Heather's Top 5 Tips for Traveling with Kids

On our summer vacation this year we drove from Alabama to Colorado and back with a baby and a 3 year old, and everyone stayed relatively happy, so I think that makes me qualified to list my top tips for traveling with children!

1. Now matter how many times you have said "no" break down and buy the car DVD player before a long trip. It is absolutely a lifesaver! Although you may never want to see Peter Pan ever again by the time you come home, the kids will stay entertained for hours with this! We stored our DVDs in a sun visor CD holder and that worked wonderfully, HOWEVER, make sure it is positioned in such a way that if you take a corner too fast and the DVDs fly out of the holder they will land in the car and not fly out the open window! (This really happened!)

2. Bring a Sherpa. What I mean is, bring an extra adult to carry the extra weight when it comes to the kids. Our sister in law April came with us and she was wonderfully helpful! She not only carried the extra weight while we hiked, she was there to lend a helping hand with anything we needed. One of the reasons that we were able to travel so far each day is that we were able to rotate having one person drive, one person watch the kids and one person sleep.

3. Toys. Lots and lots of toys! Seriously, we bought a small clear Rubbermaid bin and we filled it with toys and kept it in the floor of the car. Then we would rotate the toys often so the kids wouldn't get too bored.

4. Magna Doodle. This provided hours and hours of entertainment for both the 3 year old and the adults. We bought this for the trip and it was worth every penny. She still uses it daily.

5. Use the internet. I spent the better part of one pre-trip day finding fun car activities online and printing them out. www.nickjr.com was a wonderful resource for this. I packed a bag full of activities she had never seen before, some crayons, and some stickers and this also provided hours of fun.
If you have any more fool proof car entertainment tips, please share them with me!

Colorado vacation with the kids - are we NUTS?

This summer we decided to undertake quite a feat and take our first vacation in a really long time. Of course cruises and other conventional vacations that require leaving our children at home are not our style, so instead we embarked on an epic adventure across the country with our two young children and our sister-in-law April in tow. We started our trip late one evening in Birmingham, Alabama and we drove with few stops for almost 24 hours before stopping the next night in Denver, Colorado. I have to admit, we were all completely exhausted, but we knew we had made it a lot farther than we had expected to on the first day and we were so proud of how good the children were the whole time in the car. By the time we reached Denver we all stumbled into the first hotel room we could find and were happy to actually sleep in beds! The next morning we loaded into the car and had a leisurely drive through the mountains to our ultimate destination of Leadville, Colorado. Leadville is the highest incorporated town in the country and truly one of the most breathtaking places I have ever been. We set up camp (yes, of course we tent camped all week!) and headed into town just in time to catch the end of the burrow races and see a little bit of Leadville.

One thing that we were really struck by was how hard it was to breathe at that altitude! Even April who runs marathons was getting winded there (I have to admit that this made me feel much better about myself.)

We spent the whole week just playing outdoors and generally having a great time. I absolutely fell in love with Leadville and I am sure we will go back there at some point in the future. It has to be one of the most beautiful places in the world.

On our way back to Alabama we stopped at Sand Dunes National Park and had some fun playing in the sand and getting dirty. The rest of the trip home was pretty awful since we were missing the excitement that kept us going on the way out. We pushed on and made it home in one day. Again, the kids were wonderful and such little troupers. In fact, I can honestly say that I complained more than they did on the way home!

Great Weekend!!

I can't take credit for this one, Eric actually took it, but I just love it!

This is Erica practicing her bouldering skills at Alabama Outdoors

We had another beautiful weekend here in Alabama, so we took full advantage of it again! Eric had a couple of invites for fun things to do without the kids, but we deemed it family fun weekend instead. I think we all ended up having a great time! Yesterday we went to Alabama Outdoors for me to buy a new pair of hiking boots since I am going to need time to break them in before we go on our big trip this summer. While we were there Eric and Erica both played on the rock wall and it was so fun to watch! After that we went to the zoo and saw all the animals. Last night Eric was cooking a brisket, so after the kids went to bed we sat around on the patio drinking beer that was brewed in our hometown of Athens, Georgia, and listening to a live Jimmy Buffett concert. It was just a great day. Today we went fishing at Oak Mountain with our friends Paul and Sarah and their daughter Caroline, who happens to be Erica's best friend. Now we are just sitting around the house playing with the kids and relaxing. I just can't remember a more relaxing weekend in a very long time. Yes, my laundry still needs folding, and yes, my dishwasher needs unloading, but those things will still be there this week!

Camping Trip

Erica relaxing in the hammock

The beautiful stream near our campground

What is it about boys and dirt??

My sweet boy!

