Mommin' It Up!

May 29, 2013May 29, 2013

Vacation-Planning time!

I guess I could call this post What I did on my summer vacation (last year). I’m writing it now because I’m not quite sure what we should do this year! Joshua’s last day of school is Friday, Sophie’s already out, and vacation time fast approacheth. Every year, we pretty much go on vacation to the same place: my parents’ house in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. Because it’s free, my mom cooks, and they offer Grandma & Grandpa child care! Plus, there’s tons to do around there, and it’s gorgeous. Pictured above is Natural Bridge, which is…a natural bridge. (Which was once owned by Thomas Jefferson!) An amazing stone bridge that just naturally occurred. And, is actually used as a real bridge as well. I’ve been there twice as an adult, and once or twice as a child, and it never fails to absolutely bowl me over. My kids loved it, too. It’s somewhere you REALLY need to see in your lifetime. Put it on your bucket list!

Untitled — There’s quite a lot to see at Natural Bridge and a nice long trail to follow. My kids were OBSESSED with the map.

There’s also a creek that runs right alongside the trail at Natural Bridge, and the trail leads to a waterfall. When we were almost to the falls, we saw an honest-to-goodness REAL live baby otter! It was sooo awesome! We were seriously giddy over it. We love watching the otters at our local children’s museum, and to see a real one was just amazing!

There are also a few other attractions at Natural Bridge. The folks at the Lexington & Rockbridge County Visitors Center gave me two free tickets because I am a super famous blogger (seriously, tweet about where you are going on vacation and see what happens!), and we paid for the kids’ admission. We loved the butterfly house they have there, and they also have a fun toy museum, which was really more fun for Bobby and I than for the kids because it had all sorts of toys we had when we were young. (I wouldn’t pay for the toy museum on its own, but as part of the package deal it was cool.) There are also some caverns nearby you can take a tour in, and it’s pretty fantastic. It’s the second time I’ve taken the tour through there, and the first time was pre-claustrophobia so I did enjoy it more the first time. But it was still neat and I am glad we took the kids! They really liked it a lot. I couldn’t get any decent photos inside the caverns with my phone camera, but here is an awesome one another visitor took on Flickr.

Finally, we had one more local adventure in Rockbridge County. The Virginia Safari Park!! This is a park where you drive through and buy buckets of food and wild, exotic animals come up to you car window and eat from your bucket or hand. WHAT?? I was skeptical, nervous, and OK – scared. But we ended up LOVING it! Adults and kids alike – we thought it was the coolest thing we’d ever done!

The camels totally stole our feed buckets. But it was still REALLY cool. Also, one of the camels ate the ENTIRE bucket. Like, the food inside and then the actual BUCKET! Dag, yo!

So, that’s the fun we had on our vacation LAST year. But unlike Emily, I don’t enjoy planning vacations, so I am not sure what side adventures we will take on our mountain vacation THIS year. But I know whatever we do, it will be fun! How could you not have fun with this crew?

Where are YOU vacationing with the family this summer? I could use some ideas!

July 31, 2012

Taking the Scenic Route

See that gorgeousness pictured above? It’s the Buena Vista Overlook, a little stop on the side of the Blue Ridge Parkway, very near my parent’s house in Virginia. If you take the nearest highway to go through the Blue Ridge Mountains, you’ll blow right by it. You’ll miss this and so much more. But if you exit the highway, and take the gorgeous parkway instead, you’ll see beautiful overlooks and majestic views like this mile after mile. There are safe places to stop, take photos, and picnic. One of our favorite picnic spots off the Blue Ridge parkway is Otter Creek, where my kids look forward to playing and picnicking every summer:

Also along this “Scenic Route” (one of my mom’s favorite expressions) is a true wonder, an amazing rock formation known as “Indian Rocks” . You’ll find it at the “Indian Gap” stop off the parkway. This giant formation is truly beyond description, and also very hard to capture in a photo. We go see it every year because sometimes you find yourself questioning if it’s really REAL or not, and you have to be reminded with a return visit.

