Balancing Life and Love: The Importance of Scheduling Vacations

In this episode of Rollin' With The Dolans, Patrick and Tamekia open up about why scheduling vacations is crucial for a strong, thriving marriage. From weekend getaways to staycations and full-on beach trips, they share what works (and what doesn’t) when it comes to reconnecting, recharging, and escaping the chaos of everyday life—especially in a blended family with 7 kids!

They talk real about:

• Balancing work, parenting, and couple time
• Differences in their travel styles
• How vacations help with mental health and entrepreneurship
• Budgeting without breaking the bank
• Why even short breaks make a big impact

Whether you're married, dating, parenting, or just tired, this episode is full of honest, uplifting conversation—and a few laughs too.

Stay tuned for future episodes on traveling with a bunch of kids and affordable family adventures!

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Transcript

Patrick:
Welcome to Rolling with The Dolans. I'm Patrick Dolan.

Tamekia:
And I'm Tamekia Dolan. Our podcast focuses on the joys and challenges of blending families, our interracial marriage, parenting children of multiple ages, and the journey of entrepreneurship. We share our daily life experiences with a positive but real perspective. In today's topic: Why it's important for our marriage to schedule vacations.

Tamekia:
Alright, you want to start?

Patrick:
What is the main reason we like to schedule vacations?

Tamekia:
Because if we don't, we will not have a healthy marriage.

Patrick:
Meaning? So, when, I feel like whenever—

Tamekia:
So, when, I feel like whenever you um, have a mini vacation, we always have time where we're not like taking the kids back and forth, worried about work, um, worried about maintaining the house, and chores, and cooking, and cleaning, and we can focus on just—

Patrick:
Our quality time.

Patrick:
So for me, a mini vacation is like leaving on a Tuesday and coming back on a Thursday. So like, two nights.

Tamekia:
What about you?

Patrick:
Oh, oh, no, that's—one night would just—well, is that a staycation or is a staycation just when we're local? Mm, that's...

Patrick:
Month and a half, maybe two months. And two nights we don't do that often.

Tamekia:
True.

Patrick:
At least one night. And my preference is always let's get out as quickly as we can so we can get up there and relax. And Tamikia doesn't like to be rushed, so she's usually—

Tamekia:
I don't like being rushed because that's what we do in our—

Patrick:
Crazy life.

Tamekia:
Everyday crazy life. So why do I want to rush when we're supposed to be having a, quote, vacation?

Patrick:
And me—I want to rush to get to that vacation as soon as possible.

Tamekia:
So you can get away?

Patrick:
Yes.

Patrick:
And that's the biggest thing is, you know, I think when we stay around the house all the time, it's hard to focus on one another. That's something that we're always focusing on.

Tamekia:
No, I feel like we do focus on each other—you know, something else that's a constant distraction.

Patrick:
Yeah, but it's just not the same. Because when we're in the—like, a different space and eating bad snacks. So that's spending time together, right?

Tamekia:
Whatever. It's just that we're not easily distracted.

Tamekia:
Okay, so, wait, do you want me to ask the next question?

Patrick:
The next question?

Tamekia:
Do you feel like it's necessary for us to take mini vacations or staycations or longer vacations?

Patrick:
So we can focus just on each other rather than any other distractions. It's the same thing, similar to how I talk about when I'm working from home. And at times I just rather get away to a coffee shop or get somewhere, like, away—make it easier to focus on the task at hand sometimes versus having anything else that will come up, especially if the kids are around. Next thing you know, they think that we're not doing anything and our time is their time, so.

Tamekia:
Alright. What's your preference?

Tamekia:
Do you prefer mini vacations or staycations? Um, well obviously you prefer longer vacations, but what type of—I guess I should say, what type of vacations do you prefer?

Patrick:
The type preferably is relaxing. So when we do family vacations, it seems like it's go, go, go. And when we go on vacations ourselves, we want to find somewhere where we can pretty much stay around the actual resort or hotel, things like that. Not have to drive far, not have to go far. And my preference is a beach—always.

Tamekia:
Yeah, I love beaches.
Yeah. Obviously, I'm from Florida, so that would be my first preference, too. But in reality it doesn't matter. We've had plenty that are more upscale and some are just not as nice. It's a little different though when I'm traveling by myself—I don't care where I sleep. It could be a hole in the wall, it could be a car, it doesn't matter, I'll figure something out. But, uh, don't plan that type of trip with Tamekia.

Tamekia:
No, because I would not be staying in a hostel. Or a tent.

Patrick:
Uh, no.
Maybe RV.

Tamekia:
You wanna buy me an RV?

Patrick:
Hard no.

Tamekia:
Uh, that's a hard no. I don't know about that. But anyways, moving forward.

Tamekia:
So, for me—yeah. I like to have a vacation scheduled because I feel like whenever you have something actually on the calendar, then you have something to look forward to. So like, for instance, if you're like exhausted from work and the kids and just life, when you know that you have like two weeks until the next vacation or three weeks, I feel like it's easier to get through those two or three weeks. What do you think?

