Growing up in a world of adventure.
Along with the rest of Western Washington, we said goodbye to the Viaduct this past Saturday. The Alaska Way Viaduct, Seattle’s elevated highway that runs through downtown has gorgeous views of the waterfront, Pike Place Market, and surrounding cityscape.
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The kids and I were invited to an event with the National Park Service at the end of this summer. A pop-up park was created in downtown Seattle’s Westlake Park in order for visitors to specifically experience the sounds of some of our national parks.
When you do something two years in a row, it’s a tradition, right? Slaed and I now have an annual 24-hour summer date. We hire our dear babysitter (of 5+ years) from 11 am on Saturday to 11 am on Sunday, and go somewhere local.
Last year, we traveled to Suncadia, and went the more relaxing, sit by the pool, dine slowly route. This year, we opted for an even closer getaway, and stayed at The Arctic Club Seattle. Instead of putting our feet up and taking it easy, we packed our schedule with activity.
There is something to be said about both styles. As parents, we need time away to refresh and de-stress. At the same time, I also crave life before kids. Things like shopping without interruption, attending sporting events where we actually stay in our seats and watch, and not worrying about being home in time to relieve the sitter sound like a dream!
The Arctic Club, a Doubletree Hilton hotel in Seattle’s Pioneer Square neighborhood served as our home base. You may be wondering…
If you’d asked me on the first evening of our 3-night camping trip at Scenic Beach State Park if I’d go camping with my children again, I would have answered with a definitive, NO. A couple of quick (and vulnerable) excerpts from my journal:
“I’m not that enthusiastic about camping. The kids drive me crazy. The absence of routine things makes me realize what I take for granted.”
“Everything makes me anxious—Georgia humming as I wait for her to fall asleep. Slaed breaking apart boxes and throwing pieces into the fire. He’s making noise and I fear it’ll keep the kids up.
We celebrated America’s independence this past week, and had such a fun family day. Looking back on our 4th of Julys as a family, it’s about 50/50 between traveling and staying in town. I can’t say I have a preference. Of course, we are always up for a travel adventure, but staying off the roads and out of airports on a holiday is definitely a positive!
There’s something special about small town festivities on the 4th of July. Slaed’s mom grew in Bothell, Washington (about 30 minutes north of downtown Seattle), so we get that sweet feeling of almost coming home when we visit. This year in addition to attending Bothell’s Grand Parade, we made a day of it, and spent time at McMenamins Anderson School.
This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #KickBackWithCanadaDry
As a family travel advocate, most of our adventures happen with our wild and wonderful children. From time to time though, we enjoy (and recommend) taking a break from full time caregiving for a bit!
I’m happy to report that my girlfriends and I just recently returned from our 3rd annual Mom’s Weekend. We’ve been friends since our now 3.5 year olds were newborns, and treasure this special time to get away. This year we traveled to La Conner, Washington for the 2nd time, renting an amazing home that worked out so perfectly last year, we decided to return. La Conner is about 60 miles north of Seattle, located in Skagit Valley, well known for it’s Tulip Festival each spring.
The first time the kids and I hiked Lund’s Gulch to Meadowdale Beach Park, on the return to the parking lot, they took turns to create a near continuous stream of whining, crying, fussing, and tantruming. It was such a tough (and frustrating) way to end our adventure, because our hike in and time spent exploring the beach was so lovely!
I’m not sure what was going on with Georgia since I was carrying her, but in Bergen’s defense, the hike back is not exactly a walk in the park. With a sharp and easy decent (400 feet of elevation difference) on the way in, we pay on the way back.
I have to admit, I was a little skeptical and had to be talked into signing up for the Seattle Brunch Run this past weekend. It’s been a while since I’ve participated in a formal running event, and the price tag had me hesitant. The organizers, Seattle Magazine, claimed there would be inclusive brunch bites from more than 15 local restaurants along with a boozy brunch garden featuring mimosas, bloody marys, and beer.
Photo Courtesy of Seattle Brunch Run/Seattle Magazine
With flowers blooming, temperatures warming up (just a bit), and our beautiful region transitioning from a long winter, it’s time we planned a few fun spring adventures! Schedules can fill up if we’re not careful, so I love plugging in intentional outings that we can look forward to. It’s also important to us to celebrate the best that this incredible season has to offer!
If you aren’t familiar with our seasonal bucket lists, here’s the scoop: Each season, we create a list of about 10 fun adventures or projects that are specific to the season.
We dig through our favorite nature books, think about our favorite happenings of that particular season, and look at our calendars to gather the best things that nature has for us. To learn more, check out our summer, fall & winter bucket lists of past years.
