There are only a handful of joyous events in a lifetime that you hold in your heart and relive over and over again. I’ve lost my list of the ten happiest events of my life, but I am sure it included marrying Peter, giving birth to one and then another son, and a trip to Africa with our grownup sons to celebrate Peter’s seventieth birthday.

If I were writing it now, I would add the birth of our grandchildren and accompanying our elder son Seth on his Frugal Traveler assignments to Nicaragua, Croatia and Norway. Watching him connect with utter strangers in the foreign countries he writes about is thrilling.  But so is watching our younger son Jeremy being a better parent than his own parents were.

Recently, when Jeremy titled a Facebook posting about his brother, Uncle Seth, taking his nephews to spring training in Florida #Best Trip Ever, I decided that this will be on the best-things-ever list of all its participants.  It was well-planned and well-executed.  Seth made his nephews live frugally with fewer sodas, a budget for meals, cheapest tickets for the games, etc.  They got up close to the players, got autographs from stars such as David Ortiz and several baseballs.  It was simply “awesome.”

For me, reading about it was almost as good as being there.  Take a look.