With rising gas prices, families are suffering from more then just a lack of vacation time. They are suffering from a lack of family time. Most people today do not live where they grew up and are moving every few years for work. If you are like our family, your kids did not get to wish grandma a Happy Mother’s Day in person. So what are we to do to stay connected to family?

One of the newest things we have tried is emailing video messages. It works great and the grandparents love it! For Mother’s Day we video taped a short message from our kids to the grandmas. It was only about 2 minutes in length but was very cute. When the grandma’s watched the video that Sunday they both were moved. It was like they had the kids there for a few moments.

We have also used a webcam to stay in touch with loved ones. This can be great if your little ones can sit in front of the computer long enough. We tried this one when we where in the process of moving cross country. We where all separated for over a month. I just loved seeing my husband and daughter in the evenings even if it was just an image of them on the computer screen. For those little bits of time it was like they where sitting right there in the room with me.

There is of course mom’s standard lower tech idea of calling. With everyone having cell phones calling long distance is becoming less of a budget buster item. Sometimes nothing is better then a long chat with a loved one you are missing (minus seeing them in person).

Having lived in different cities around the country we have accumulated a lot of really great friends who live all over. I would try to send mass emails to everyone including photos. I would also find myself emailing different people the same updates on us over and over again. Then one day we got the great idea to set up a family blog. This blog is 100% geared towards our family and friends. It is basically a family journal with photos and small videos. In our Christmas cards we remind people of the URL. We have received more compliments about our blog then we ever would have imaged. In fact, our biggest fans are my 82 year old grandpa and grandma! They check it every day to see if we have added any more photos of the kids.

No mater how far away you live from family it is important to stay connected. How do you stay connected with your long distance loved ones?