Family weekend trip roundup

As you probably read in my earlier post, we had an incredible long weekend in Boulder with Nick & Sam. We were very excited that Sam was able to join, as he typically can't get off for a weekend with his work schedule. 

Nick regularly asks us to visit, and Sam had not been to Boulder yet to visit since Nick moved in. It meant a lot to Nick to have us all there. We also know that our time to show up for our kids in ways like this is limited & we enjoy it so much - we love getting to know his friends & seeing him in his college life. It really helps us have the right lens on parenting & feedback we give. That said, it's clearly a splurge trip, and one that we wouldn't take if money were tight. We try really hard to incorporate activities with his friends who have parents who weren't able to attend. It takes a village!

Here are the costs for the trip:

Flights: $485.10

• M & I had separate flights from Sam, because we wanted to be flexible in the event he needed to cancel. Paying cash for the flights was absolutely outlandishly expensive ($1500, given our timing restrictions), so we opted to use miles for this trip. We used 112,800 United miles + $22.40. I then opted to upgrade to first class, as part of M's anniversary gift. - $451.5
• Sam's flight was also booked with miles + $11.20

Hotel - $0

• We knew we wanted to fly in on Thursday vs Friday (last year they were out of rental cars when we arrived on Friday, despite having rented one!), so we took advantage of Hyatt free night awards. Knowing we will be staying Boulder & having access to these free night awards at a lower category hotel (easier to use free night awards) is the key reason we are currently keeping the Hyatt credit card. We stayed three nights at the Hyatt in Boulder, for $0 out of pocket, given the tax & parking are also covered with a free night award. Three nights over family weekend saved us approximately $3000. 

Rental car - $316.29

• It was actually supposed to snow when we were in Boulder, but the weather warmed up quite a bit. We upgraded from a Toyota Tercel to an SUV (we ended up with a Jeep). I'm not sure if that was necessary, but in the moment, we wanted a car with more traction. - $299.22
• Gas - $17.07

Activities: $690.24

• To participate in family weekend activities, you need to buy a package through the school. We chose the cheapest package that still provided discounted football tickets, because the entire reason we bought the package was to have access to discounted tickets. Let's just say that I didn't know it was a thing last year, and by the time I purchased family weekend tickets, the football promo codes were gone & we had to buy tickets on the open market. They were outlandishly expensive. Lesson learned for this year! Family weekend tickets = $185 ($75 for the adult tickets, Nick's ticket is $35).
• Football tickets for three = $441 (Me, M & Nick)
• I then needed to add a fourth ticket for Sam, and used my Stubhub credit (available from my credit card) for the majority of this purchase. Again, tickets were insanely priced. - $64.24
• We went to Rocky Mountain National Park, and my annual park pass covered admittance for all of us

Meals: $731.61

• Dinner on Thursday - included in first class flights for me + M, packed a sandwich for Sam
• Lunch on Friday - my BFF treated 
• Dinner on Friday - it was the four of us + my BFF & her daughter, after hiking - $322.91
• Lunch on Saturday - four of us + two of Nick's friends - $230.13
• Dinner on Saturday - four of us - $74.18
• Brunch on Sunday - four of us - $104.39

Total cost for family weekend = $2223.24

We also restocked Nick on groceries & bought him some additional climbing gear, including a helmet! The additional climbing gear was a bribe, because I most certainly want him to be wearing a helmet while climbing. Not included here, as that comes out of Nick's college budget.