OVER THE YEARS I’ve tried to take each of my five kids on a number of short, 3-day-2-night, one-on-one mini vacations—usually starting when they are about 10 or 12 years old. At one time I was trying to make it an annual affair for each of them... But that got to be too expensive and difficult to do.

Before the digital camera age, I would typically buy a couple of one-time-use cameras, put one in my pocket and give the other to my son or daughter. When we got home, I would take the two cameras in to have double prints made, then create two albums—one for him or her, and one for me. I treasure each of those little books.

I recently had a business trip scheduled to New Jersey where I was to spend a day in a dental practice teaching their team how to use the new social media marketing tools we had built for them. It looked like a great opportunity to combine a business trip with my first mini vacation with my nearly 12-year old daughter, Anna.

On Tuesday, July 5th we flew from Salt Lake City to Newark, New Jersey and spent the night in a small motel near the dental practice where we spent most of the day on Wednesday. By late afternoon we were on our way into New York City to check into The James Hotel in Soho for three nights.

We spent Thursday, Friday and Saturday kicking around the city. We did a lot of subway riding, a little shopping on Fifth Avenue, and a lot of eating at fun places! Our hotel was fun and hip with a nice view of the city’s hustle & bustle below.

On Thursday night we had great tickets (dead center, 10th row or so) to see Wicked. It was really a lot of fun. We both loved it.

Anna is a big “Cake Boss” fan. On Friday we took a bus out to Hoboken, New Jersey to visit Carlos’ Bakery! As we were approaching the bus stop nearest the bakery it dawned on me that there may be a line to get in. I was relieved to see that the line in front of the bakery was short. As we approached the bakery, I asked someone in line which end of the line was the end. The woman laughed as she said, “This is the SECOND line. You have to stand in the first line to get a ticket to stand in the second line.” She pointed down the street to a line that stretched for blocks...

We stood in line #1 for about 3 hours to get our ticket to stand in line #2! We had fun and visited with some of the others in line. About half way through the wait, somebody said that a TV crew was behind the bakery filming an episode! So, we took turns with another family holding our place in line while the others went star gazing behind the bakery. We had a great time.

Of course there’s so much to do in New York that we’ll have to go again. Love you, Anna. I had a lot of fun.