Traveling with kids -- any tips?

Later this week, we're taking the kids and the father-in-law (who both L and I are counting in the "kid" column instead of the "adult" column) on the train to Chicago for a long weekend. I'm so psyched about playing in the Windy City in its summer glory!

Getting there will be easy, doing fun things and eating will be easy. But, we're staying in a regular hotel room and no longer have a regular stroller because I sold it in the garage sale after it sat around neglected for months. Call us non-adventurous, but we haven't done the hotel room thing with both kids until now. And I hadn't factored in a largely pedestrian (so to speak) vacation when I sold the stroller.

Any recommendations? Advice?

Sutherland drink?

I always saw this weird word in the grocery store dairy section, and I couldn't venture how to pronounce it, let alone consume it, so I just left it well enough alone. Now, go figure, it has become one of my go-to snacks for the kids. If they knew how good it was for them, they might not love it as much as they do. So I won't tell them that part.

I'm talking about kefir. It's pronounced KEE-fer, just like Kiefer Sutherland, if you're challenged like I was. I bought it to give to Peanut when she was sick a couple months ago and having a bad bowel reaction (sorry, TMI) to her antibiotic. It's similar to yogurt, although it has more active cultures than the main brands. Plus, it has dietary fiber. And did I mention it tastes like a smoothie?

We call it "yogurt drink" at my house, for simplicity. It is often the afternoon snack, and I serve it in our (previously special-occasion) built-in straw cups. No prep required, it's healthy, filling and everyone loves it.

So if you've seen it and felt a bit xenophobic too, I'm here to tell ya it's worth trying. This is the brand I like the best, and this winter I plan to kick it up in the blender with extra fruit and other nutrition. It also works wonderfully as a dip for fruit or graham crackers.

Tall drink of water

Peanut, at not quite 2 1/2, is really, officially starting to outgrow some of the toddler things. Like, we took down the baby gate from the bottom of the stairs. She swings on the "big-girl swings" in the backyard and at the park. We no longer strap her into her booster seat at the table (she still needs the height a bit, and I like it for psychological reasons -- as in, stay in your seat and eat!).

She's also approaching the end of her need for sippy cups. It used to be that when we went to the park or anywhere out and about to play, I'd bring water so either of the girls could have a drink when they needed. Because the environmentalist in me prohibits buying bottled water, I always brought tap from home. Until the end of the spring, I was bringing the water in a sippy cup so Peanut could have a drink without spilling the entire supply. I had just begun to wonder how I could replace the sippy with something a little more grown-up, when the girls discovered L's biking water bottle. Yet another benefit of our biking hobby, as it turns out.

"Daddy's water bottle" has become our standard drink bearer for all outdoor activities this summer. Both girls have figured out how to work it and drink out of it, and it is perfect in so many ways. It's big enough to have adequate water for both of them, it doesn't spill, and it fits in the car cupholders.

I've seen the individual flip-lid straw thermos things for kids and all manner of stainless steel bottles (which I think are very cool, by the way). But Daddy's water bottle is just the perfect thing. However, it will look a tad out-of-place when we're toting it in the February dead of winter as opposed to the August sun and sweat...
Photo credit goes to Jellybean!

Get on your bikes and ride

We have re-discovered biking this summer, and have had some of our best family time when we've been on two wheels. The bikes have both literally and figuratively taken us off the beaten path, and we've had a lot of fun.

It all started when we bought new bikes for ourselves in May. It was something we had been talking about for a couple years, but just never got around to doing. We live in a very bike-friendly place, complete with bike lanes on many of the main streets, so it was such an easy thing to break into.
We received a retro hand-me-down Burley from some friends that has been sitting in the basement awaiting some action. And action it has gotten -- I'd love to know how many miles we've logged on that thing. The girls love riding in it, and thankfully, L doesn't mind pulling it. The two of them combined are close to 80 lbs., so it would be a struggle for me to pull them, especially uphill. L must be freakishly strong, because we've had several steep inclines that I'm barely dragging my own butt, and I look over at L and he's cruising right on up with an extra 80 lbs. behind him!
The evening bike ride to a park or activity has become one of our favorite pasttimes. Eat dinner, do the dishes, load everyone up, and hit the road. One evening, we went to the neighborhood ice cream place, and an older couple were oohing and ahhing over the girls in the Burley. The man said, "It's so nice to see something that a man HAS to do [pulling the Burley] -- there aren't many of those things left." I couldn't decide whether to laugh or resent him. I did a little of both.

During our time at the beach, we did several rides on a Rails to Trails bike path. Hello, stimulus money? That would be the perfect project in a slow economy: clean up nasty old unused railroad tracks and give us more places to move our ever-increasing girth (for free!). Many states have Rails to Trails, and you often end up seeing things you can't or won't see from the road.

I don't know if we'll be able to use the Burley for both kids next year. Jellybean crowds Peanut quite a bit, and her legs may be too long next year. *sniff* Just like everything else with little kids, I'll enjoy it while I can.

Shade, sand and no surf

For some ironic reason, the main attraction in our backyard since we returned from the beach is the sand box. Nevermind that we were surrounded by one of the world's biggest sandboxes the entire time we were there -- and spent more than a few hours trying to vanquish said sand from our shoes, clothes and house. Sand, sand, sand for our whole vacation. Now we are home, and both girls have passed hour after hour sitting in our sand box playing with the exact same toys they played with at the beach, only with about one-billionth of the amount of sand.

They have also made a new discovery, which is much more understandably fun from my point of view. Peanut discovered what the girls are now calling "the tent" in our backyard bushes during a game of hide-and-seek. Leave it to clever Peanut to locate a parent-free private play place. It is the perfect little alcove, and the girls retreat there regularly (when not engrossed in the sand, of course) to sing, pretend and just generally hide out. You may be able to tell from the faked smiles that they were less-than-pleased to have me near "the tent," let alone photographing them in it.

Now I know what people mean when they say that fun is only as far away as your own backyard. What were we thinking going all the way to the beach?

Back to life, back to reality

We have returned and settled back in from our fabulous summer vacation “up north” (as they say in Michigan) on the Lake Michigan shore.

If you’ve never vacationed on the Michigan side of Lake Michigan, you should. As a non-native, I can say without bias that it is one of the prettiest places in the U.S. The lake seems as big as the ocean, just as blue, but without the salt.

If the beauty isn’t enough to convince you, maybe a philanthropic approach can. I can say this without bias as well: Michigan needs money desperately. Tourism is the third-largest industry in the state (who knew, right?), and as with many things in this recession, it is taking a bit of a hit.

That said, our vacation was really all about us. We brought in quite a few out-of-staters in the form of friends and family – doing our small part to increase the tourism base – and we had a great time. We went to one of the same places we ventured last year, and we hope to go back next year.

Jellybean and Peanut are becoming beach kids, which I think is so cool. Yet another feather in their caps as little Michiganders.