rounding up the details

I don't travel much for work, but each year I help chaperone a journalism trip to New York. Of course it takes me out of four days of school, which means it isn't easy to arrange childcare because Randy works nights. Last year his parents kindly came up to help. This year my mom came to watch the boys.

It is always so hard to get excited about the trip because of all the details. People keep asking if I am excited, and I am, deep down, but until we have all the kids safely strapped into their seats, I don't think about it. With sub plans, copies, rosters, seating charts, and then daily details to fill in for the household stuff, I just don't have the time, or take the time to think about it. This year we have conferences the night before we leave, so considering if the trip will be fun or not isn't at the top of my list.

I look forward to learning at the conference and looking for the perfect gift for each of the boys back home. I love the energy of New York, and am excited to check out another new area. So yes, I am excited, but man, getting all the details lined up before I go takes up all the brainwave power I have.

Winter Break

When I close my eyes, I'm somewhere warm.  There are palm fronds and hibiscus blooms and pink drinks with umbrellas peeking over the top.

But, really, I'm here.

It's lovely in its own way, but warm?  Most decidedly, it is not warm!

In lieu of plane fares and passports and faraway tropical destinations, we decided to find warmth a little closer to home.

Great Wolf Lodge has several locations, including Wisconsin Dells, Traverse City, MI, Sandusky, OH and Mason, OH, and Kansas City, KS.  If you're not close to one of those, I'm sure a Google search can help uncover a waterpark closer to home.  If you're in need of a winter break, I recommend it for a quick getaway.

It's not paradise, but for a few hours it can sure come close.

Peace.

In my imagination, there is a lovely, wintery, holiday-themed photo right....



HERE.



In reality, the camera, where the aforementioned holiday photo is stored, is in our car, three floors down from our roadside hotel for the night. I am in my nightie, watching my teenager fall asleep and listening to the last wimpers of protest come from my toddler as she tries to settle into her portable crib in another new place. Our family has been on the road for three days now, logging 1100 miles so far on our trek from Michigan to my hometown in Florida. We have a little over 200 more miles to go today.

It's a photo of the lovely gingerbread men we made during the weekend, the ones we brought on the road with us and have been munching on along the way.

While trying to salvage the situation, I even tried to fudge it, searching for some appropriate photo in my library already. 8000 photos, not a one fits the bill. Fudge.

I suppose it is all a reminder to me that the events of our daily lives are rarely picture-picture, but they are always worth being present for.

Happy Holidays to All. May goodness and kindness be yours, and may you pass it on to every soul you meet during this season.

To be part of two worlds

On July 4th this year, our family was in Brazil. Our baby daughter's first trip to her other home country. July 4th was always a big holiday for my family growing up. So we were torn. How do we celebrate the biggest national holiday of the year when we are in another country, one that our family is equally connected to?

The Brazilian side of our family solved the solution by throwing a July 4th barbecue that could not be beat. Everyone worn red, white, and blue, played American music and danced, and we even put up fireworks in the evening.

And lest you think this was merely a kind gesture, Brazil lost their quarter-final game in the World Cup just two days before. Though the wound from that loss was still raw, our family jumped in head-first to celebrate our nuclear family's heritage. What they did was nothing short of sacrificial. It made us realize that our daughter can grow up and be part of two completely different worlds, just as long as she has a supportive family on both sides of the equator.

Our family's accidental Chicago outing

Well, the summer is finally upon us. Our family's summer will mostly be taken up by a trip to Brazil, visiting my husband's family. Our baby is 10-months-old now and hasn't been baptized. Oh, who am I kidding, forget sacraments -- she hasn't even met her grandmother or her aunts and uncle and cousins on her Dad's side yet! So our venture into summer will quickly transition into the last preparations for our trip.

If you've ever traveled abroad, especially with kids, you know that it's a little different from traveling to Disney World. Just for a minor to get a US passport (both of my girls need one), you have to have both parents present when you apply for the thing. When you add another country into the mix, there's even more work. In our family, with respect to Brazil and the US, no two people have the same residency status in the two countries. This means that the documents involved to get from here to there and back can get quite overwhelming. The only thing that makes it more complicated is that the closest Brazilian consulate to us is in Chicago. More than 250 miles away.

We've visited the Consulate General three times this past year. The last visit was this past weekend. It was a quick in and out to pick up the baby's Brazilian passport. That was a relief after the last visit which took over 3 hours.

So there we were, 11:45a, at the NBC Tower on Michigan Avenue, just next to the Michigan Avenue Bridge over the Chicago River. The possibilities were endless.

Stop and take a token picture in front of the Wrigley Building.


Then it was time for lunch at Ed Debevic's on Wells Street. Good, greasy diner food, rock music, lots of silly antics, and a "world's smallest sundae" for dessert. My oldest daughter took the complimentary sundae cup with us as a souvenir.

Then we took a quick stroll back to Michigan Avenue for window shopping up the Magnificent Mile. (Helped us work off the "food coma" that we were risking after all those burgers and ice cream sodas!) Niketown (to check out the World Cup wear for each country's team), the Apple Store (to check out the new iPad), Tiffany's (to check out the bling), and Border's (to rest and catch our breath).

We finally made it to Water Tower Place and to the new location of American Girl Place, where Lord & Taylor used to be. My oldest daughter Grace introduced the baby to all that is American Girl and then tried to convince us that the baby loved the Josefina doll most of all. I think we'll wait a few more years before entering into that roller coaster ride of consumerism again!

