without seeing pictures or knowing the details of your construction (plaster, drywall, etc) makes it somewhat difficult to assess.

Howver, the process should be similar to installing a hi-hat/recessed light in your house, except instead of running electrical wire back to your house's panel for a light, you would instead run speaker wire from the area that sources your sound, typically a home theater receiver/audio receiver to the in wall/ceiling speaker.

Hope that gets you started :) There are also other wireless solutions out there like Sonos if you don't want to start cutting holes everywhere.

I looked into Sonos - but just don't like the idea of having to plug things in and find space for the unit. I know they are small, but we really want to avoid that.

We already of recessed lighting in the family room -- will this make things easier for the install?

No, the fact that you have recessed lights doesn't help you acheive audio any quicker or easier, unless you use these interesting sound light bulbs, though i've never used them myself. (http://www.amazon.com/GiiNii-AudioBulb-Wireless-Expandable-system/dp/B005HXLJMI)

The recessed lighting example was to illustrate a similar amount of labor necessary and to point out that you'll need a single place to run your wires back to that will control your sources. A company like Niles Audio is one of the most respected in whole house audio, so you might want to look at their website for some ideas.

OK -- thanks so much.

If you do put them in the ceiling (and perhaps the walls) make sure to get Dynabox rubber sound boxes to dampen the noise.
Prior to this remodel we had installed ceiling speakers and the reverberation upstairs from the surround sound was occasionally jarring and certainly annoying.
This time around we had better information and perhaps just newer technology. The rubber boxes (inserted into the ceiling before the speaker) work well and make it a much more pleasant environment when the TV is on.

Here is a link that might be useful: Dynabox