Patrick:
Eat better, exercise more, do things. It gives me a goal and something to work towards. Being like, "Oh, okay. I'm going to be doing this in, you know, 10 days, 12 days. Let's make sure I'm focused on everything else and just enjoy it once I get there." And then I am the type who like, oh, I'm going to splurge and eat whatever I want, drink whatever I want, eat whatever I want—things like that once I'm on vacation. And then it gives me some reason just to make sure I'm a lot more disciplined ahead of time.

Tamekia:
Yeah, you really are. I mean, I'm not, but he'll just like—you’re always working out, but work out, um, eat very clean and healthy. And then once vacation starts—look out. Patrick needs a beer. So yeah, definitely, it's—

Patrick:
Besides the importance as a couple, I do think it helps me from an individual standpoint to get focused on that vacation.

Tamekia:
Yeah.

Tamekia:
Alright, so, last question. Well, last question that I have. Um, do you really feel like you've come back refreshed?

Patrick:
Um, no.
Um, you know, a lot of times I'm—I'm looking forward to the next one. So I think in some sense it does. But I'm looking forward to—

Tamekia:
Planning the next one.

Patrick:
Planning the next one.

Tamekia:
I feel like I come back refreshed and ready to do it again. I mean, only because, like, realistically we don't have a choice, right?

Patrick:
I guess so.
One other benefit is, is the two of us, we talked a little bit about entrepreneurship and ideas and things like that. A lot of times when we go on vacations, we both motivate one another to think about and plan some of the things that we want to do. So I think it's an added benefit for us as far as outcomes of some of our trips—whether or not it's driving in the car for five hours or getting on the plane and just having a couple of hours to sit there and jot down some notes.

Tamekia:
Yeah, that's true. But I prefer not to talk about it a lot—just a little bit, just to kind of put it out there, but...

Patrick:
I feel like we're finding a good balance with that, right?

Tamekia:
I feel like the budget should be set ahead—

Patrick:
Budget be? Well, according to Mr. Dolan, there is not really a strict budget.

Tamekia:
But according to Tamekia, I feel like the budget should be set ahead of time. And we should be doing a budget like every quarter. And saving up every quarter to make sure that that budget can stick.

Patrick:
And truth be told, if I'm going on a vacation with Tamekia, I will expand that budget—that kind of imaginary budget, I guess. And then if I'm doing something on my own, if I'm planning a race or I'm doing something that requires some sort of travel, my budget is nonexistent and I don't like to spend any money whatsoever. So I really like to focus all the money when it's—when we're able to do something together. So I'm really capable of getting away with the minimum. When we're together, I do try to splurge a little bit more.

Tamekia:
I guess I should rewind back because I said that there's no budget. Like, realistically it's not like we go on these crazy vacations, but I mean we do go and try to find the best deals. But—if he went by himself, he would just stay at a hostel. But, um—oh, you want to say what a hostel is? Because some people might not know what that is.

Patrick:
I've only stayed in one once, when I went to go run a marathon in—
It was in San Diego. They basically just give you a tiny little room that has a bed in it and a curtain. My guess would be 80 to 120 for the night just because of where it was.

Tamekia:
Was it? I don't think it was that expensive.

Patrick:
I think—I feel like 60 to 80 minimum.

Tamekia:
Okay, so that would be like 60 compared to how much would we pay to stay in San Diego if I was with...

Patrick:
Yeah. But then—

Tamekia:
We'll cut back on some other little things. But anyways, there is a budget, but it kind of expands a little bit if it's just the two of us.

Patrick:
Crazy things we'll do, individually or together, is just the importance of getting out there. And I think that a lot of people can do it. Just hop in the car. You're going to pay a few gallons of gas and find just somewhere to get away. And go the cheapest direction if you have to. But it's critical, I think, in relationships to spend that time together.

Tamekia:
Mentally, when you get away out of your normal environment, I feel like it can help you mentally, right?

Patrick:
Absolutely.

Tamekia:
So I feel like it's—mentally it can help you, you can bond more, and what else?
What else?
You can be educated because you can see new places.

Patrick:
Absolutely.

Tamekia:
Alright.
Alright, so I think we're done here with this episode. Did you want to add anything?

Patrick:
I'm thinking—

Tamekia:
Uh oh.
No, I think we covered everything. Yes, I do.
Alright, I'm going to wrap it up.

Patrick:
Go ahead, I'm listening.
In a future episode, we’ll talk a little bit more about traveling on a budget with a whole bunch of kids.

Tamekia:
Wait a minute. You said a whole bunch of—

Patrick:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we—we have a few different stories we can talk about when we get to that topic.

Tamekia:
We actually should post a couple videos because we do take content sometimes and people probably could learn from, like, how to cut back on certain things and how to travel with multiple kids, right?

Patrick:
A whole bunch of kids.

Tamekia:
Okay.
Alright, so I'm gonna wrap it up.
Do you want to wrap it up? You can wrap it up.

Patrick:
We can both wrap it up. Thanks for listening today. We hope you'll subscribe and listen to the next episode. Until then, have an amazing week.

Tamekia:
Have a, uh, magnificent week.

Patrick:
Have a fantastic week.

Tamekia:
Oh, that was boring. Alright, have an extraordinary week.
Okay, until next time, thanks.

Both:
Thanks, bye.
Bye.