Just back from vacation in the Turks and Caicos with three families, our winter travel partners for the last seven years.  The "kids" are now 15-22.  The oldest have graduated college and are very much part of the real world – one works in an art gallery, and the other Teaches for America in inner-city Philadelphia.  Yes, maturity has set in big time, and one even told a story of how her friend presented her parents with their cut-up credit card as a gift on her graduation day.

The trip was a lot of fun, although not as tropical nor cultural as anticipated.  I wish I could say that we unplugged, but at least there was plenty of family bonding doing crosswords online and screening films. 

I also had the opportunity to observe an unexpected new trend:  Thanks to the I-Pad and the multi-generational success of Social Network, a fascinating new role reveral has emerged – The children have become obsessed with getting rich, while the parents just want to have fun. 

Yes, middle-aged guys are now the ones who are now addicted to video games.  In fact, two out of three in our group spent much of the vacation playing Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja.  And, while their dads stared at the screens, the kids spent their time brainstorming how to become billionaires on the internet.