making memories with your family.
Use Some of Your Days to Get Stuff Done
I know it doesn’t sound like fun, but sometimes you just need an extra day to get stuff done! For example, last year around the holidays my husband took a day off so we get all of our Christmas shopping done in one day. That day we go up early, went to breakfast as a family, then headed to the mall. We shopped, took our daughter to see Santa, had lunch, and shopped some more. It was a long day for everyone, but it was so worth getting everything done in one day rather than it stretching out over a month.
Add some leave to a TDY
In the past when the situation allows, my daughter and I have tagged along on certain TDYs my husband has been sent on. It doesn’t always work out, but when it does we always have a good time. And sometimes the length of the TDY just isn’t enough, so my husband will add leave onto his TDY giving all of us extra time to explore the area.
Last year my husband was sent TDY to Florida, so we decided to add our yearly trip the Gulf Coast onto the backend of the TDY. That way we had the opportunity to spend two weeks in the Florida sun, while it was still cold back home.
