It’s time for another Aloha Friday, the day that you take it easy and look forward to the weekend, in Hawaii and blog land anyway. As you should know by now, over at An Island Life, Kailani decided that on Fridays she would take it easy on posting and ask a simple question for you to answer. Nothing that requires a lengthy response.
If you’d like to participate, just post your own question on your blog and leave your link at An Island Life’s blog. Don’t forget to visit the other participants! It’s a great way to make new bloggy friends!
My husband and I often talk about leaving the state and heading to somewhere with a lower cost of living (it doesn’t get much higher than where we are now) but normally we find ourselves stopping short of pursuing anything because the idea of moving very far away from all our friends and family is a little bit frightening. We have an amazing support network here – both our families (both parents and grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins) as well as some very close friends all live within about 45 minutes of our home. It’s pretty sweet. Except the cost of living is horrendous and sometimes we hate it here.
And I’m curious – do a lot of people stay close to their families hometowns? How many of you live within an hour of family? How many of you live further away? Much further away? Am I wimp for not wanting to leave or is this something most people would rather not live without? So for Aloha Friday this week can you tell me:
Do you live close to your parents / extended family?
How do you feel about your proximity to them?
Mommablogsalot 
21 responses to “Aloha Friday: Are You Close To Your Family?”
How I wish my parents and my brother live near by. They live in New York and I don’t get to see them as often as I want. I miss them very much.
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We are in the general area in relation to most of them. Our parents live about and hour to an hour and a half away. A lot of my extended family work for American Airlines so we see them a lot even though they live in TX and we are in CA. I wish our parents were closer but we chose to move so I could stay home. It is a sacrifice.
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When I was in rhode island I lived far away from all my family who live in Ky&TN. I was fine with that. We saw each other atleast twice a year. Adams family felt like my family. Now that I moved back to my parents I am surrounded by my family. I love having the feeling that family is around but my family is all weird and screwed up its just not what I wanted when i think of family. So I kinda liked being from away from them but I don’t really have a choice now.
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No, I wish I was closer
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We live about 30 minutes and it is just the right distance. Not to far but not right next door either. I don’t know if I could live much further than that.
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They are about a 4 hour drive away. I occasionally wish they were less of a drive, but it’s not too bad of a distance.
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I am very close to my family, but I actually moved my whole family a 2hour drive from my folks. It was hard at first, but we have worked around it. Both my parents are retired, so they come and stay for a week at a time. Also when we moved we made a new network of friends who have been just as reliable as my own family. I would never change the decision I made to move as it has all worked out so well.
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We are 3 hours away from any family which is a lot closer than we were.
If you would have asked me say 10 years ago today, if I would move over 6 hours away from family and friends, I would have said NO Way!
The job opportunity just came up and there was no doubt that we needed to take it at the time. It was very very hard to transition from newlywed, to mother, to total transplant to another state, all in one years time of marriage. Somehow I managed. I don’t think I could do more than 6 hours driving distance from family..that’s where I draw the line.
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We’re a half hour from all relatives and it’s the perfect distance. We can see them whenever we want, but no unexpected drop-ins. We’ve debated moving away as well but all of our family and friends being local has kept us where we are.
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We live close to my family, far away from his. His family lives in SoCal and obviously the cost of living there is super high. When he moved to my area, years before I met him, it was because he was having a hard time finding a job near his family and the cost of living was killing him. It’s hard to be away from his family sometimes, we love them and miss them a lot. But there’s no way we’d survive down there. And my family is a huge support for us so at least we’re near one set of parents and relatives.
If I were in your shoes I think I’d try to stay there for as long as you can. Because once you leave it will be nearly impossible to make your way back, and you can’t really put a price on family support.
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My husband and I are debating the same thing. We live within 10 mins from both parents and we are a very close family. We actually depend alot on our parents to help out with our daughter because we both work full time. This is part of the reason we havent moved…I really dont think we will.
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i live about 45 minutes south of my parents. i NEVER thought i’d be okay living this close to them. But it really is far enough away that they’re not just going to pop in on me – and close enough so that if we need anything, it’s not inconvenient to head home or have them come down.
funny – that’s the exact logic i used about going to college. in MARYLAND
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We live close to both our moms and love it. I can’t remember the last time we had to pay for a bbaysitter. My mother in law calls me about once a week to ask if I would like her to watch the girls so I can have some free time. Last Wed. she watched my youngest and I came home to find her folding my laundry. I am very blessed!!
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From the moment in ’91 when I married my husband I knew that I wouldn’t live close to any family members for a while. Finally over 17 years later we live 16 hrs from my parents & 10 hr from one of my sisters. My in laws (as you’ve already heard about!) don’t count since I would never willingly invite anywhere close to us. Well Hubby’s bio dad & his wife are actually pretty cool but they are about 21 hrs from us.
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We are about a 4 hour drive away (we used to live–and this is a DIRECT quote from my hubby 1.6 MILES away–LOL!!) In between then and now–we moved to the other side of the country. Again–LOL!! I think this is a good happy medium.
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I don’t live close to my parents or in laws. The in laws actually moved away a couple of month ago to the south and my parents are still in Hawaii.
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Ours are both in the same city…I wish that wasn’t the case because we are always splitting our time.
16 hours by car; 2 by air!
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In my case distance is good. I don’t have a great relationship with my parents. They moved away from this area. We see them about twice/year. My husband’s parents live about 45 minutes away but only see them about once/quarter. They are so busy with their “retired” lives.
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We are pretty close to our family but I would love to move. We live about 45 minutes from DC and the cost of living is just ridiculous. I’ve been trying to convince hubby to move to FL so I can work at Disney. He just won’t go for it.
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We chose to be close to our parents. Before we had Toby, we had talked about just packing up and moving to California for a couple of years. Now I feel we’re too late. My in-laws are 45 minutes west, and my parents are 1.25 hours south. It’s a good distance; a 30 minute both ways would be ideal, I think. Same town too close!
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I do live close to my family. But in all truth of the matter, if we could move we would. We cannot because of the union and Marc would lose all seniority.
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