I have realized that we often take things for granted until they change. You see, my husband and I have twin sons that have been ideal children. You may think that every parent feels that way about their children, but our twins really are remarkable. Their looks and personalities are their own because they are not identical twins.

My boys have achieved high grades in school and excel in athletics. The twins are also involved in church and community activities. I can say that raising them has been the high point of my life. However, we will not be able to spend much time with them because they are now going off to college.

We have done many family getaways to various parts of the country through the years. My family had taken pleasure trips and mission trips through our church. My husband suggested that we should have another of our family getaways before our sons go off to college.

We know that they will have less time to spend with the family once they enter the college scene. We decided that we should go on our trip during the Christmas vacation because our sons have jobs in the summer months.

I wanted to share the memories of the trips as we plan a new one, so I planned a meal and dug out the photographs that we had taken on past family getaways. I had stopped at a travel agency and brought home brochures on some popular destinations.

Instead of crowding all around the computer screen, I thought it would be easier to look at brochures. We had spaghetti and meatballs and we then told the boys that we wanted to plan another of our family getaways that evening. However, they both started making excuses about why we should wait and try to do something together in the summer rather than over the holiday break. I was really surprised because I could not believe that they did not want to spend the time with us.

I noticed that the twins felt that they had hurt our feelings. They went to their rooms and came back about an hour later and asked if they could talk with us. They explained that they loved our family getaways, but they had planned a cruise for my husband and me for the first week in January.

It turned out that they wanted to surprise us with the trip for Christmas as our Christmas present. They had saved money from their summer jobs to buy us the trip. As a result, we talked with the travel agent and were able to switch the week to the holiday week and we bought two more tickets. We decided to turn it into one of our family getaways.