We are in the process of purchasing the flights to England to see D's family (mother, father, sister, brother-in-law and our two nephews and one niece... oh, and a few cousins, too!)

His family cannot or will not (different in each case) travel here, so if we want F to know her grandparents, aunt, uncle and cousins, we need to travel there. We're currently on an every-other-year schedule, but, oh my gosh - it's so expensive! Total will be - gulp - $4482.

We have money saved up (I set a little aside each month so that we save about $2800 every two years) and also travel rewards (about $1500) to apply to the tickets.

And I just figured out that we can fly from here directly for the same price as driving down to Big City. That means: someone can drive us to the airport (so we don't have to pay for parking for two and a half weeks) and we don't have to drive an hour to the Big City (saves tons of time!). But we do have to take a smaller plane (one of those regional jets) which I don't love. It's still just one stop, though, in Dallas.

I have to remember that this is one of the reasons (in addition to saving for retirement of course) that we are frugal in our spending: so that we can afford for D to visit "home" every few years and so that F can know her family.