Now that all of my kids are adults, parenting takes on a different feeling. Gone are the days when you’re scolding or cajoling because someone didn’t clean their room. The relationship takes a different shape. One where you’re often called upon to give advice, or share insight. It’s a welcome change from the times when all the kids thought you were dumb and had nothing of value to share with them.

Parenting adults also means that you get to experience things in new ways. This last week I decided to bring all three of my boys up to Duluth for the day. It was a mostly impromptu trip, and I decided that I wanted to make sure that we did a lot of things that they had never done before (despite many of them having gone to Duluth every summer). That meant sharing my love of hiking, going to different parts of Duluth besides Canal Park, and even doing a little shopping at a comic book store that none of us had been to.

It ended up being a really good day, with lots of great memories to be made. We got to share in an experience together as adults, and it was really awesome to transition to this new phase of parenthood.

Though to be fair… walking through the DWP tunnel, filled with lewd graffiti, did result in a slew of ‘penis’ jokes, so it still was #vacationingwithboys…