When you’re home for the summer, you’ll be back with your family and will get to spend tons of time with them to make up for the lost months while you were away. If your family is like mine, you may even take a “little vacation” to increase family bonding and increase the love.

This “little” trip can become very overwhelming, very fast. You, your cousins, your aunts and uncles, your parents,siblings and your grandparents all in one house is both incredible and frustrating.  Oh I forgot to mention the dogs and the potbelly pig that are on the trip. Wait, your family doesn’t have a pig? I guess that’s just mine. Anyway, here are some tips to make the most out of your family vacation and how to survive.

1.   Set some ground rules. Everyone is coming from different houses that have different standards of living. You need to establish what rules need to be followed on the first day so that it doesn’t become a problem later on. 

2.    Walk away. If you are frustrated or annoyed at a situation, don’t sit there and let it get worse. Just walk away to a different room. It’s probably a good idea to find your own space to get away at times like these. 

3.    Take some time for yourself. Make sure you set aside some time to relax on your own and get some peace. Talk a walk or catch up on some TV. This little amount of time away from the chaos of the family event will help make the rest of the week easier. 

4.    Think of other people’s feelings. You are not the only one getting frustrated. Everyone is in the same situation as you; so don’t think that your habits aren’t annoying. Despite what you may believe, not everyone wants to listen to you play the same tune on the piano for hours. 

5.    Find activities out of the house. Being in one place for a week will make it seem less like a vacation and more like a prison. Spend time out of the house and enjoy your vacation spot. While lounging at the house in your yoga pants may be fun for one day, it will get boring and you’ll have wasted the trip. 

6.    Take turns on chores. It’s everyone’s vacation. It shouldn’t fall on one person’s shoulders to do all the cooking and cleaning. Splitting up the tasks will make them more bearable and keep one person from building up aggressions. 

7.    Try new recipes. It can be tempting to eat out every night, but vacation is a great time to try new things and test out your cooking skills. Take your little cousin into the kitchen to make a new dessert and the entire family will thank you. 

8.    Compromise, compromise, compromise. This mostly speaks for itself. You can’t expect everyone to agree on one meal or one outing so you need to compromise. Once a decision is made, live with it. 

9.    Forgive and forget. It can be very easy for someone to snap and make a hurtful comment. They may not even realize it happened. Just let it go. Don’t allow this one statement ruin the rest of the trip. (But to be honest, this one's hard for me.)

10. Remember, you all love one another. You’re here together because you love one another and want to spend time together. You may get on one another’s nerves, but in the end, you’re family and always will be.