Matt fishing on the dock

Eric on the zip line

Eric splashing down on the zip line

Last weekend was absolutely beautiful here, so we packed up and decided to take Lucas on his first camping trip. (Erica is an old pro at camping already and a self-proclaimed camping expert!) We had our Tahoe so loaded down that we had to borrow one of those little platforms that attaches to the trailer hitch just to haul all our stuff there. We would have had more room, but Harley and Parker were taking up most of the storage room in the car. We drove to a primitive campground just outside of Anniston called Pine Glen. It is situated on the Pinhoti Trail near a stream and it proved to be a great place to stay. We played in the dirt and in the icy cold stream. We roasted marshmallows and cooked over an open fire. It got a little cool that night, but the four of us just snuggled closer together and kept each other warm

After breakfast Sunday morning we decided we were ready to head back to civilization. Really what that means is that Eric was itching to go fishing at Camp Lee in Anniston where his brother works. We had a blast all afternoon at the lake and by the end of the day I managed to convince Eric and Matt to go down the zip line so that I could try out my camera on action shots. It was so fun to watch, next time I will absolutely have to bring clothes to go down it in!

We had such a great time in the woods with no phone service and no television that we can hardly wait to go again. So far the forecast for this weekend looks pretty nice too . . .

Please visit my photobucket album for this trip!

http://s171.photobucket.com/albums/u305/heathersuwho/Camping%20Trip/

Putting Plastic Bags to Good Use

OK, since I was on my soapbox the other day about how I hate plastic shopping bags, I thought would post a link to this site to show something really useful you can do with your plastic bags. www.yougrowgirl.com/grow/bagit.php This person has started a container garden with plastic bags, and it worked!! What a great way to reuse your bags! I think I am going to try this on my back deck. I will let you know how it turns out! If you have any other good uses for plastic or paper shopping bags, I'm all ears!

Erica's Birthday Celebration

Who invited Santa? The Easter Bunny?

Erica with the infamous Dora Cake

Yum! This birthday cake is good!!

Erica hunting Easter Eggs during her party

Lucas' first rib bone! Look how good he cleaned it, and he doesn't even have teeth! LOL!

As you can see, a great time was had by all at Erica's birthday party. She had both sets of grandparents there, so she was spoiled all day long! We had pizza and cake for lunch at the birthday girl's request, but Eric just couldn't stand having people over to the house and not cooking for them, so he slow cooked a BBQ pork butt and 3 racks of ribs and, as usual, everyone loved them. I swear his BBQ gets better everytime he fixes it, although he is always looking at it with a critical eye. Lucas certainly liked the rib bone he got handed. I'm sure it felt good on his teething gums and compared to a bottle, it tasted REALLY good! He can hardly wait to try them again!

Happy Birthday Erica!

It is hard to believe that my sweet baby Erica is 3 years old today. Poor thing started her birthday off with a bloody nose! Let's hope the rest of the day goes better than that! Grandma and Grandpa will be here soon so that will make her happy and we have an Easter Egg Hunt to go to this afternoon. Tomorrow is her family birthday party complete with a gigantic Dora the Explorer cake and birthday hats! Of course Eric isn't happy if he can't use his Big Green Egg for a whole weekend, and he was just crushed when Erica said she wanted delivery pizza for her birthday lunch, so he will be cooking BBQ pork butt and ribs for dinner. He will probably end up with both grills going at some point which will make his whole day! I'll try to post pictures later from the Easter Egg Hunt and of course of her party tomorrow.

Behold the Joys of the Ice Cream Truck

She especially enjoyed eating the eyeballs since they were made out of gum and she had never had gum before. She told me all about eating Tweety Bird's eyes and then spitting them out when she was done!

Older Child Wearing

I thought I would share the wonderful experience I had this evening carrying my 3 year old. I announced after dinner that I was going for a walk and Eric said he would watch the kids. Erica said that she wanted to come with me, so I offered her to ride in the stroller, but she said she wanted to ride in her backpack instead. She isn't comfortable in the mei tai anymore, so reluctantly, I went to the garage to get her backpack, which is a Snugli brand carrier with a backpacking frame that we use for serious hiking (and one backpacking trip - but that is a different post altogether!) I was dreading carrying an extra 30 pounds on my back around my hilly neighborhood! What I didn't know was that I was about to have one of the most rewarding half hours of my life!Whereas when she rides in her stroller I spend most of my time saying "What? Speak up, I can't hear you" and so on and so on . . . with her on my back I could hear every word she had to say. She asked me questions about all sorts of things we saw and heard along the way. It was after dark, so I was wearing a headlamp and she would ask me to shine my light on certain things. When I would stop talking back so much because I was huffing and puffing up a hill she would cheer me on with a chant of "Go Mommy Go!" I had my own personal exercise cheering section. It sure made the hills easier to climb! As I was walking I realized that we usually miss this sweet time on our walks because I simply can't hear what she has to say! I'm not a very sentimental person, but I recognized at that very moment that we made a memory that I would keep with me for the rest of my life, and that I needed to get it down on "paper" to help me remember. So there it is. Now the real question is weather or not I will be able to walk tomorrow! I'm sore already!

