April 1, 2019

The Seattle Mariners T-Mobile Park with Kids (+Video)

Baseball season has officially started! We attended the Mariners opening day last week, and had a blast celebrating the new park sponsor, T-Mobile, and an opening day win (and now, series win) against the Boston Red Sox. Today I’m sharing all the opening day fun with a video!

In addition, I thought I’d highlight all the kid-friendly things that you can do at T-Mobile Park. Mariner games are a big part of our spring and summer. Win or lose, we look forward to going to games as a family. You’ll learn about all the kid-friendly features (and catch a bit of the opening day action) in the video below. Is there a feature we missed? Make sure to leave us a comment! Also, if you have a favorite kid-friendly ballpark to recommend, let’s chat.

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March 29, 2019

Don’t Just Fly+News & Inspiration//17

News::

Did you guess? We’re headed to see Dumbo this afternoon! It’s gotten mixed reviews, but I’m pretty confident that our family will love it. Do you plan to see it? Of course, this is prep for our big trip next week to…Disneyland!
Yesterday, we got to attend Opening Day for our Seattle Mariners baseball team. We had the best time celebrating the new ball park sponsor, honoring Edgar Martinez (soon to be in the baseball hall of fame), and cheering on the team through a 12-4 victory against the Red Sox. Getting to see Macklemore perform was pretty amazing too!
Mark your calendars! Saturday, April 20th is another National Park Fee Free Day in honor of National Parks Week!

Inspiration::

You may have remembered when I reviewed Cusa Tea a while back. I took a break from coffee, and Cusa was a huge help in making the switch from coffee to tea. Well, right now they are offering new customers a FREE sample pack (just pay shipping)!
Who wants to join us at this amazing new adventure playground in Northern Ireland?!
Book of the Week: The Unofficial Guide: Disneyland 2019. Since we are taking our first official trip to Disneyland as a family, we want to be MORE than prepared, and this book has it all.
Promo of the Week: Through the end of March, Steep and Cheap (Backcountry.com’s outlet site) is holding a huge Winter Clearance Sale! I also recommend checking their Bargain Bins–there are some great camping gear deals right now.

Share your favorite Disney movie in the comments!

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March 28, 2019

Seattle Area Spring Hiking: Squak Mountain State Park

Squak Mountain State Park holds a very special place in my heart. In the early spring of 2014, I ran a trail half marathon there. The very next day, I found out that I was pregnant with our youngest, now 4-year old, Georgia. Fun to say that I ran a trail half marathon while pregnant, right?

Tucked away from the other more popular Issaquah Alps, Squak Mountain is a little less known, and therefore a little less crowded. Admittedly I even overlooked the park initially when I was charged with finding a “moms only” hike this past weekend. Wanting to spend more time on the trail, than driving, we needed an option that wasn’t too terribly far from Seattle. Snow was also something we wanted to avoid. And of course crowds (or the hope of the lack there of) were a concern.

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March 27, 2019

Family Travel Memories: Why I Chose to Scrapbook Our London Travels

Fun fact about me: I used to be a scrapbooking enthusiast. In my early 20s, before kids, I learned about the scrapbooking company, Creative Memories. A good friend of mine was a consultant, and I went all in. I purchased special pages, accessories, and asked for big price tag items for Christmas and birthdays. I loved it! My big project at the time was documenting my year of service with Americorps-NCCC. With four huge volunteer projects, plus travel in between, I had a lot of memories to share.

With my move to Seattle, I stopped scrapbooking with such fervor, but I still held onto all my supplies. A heavy duty bag full of paper cutting tools, stickers, and other embellishments is housed in our basement. Every once in a while I dig it out for a small project.

While it gets messy, and takes time, documenting a travel adventure or kid milestone in this way brings me so much joy. As a family, we love reminiscing and reflecting about experiences over an actual book rather than photos on the computer or phone. Plus, it’s a sweet way to share with family and friends when they come to visit.

Books created on sites like Shutterfly yield a lot less clutter. However, I often get overwhelmed with the digital possibilities. Especially considering I already spend a lot of time online with my blog, getting away from screens, and working with my hands actually more preferable.

While I was hiking with friends this past weekend, they nudged me to share more about how I created my most recent book: All about our week long trip to London in January 2018. As a gift for Slaed, I actually put it together before even sharing about our trip on the blog . Yes, I was a little behind in my blogging duties!

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March 26, 2019

Whidbey Island, WA with Kids: Langley & Beyond

Most of our family travels are scheduled and planned, very far in advance. In fact, we often get teased by family and friends that we already have a full calendar before others even begin to start making plans. What can we say? We just love having travel and adventure to look forward to!

Everyone once in a while though, we get a wild hair, and will spontaneously plan a trip. This was the case over the kid’s winter break this past year. For the first time ever, we weren’t traveling over the holidays, AND we didn’t have family coming to visit. After the excitement of Christmas subsided, I think we got itchy. Slaed started researching, and found a very reasonable and adorable cottage rental with beach access. Just our style for ringing in the new year. [Read more…]

March 25, 2019

Biking with Kids Video: Tips for Taking Longer Bike Rides

With our not too hot, not too cold weather conditions this past Saturday, we hopped on our bikes again for another spring ride. In the following video, we’re sharing our journey, plus a few tips on taking longer bike rides with kids. And if you just a need a few quick tips for reference, I’ve outlined our longer ride tips below!

For this particular ride, we biked to Seattle’s Gas Works Park, stopped for baseball and playground fun, and then rode a little further into the Fremont neighborhood for dinner. This 9-mile round-trip adventure certainly wasn’t our longest ride, but we figure we are building up to go further later in the spring and summer!

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