Before you get up the mountain to the Blue Ridge Parkway, if you exit the highway even earlier, you will come about the picturesque historical town of Lexington, Virginia, home of the Virginia Military Institute, Washington & Lee University, and the Stonewall Jackson House. It’s a lot of fun to walk around and shop in Lexington. But one of our favorite places in the city is a little further out – an amazing park called Boxerwood that has a separate children’s park. Our kids beg to go back every year, and we’ve been a couple of times with Emily’s kids, too.

The point is, there is much to be seen in our country on a road trip. And if you’re like me, those are the only kinds of trips you take as a family. So, once in awhile instead of blowing by America at 70 MPH, it’s nice to exit the highway and experience a slice of nature off the beaten path! To this end, Toyota and the National Audobon Society have started an “Exit the Highway” initiative aimed at helping us discover “those hidden natural gems just beyond the turnpike”.

Visit the Exit the Highway website and you can take a pledge to Exit the Highway, take the scenic route by downloading one of dozens of itineraries available to help you find some great places to explore, or even upload photos of your Exit the Highway adventures to their site, or via Twitter and Instagram using the #exitthehighway hashtag!

And for pledging to exit the highway and uploading photos, you can multiple entries to win a Prius V from Toyota! Now that’s something I’d like to take the scenic route in! Visit the Exit the Highway website to learn more.

What are some of your favorite stops when you are taking the scenic route?

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Disclosure: I was selected for participation in the TWIN community through a program with Clever Girls Collective. I did not receive any compensation for writing this post, or payment in exchange for participating. The opinions expressed herein are mine, and do not reflect the views of Toyota.

July 27, 2012July 27, 2012

Up Hill Both Ways in the Snow

How many of you remember this?

Back in my day, that’s all we had for entertainment when we were in the car! No batteries, no screens, nothing! And also no peace and quiet for the adults.

That last part we’re not supposed to admit, right? Taking car trips should be full of family bonding, singing “100 bottles of milk on the wall” and sharing our inner-most secrets. Just like the Brady Bunch.

However, just as most of us don’t have astroturf lawns, most of us don’t have such picturesque travel, either. At least, we don’t! In fact, I think my kids might fight in the car more than anywhere else. The other day I told Andy I was going to make us rich by inventing an impenetrable screen to go between two car seats. Doesn’t that sound like a great idea?

Until I do that, though, I am not ashamed to admit that I love having a DVD player in our van. As you may remember, we just entered the realm of minivan driving a few months ago when we bought our Toyota Sienna – and we are loving it. Don’t worry, we haven’t completely given up on the idea of communicating with each other in the car – like I said, we have plenty of time for our kids to fight – but when we’re on a trip for an hour or more, we happily put in a movie.

Of course, even though our van is a 2011 model, I was just perusing the Toyota website and now I am totes jealous of the brand new Siennas. Check this out:

From Toyota.com:
This dual headrest Rear Seat Entertainment System lets your rear passengers watch movies, play video games and even listen to music… Each monitor can operate independently to allow for separate video or video game use and includes a pair of infrared wireless headphones with two user selectable channels (A and B) that offer superior stereo sound quality. Both monitors also feature RCA A/V jacks for connecting external inputs such as video game systems or digital cameras.

Did you catch that? Each screen operates independently. Each kid gets to watch their own movie. Can you imagine? I die.

These tricked-out vans are not just fun and games for the children – they also indulge the techie adult. I hadn’t seen this before, but Toyota’s now have entune.

Entune is a collection of popular mobile applications and data services that are now accessible right from inside your Toyota. Now you can stay connected, no matter where you are.

Apps for your car. That is quite possibly the coolest thing I have ever seen.

Now, Andy and I have recently purchased two new (to us) vehicles – and given our track record, that means the next one we buy will be in 2022 (is it just me, or does that look like a fake date? I did that right, didn’t I? 2012 + 10 = 2022? Anyway.) So we will need to live vicariously through others to experience this. But I would LOVE to check it out.

So I have two questions for you – have any of you seen entune in person? Generally, what are your family’s rules on in-car entertainment?

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