A crackling fire. Birds chirping. Elk grazing. A fresh spring snow fall outside our cabin window. Excited 6-year old exclamations. Twisting, turning mountain roads that took my breath away, and brought tears to my eyes. Clip-clopping horse hooves as they navigate the trail. Bubbling geothermal phenomena. The yummy crunch of snowshoes and sleds on fresh snow.
These are the sights and sounds lingering in my mind from a spring time visit to Mount Rainier. Of course any time of year will provide visitors with a remarkable experience, but spring brings surprises and changes as the mountain and surrounding area transition from a long winter. Plus, don’t tell anyone else, you’ll find fewer crowds, giving you more space to take-in this wonderland in all it’s glory.
An annual community treasure hunt brought us on Camano Island last month leaving us with lasting family memories and a fond appreciation.
Appreciation for the space and time to remember what’s most important. Not how many miles hiked or places checked off a list, but the sharing of laughter, lessons in kindness, and opportunity to marvel at mother nature.
Appreciation for people. Each individual in our family matters, and I feel like we got to know each other better. With less distraction, I simply noticed more.
Have you ever heard of a bike playground? A pump track, yes, but I hadn’t heard of a bike playground until last summer when we visited Seattle’s Cascade Bicycle Club headquarters. Cascade has a small learning course used for classes and camps, but recommended we visit the larger version located in White Center/Southwest Seattle at Dick Thurnau Memorial Park.
Not that we ever need an excuse to head out on an outdoor adventure, but with Slaed out of town on a recent weekend, I knew that the kids and I could not sit idle. When solo-parenting, I find it’s a lot more fun and manageable to get out and be active rather than dwell on my lack of partnership!
Gold Creek Pond has been on our list of places to visit for several years now. As the kids and I headed down I-90, I must admit that I second guessed myself several times. It was pouring rain. Blinding, hard to see the car in front of me, worried about driving too fast and too close to other cars, RAIN. Where was the friendly, misty Seattle area rain that we are used to?
I started going over alternatives in my head, and how I was going to break it to the kids that we wouldn’t actually be making it to this hiking spot. And as those alternatives churned in mind, I just kept driving. I talked myself through the overwhelm, and convinced myself not to abandon our plans. Eventually those intermittent downpours subsided and we found ourselves at the trail head! I’m so glad that I didn’t chicken out.
Here you’ll see some quick highlights of our visit, and hopefully you’ll see why we think Gold Creek Pond is such a great outdoor destination for kids!
We visited on the first day of October, so the fall colors were not out in their full glory, but the peeks that we saw were gorgeous! I imagine at by mid October, the oranges, reds, and yellows are out in their full glory.
We’re all for simple and intentional around here when it comes to holidays. In an effort to spend more time connecting and having fun, preferably outside and/or adventuring, we opt for easy, not fussy.
For Halloween, with ideas in mind, we often hit up our local consignment stores and thrift shops, and browse our neighborhood parenting network for costumes. Last year for Georgia’s costume, we did things a little differently though.
We live in Seattle. Chances are, we’re going to be presented with some precipitation on Halloween. At the very least, even if it doesn’t rain, there will be some left over puddles from when it did a day or two before. So rather than have to put rain gear over her costume for trick or treating, we turned her rain gear into a costume!
We were supposed to get our back to school shopping done after visiting with family this Saturday, but we somehow ended up at the Evergreen State Fair instead. Those errands could wait, and we’re so thankful for the day of family fun! Since it was a bit spontaneous, there were some things we could have done better had we planned! At the same time though, just by having our act together in other ways, we did a few things right.
Looking for a Seattle area hiking guide to lead you through the outdoors this summer (and beyond)? I’m excited to share a brand new book from Moon Travel Guides called 75 Great Hikes Seattle. Full disclosure: The book is written by my cousin, avid hiker and Kirkland, Washington resident, Melissa Ozbek. I also contributed a short piece on hiking with kids including tips and ideas for heading out on the trail with young kids.
In the following video, I give a quick overview of the hiking guide, and also share what I love most about the book. Continue reading for a chance to win your own copy. I’m giving away two autographed copies of 75 Great Hikes Seattle, so be sure to enter!
Whidbey Island is a place we will return to over and over again. This easily accessible island north of Seattle is one of my favorite Pacific Northwest getaways. We’ve been day tripping and taking visitors here for years, but it wasn’t until just recently that we actually stayed the night as a family.
One of the reasons I think Whidbey Island is so special is the arrival. There are two ways to get to the island: Take a ferry and arrive on the south end of the island or travel across the Deception Pass Bridge and arrive on the north end.
Cruise along the water enjoying amazing views throughout the Puget Sound or journey across a historic bridge stopping to marvel at the way the land meets the water? You really can’t go wrong! Because of that, our family usually opts to arrive one way and depart the other.
In the following guide, you’ll find our recommendations for things to do with kids on Whidbey Island, family friendly eateries, and our lodging recommendation for families.
