Travel – The Creative Salad

And Then Life Got Really Busy and I Forgot to Blog

Well, I haven’t really forgotten. Let’s just say blogging is that item at the top of my to do list that I haven’t gotten to recently.

Since I last blogged BACK IN APRIL, our daughter finished her first year of kindergarten:

We embarked on an epic road trip to New Mexico so our daughter could attend mural camp (where Gramma is the program director) and we could visit family:

Then there’s the awesome everyday stuff: ballet and swim classes, mama-daughter ice skating dates every weekend (since December!), beach trips and pool parties, park outings, bike rides, and daily walks after dinner.

Oh, and we finally got around to night-weaning the toddler. (At 30+ pounds now, we figured mama getting sleep was more important than him continuing to eat every hour, all night long.) I’m feeling soooo much more energized now that he’s just breastfeeding every hour during the day. (Really.)

Hence the blog post.

May this trend continue…

Our Future Paleontologist + Dinosaur Excavation Activity

We visited the Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits during our visit to LA last month, an activity that turned out to be a formative experience for our daughter:

Since our visit, the grown-ups in our house have taken turns pretending to be animals stuck in the tar while our little saber tooth tiger gently nibbles on us. (Clearly, this is her idea, not ours!)

We’ve also been busy polishing our excavation skills:

In the museum gift shop we purchased this fantastic dinosaur excavation kit. (FYI: the La Brea Tar Pits formed 10,000 years ago, long after dinosaurs became extinct; however, the gift shop sold a wide variety of science activity kits, including ones with dinosaurs.)

Using a hammer and chisel (contained in the kit), we uncovered a detailed bone replica to clean and then assemble. We bought the Brachiosaurus kit, but they also sell skeletons of Triceratops, Velociraptor, Stegosaurus, T-Rex, and Pteranodon.

(Note: the magnifying glass and brush were our own; they’re not included in the kit, but we thought they were essential props for this particular activity.)

Oh, we had such fun pretending to be paleontologists!

Our daughter now refers to her assembled Brachiosaurus as a dragon skeleton since we’ve been reading Dealing with Dragons before bed each night. In our daughter’s mind, this dinosaur resembles the (friendly!) dragon Kazul. Because, as she frequently reminds me, in our imagination anything is possible.

Modern Landscape Architecture in Venice, California

One morning on our trip to Southern California we needed to kill time before lunch and decided to go for a family walk. We found ourselves in a quirky, well-kept neighborhood in Venice, California. Navigating up and down the streets, I came to appreciate why people love living in LA. Those small quiet neighborhoods are delightful!

Here are some of the architectural highlights from our walk:

I love those modern fences. (Oh, I almost want to pin each shot!) I look forward to the day we own a house and can duplicate that top fence. We’ll bring a little LA to Western Sonoma County.

Postcards from Monterey

My parents are visiting us from the East Coast, so this past week we headed south to Carmel, Pacific Grove, Monterey, and Moss Landing. We greatly enjoyed our wildlife encounters at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and in the Elkhorn Slough and Pacific Grove Monarch Sanctuary:

We so love living here in Northern California!

Click here to see more photos from our trip.

Tips For Traveling With Kids

Since our families live thousands of miles away, we have flown frequently over the past three years with our daughter and we have lots of tips to share with you.

We’ve found the secret to a happy trip is to bring:

1) many different snacks, such as granola bars, nut crackers, peanut butter squeeze packs, peanut butter pretzels, cheese sticks, juice boxes, applesauce, lara bars, granola, water bottles (to fill up after security), popcorn, dried fruit and nut mix,

2) new books (by beloved authors) to read for the first time,

3) our daughter’s lovies (baby doll and blanket), and

2) a multitude of simple toys and art projects, such as:

colored pencils, crayons or markers and coloring or activity books,
(above, a plain pad and pen work great in a pinch!)

beading projects (love these Melissa and Doug wooden bead sets),

sticker books (we’re partial to Usborne and Dover sticker books),

magnetic toys or games (such as Fractiles Magnetic Tiles or our favorite literary character magnets),

a Doodle Pro, known in our house as our daughter’s “computer” (her phrase, not mine!) that we keep in the car.

In the past we’ve also brought miniature animal figurines, wikki stix, Rand McNally’s Backseat Activity Books series, stamp sets and stamp pads, lacing cards (we love these), card games, books on cd (from our local library), and all sorts of little toys from the dollar bin at our local toy store.

If all else fails, and you’re exhausted and EVERYONE needs a break, whip out your iPod or phone loaded with free Sesame Street podcasts (with Kidz Gear headphones for kids).

We’ve only had to use this tactic a handful of times, but I felt so thankful to have a moment of quiet for the grown-ups to regroup and the 3 year old to have some down time.

In all honesty, I’ve been known to employ that last tactic at home occasionally at the end of a long day. (Though my daughter would rather watch cooking shows on You Tube than Sesame Street, but that’s another post…)