No, I Don't Want Paper OR Plastic!

Why is so hard for people to believe that you don't want their stinking grocery bags?!? I have started taking my own canvas bags to the grocery store recently and I have come to terms with the fact that people look at me like I am crazy, but why can't they just put the stuff in the bags without trying to force "just a few" plastic bags on me. One day they even wrapped something in a plastic bag and stuck it down in my canvas bag. Uh, Hello! Don't you get that the reason I brought canvas bags is because I don't want your plastic bags? Even today, when I went to the grocery store the girl thought I was absolutely crazy for refusing bags. I had 2 items that wouldn't fit in my canvas bags, but they were a gallon of milk, which has it's own handle, so it is just as easy to carry without a bag, and a BAG of tortilla chips, which as I just stated were already in a bag. Why should I put a bag in a bag? That's just silly! I understand maybe if I was carrying my groceries to the car, but I was going to push them out in a buggy, so how would a bag have helped me any? Thank goodness our Whole Foods store just opened. They actually give you money back for each bag you bring! Now that's a good idea. I'm sure more people would bring their bags if they could save money by doing so! While I am on the subject, the lady at the fabric store looked at me like I had lost my mind when I said that I wanted to carry my stack of fabric instead of putting it in a bag. Yes, I had a few small items, which I balanced on top until I got to my car and stuck them in a bag I had there to keep them from rolling around the car. I guess the moral of my story is that shopping without grocery bags CAN be done and maybe if more of us start doing it, it will gain more mainstream acceptance. Will you join me?

Getting into Shape

Having 2 kids in the last 3 years has really taken its toll on my body. (Which, to be perfectly honest, wasn't that great to start with!) Anyway, I am now really in need of getting myself back in shape (other than round). This summer we are planning to take a big hiking trip on a little budget, and I couldn't be more excited, we will most likely take the kids with us for our first big family vacation. I know that I will most likely be hiking long distances with Lucas on my back - unless of course he has surpassed Erica in weight by then, which is entirely possible! At any rate, one of them will be on my back as we hike in a higher altitude than we are used to, so I really need to be able to handle that or we will be in for a disappointing vacation.

I have joined some other local women who also have some baby weight to drop and we are all chipping in $10, the bulk of which will go to the person who loses the highest percentage of their body weight, with a little money for the 2nd place winner. Anyway, I am hoping that the prospect of free money will help to motivate me! I have recently read the book "Body Clutter" by the Flylady and the Dinner Diva, which is mostly about loving yourself enough to do the work it takes to lose weight. I am losely following the eating plan from the "Sonoma Diet" but I plan to have pizza and cake for Erica's birthday this week and I won't feel bad about it (that's where flylady's thinking comes in)

I know my biggest obstacle is exercise. I know I need this to be successful and that weight loss without exercise won't prepare me for my trip, but the thought of getting the kids organized and out the door for a walk around the neighborhood is exhausting to me! That is just something I need to get over though, because I am not joining a gym, nor would I have time to go! I do enjoy taking walks after dark by myself, but sometimes that isn't easy either when Eric gets home really late, which happens a lot since he works so hard.

OK, well there it is, to sum up, I need to eat better and exercise to get in shape for our trip this summer and to be healthier in general, which is really funny because I really am somewhat of a health nut!

A note: this picture was taken when Erica was 17 months old, and way before we had Lucas!

Our Green Life

I have always been very interested in environmental issues, but I have been especially concerned about it since I have become a mother. It seems like each month I come up with more ways to "green" our household. These are the things we currently do to keep green: We eat organic foods as often as possible, we buy produce from a company called "Grow Alabama" which supports local organic farming. We are in the process of changing all our lightbulbs to compact flourescents. We use cloth diapers and cloth baby wipes. We have recently switched to cloth napkins and we try to use as few paper towels as possible in the kitchen. I try to remember to take my canvas bags to the grocery store, even though they look at me like I have 2 heads! We compost kitchen scraps and we recycle or reuse everything we possibly can.

Hopefully I can add more to this list in the near future! Please note that when I use the term "we" I mean that I insist on it and Eric is nice enough to support my decisions. He knows that I only have our best interests at heart!

I have also adopted a natural approach to parenting. Of course there is the cloth diapers which I have already mentioned, but I also make most of my own baby food (organic whenever possible!), I have also recently discovered the joys of babywearing which is totally addictive! There is nothing in the world like having your little one snuggled up so close to you!

My other current obsession is photography! Eric just bought me a great camera and the pictures I have taken with it so far are awesome! In fact, one might be published in a newspaper in the next week or so. One habit I am about to change is not printing my pictures. Most of my photos only live in my computer, so I am going to start printing and framing them. Who knows, I may even start doing a little digital scrapbooking too!