Lake Sammamish State Park, located in Issaquah, Washington has so much for families to enjoy. We recently visited the park with a mission to check out their new playground, which opened last fall (October 2016). The playground, designed for kids ages 2-12, mirrors the area’s nature features and historical attributes. The kids and I were impressed to say the least! Along with some of the usual playground offerings, we found a mushroom house, climbable salmon making their way into the lake, and a coal mine to explore.
With winter recently coming to a close, you might not be interested in cold weather gear. However, if you live in a region still experiencing chilly temperatures or want to plan ahead for next fall and winter, you’ll want to consider Stonz Wear.
Stonz Wear is a children’s outerwear brand featuring cold (wet and snowy) weather accessories. They specialize in boots and mittens, and we particularly love the story of their origin. Try as she might, Stonz’ founder Lisa Will, could not keep her young son’s feet warm. She wanted to shoe or boot that would protect those tiny feet from the cold AND stay on, so she got to work designing and creating her own.
Imagine waking up and stepping outside your front door onto a covered porch. In front of you, a babbling stream greets you, bringing an overwhelming sense of peace to your day. Surrounding you from above are towering evergreen trees helping you to feel centered even though tasks, responsibilities, and to-do list items try to impose.
Then as your eyes dance from the calming water to the majestic trees, you realize that the entire area is covered in a blanket of fresh white snow. Truly a winter wonderland that, despite the chill in the air, feels like heaven.
Sounds like a dream, right? Well, this is actually what we experienced just a few weeks ago during our stay at Mounthaven Resort near Mount Rainier National Park.
With a toddler not keen on snow and cold weather, and a preschooler who’s never strapped on snowshoes, I wasn’t sure what to expect for our first family snowshoe adventure. Bergen, our 5-year old, loves hiking, and has been climbing mountains with me since he learned to walk. But snowshoeing?
I foresaw him getting frustrated with the plastic clodhoppers and throwing them off in disgust. Then after being relieved of the clumsy feeling, he’d end up sinking in three feet of accumulated snow. All the while, our 2-year old would grow tired of being carried in the backpack. I envisioned her whining, screaming, or worse throwing a complete tantrum no snack, treat, or lollipop could pacify.
No, that’s not exactly how our first family snowshoe adventure transpired. It ended up being a whole lot of fun for most of us, but it wasn’t without a few bumps! To give you an idea of our set-up, here are a few nitty-gritty details: Slaed has his own snowshoes, I borrowed a pair from a friend, and we rented a pair from REI for Bergen. Georgia was carried in our Deuter Kid Comfort 3 for the 3-mile trek. We chose to hike along the Wonderland Trail (Longmire to Cougar Rock Campground) for it’s easy terrain, pretty views along the Nisqually River, and easy accessibility from Mount Rainier National Park’s south entrance.
We are coming up on our sixth year of traveling down to Arizona for Major League Baseball’s Spring Training. Since Slaed’s mom moved to the Phoenix area, we’ve made it a tradition to visit her every March. We get a much needed break from the cold and rainy Seattle weather, and we get to spend some time living the desert life.
One of the highlights, aside from catching up with family of course, is getting to see our Seattle Mariners baseball team prepare for the regular season via the Cactus League. Most of the time we watch a game or two at the Peoria Sports Complex, their home field shared with the San Diego Padres, but we’ve also visited several other ballparks around the Phoenix area, and love the whole experience.
Even though we catch a game every year, last year was the first time we really made a day of it with our oldest, Bergen. While Georgia relaxed with Slaed’s mom back at her house, we spent the morning and afternoon watching baseball. I thought I’d share a few tips and takeaways to make a Spring Training adventure with kids a big success!
How do we inspire the next generation to care for our planet?
In the words of Benjamin Franklin,
Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.
One of the best ways to instill a genuine respect for living things is through experience. Children need to be provided with opportunities to be a part of the natural world. Formal and informal, structured and unstructured, adult-led and independent, this dedicated time leads to knowledge. And this knowledge leads to understanding, power, and action. Jane Goodall said, “Only if we understand can we care. Only if we care will we help. Only if we help shall they be saved.”
There are so many ways to build upon a child’s “nature IQ”. Hiking, camping, nature-based projects, classes, field trips to environmental centers, and good old fashioned backyard fun are just a handful of ways to start learning! We also love utilizing zoos, aquariums, and science centers as we explore locally and when we travel. These facilities often provide hands-on activities and opportunities to observe flora and fauna in an engaging way.
First things first. Let’s define staycation for our purposes. To some a staycation is when you stay at home, but enjoy leisure and recreational activities within your city, town, or region. That’s all well, and good, and it’s actually how we live our regular life! But today, I’m going with the staycation definition where you stay at a hotel or other accommodation within your immediate city, town or region. As a general rule, the travel must be within an hour’s drive.