Time was running out and we were realizing we would need to move on or face the worst of Friday rush hour out of the city. The car was parked six blocks south back at Northbridge, so we had time for one last stop before ending our day out. OK, then, Garrett Popcorn it was. After a few minutes of contemplation, we decided on a medium bag of caramel crisp popcorn and a bottle of cold water.

All said and done, the whole day cost us about $100, including 6+ hours of parking.

That was the best trip to the Office of the Consulate General I ever made.

Blankie

Here's my advice on how to get your kids to do all of the following:

• Sleep through the night by the time they are four months old
• Stay in their beds at bedtime and not cry once they are in a toddler bed
• Not be afraid of the dark so that they won't need a night light and will sleep better
• Happily do all of their bedtime rituals without any trouble (including teeth brushing)
• Understand that nightmares are not real and be able to go back to sleep within 15 minutes of waking up
• Wake up in the morning when you want them to, not too early and not too late
• Come to the breakfast table refreshed and cheerful after their healthy night of rest
• Continue these habits well into the teens years and beyond, achieving good health, good grades, prosperity, and inner peace.

My Advice: Eat your young.

Seriously, did you really think I was going to venture into the minefield of giving advice about bedtime rituals and how to get kids to do it better? Are you nuts? After my confession in yesterday's post? No way! I have no advice to give! Everyone I know does this better than I do.

That being said, I will give one piece of advice that I happened upon by accident. The situation arose gradually without me even realizing it was happening. Now that I look back on how I handled the whole thing, I don't think I made any mistakes. It may be the sole thing in my career as a parent that I can say that about. The issue? Blankie.

Blankie made an entrance into my daughter's life on her first birthday. I was flat broke and I wanted to give her something that she would especially like. With some money I had earned from making display pillows for the local Cloth World, I went back to the store and bought some inexpensive flannel and peach-colored, polyester satin. From those two pieces I crafted a big, soft, baby blanket.

Her first name was Kiki, which my daughter dubbed her when she was about 2. And yes, Kiki was gendered. She was a she. Many times during the day I would hear, "mama, where kiki? where her?" or "she soft" or "I want her." It never occurred to me to question this. Sure, she was an only child and freaked out if the blankie wasn't to be found, but that's what all kids did, right?

Kiki went to childcare every single day. On the days I got to drop in on my daughter during naptime, there she would be snuggled up on her mat with the blankie wrapped all around her and always with an edge in her hands, held close to her face. I would lie next to her for a few minutes and listen to her gentle, sleeping breathing.

By the time my daughter was five, the blanket didn't have a name anymore per se, she was just "my blankie." And she became inanimate - "it." Her blankie went everywhere with her, though. Sure, it was hidden away where others couldn't see it. In the front pocket of her backpack to kindergarten, in the pillow case if she went somewhere for a sleepover. On trips, ALWAYS in her carry-on and NEVER in checked baggage. I think around second grade she stopped taking it to school and to birthday parties. By middle school it was a sleeptime-only thing. Now that she's 16 years old, she never goes a night without it.

It went with her when her father and I divorced. She brought it with her every time she spent time with him, every time she spent the night at his house. When she came home, it got washed right away to get the secondhand smoke and dog dander out. And it had to be ready for her to go to bed at our house.

Throughout all this, I accepted that this was all just fine. People in our extended family tease her, she doesn't care. Her friends don't dare question it. She is fine with saying she sleeps with a blanket and doesn't put up with any guff from anyone who tries to bug her about it.

When she is away from the house, sometimes I nap in her bed and snuggle with her blankie myself. It smells like her. She even did something the other day that I never thought she would. She was playing with my baby daughter, her little sister. She laid her blankie and her sister on the bed and wrapped the baby up in the blankie. She told her, 'you need to go to sleep!' and proceeded to rock her in her arms.

I've heard stories about parents being concerned about loveys, that their child was getting too attached to an inanimate object, maybe some deep-seeded fear of Freudian ills. Or maybe just that their child was immature. By some miracle, I've escaped those fears and worries. In a way, I feel comforted that she is attached to her blankie. It's something I made for her while she was a baby and something I wrapped her in. As a grown girl, she still wants to be wrapped up in it. Through the tween and teen years, there are precious few ways a mother can wrap her daughter up and hold her close to her. I'm glad that this extension of my physical affection for her is still part of her daily routine.

Gift From The Sea

More than 50 years ago, in 1955, the wife of Charles Lindbergh (yes, the one who flew across the Atlantic) took a few weeks away from her family (yes, the one that had lost a baby to a tragic kidnapping 20 years earlier) and traveled to Captiva Island on the Gulf Coast of Florida. By herself. There, she contemplated her identity, her place in the world, and her role as a woman in her family. More than 50 years later, the words she penned in eight short essays still ring true when I read them today. Anne Morrow Lindbergh's Gift from the Sea has refreshed me during these past dreary weeks, deep in winter's grips. Her images of the sunny seashore account for some of this, but it is her treatment of woman's identity that grabs and holds my attention so that I can read the whole book in one sitting.

The Gulf Coast is filled, dare I say littered, with seashells. As Anne Morrow LIndbergh collects the shells that were no doubt plentiful all around her, she relates each of them to an essential part of her psyche. Solitude, simplicity, evolution. She considers her role as a women in a nuclear family, as wife and mother, while children are young and after they have left her alone. What she consistently comes back to is that woman should relish in her own self, rejuvenate herself daily, annually, and through each season of life. Remind herself that she is an individual, and yet eternally connected to her family and her world that is always around her.

I've been to a few of those old beachside bungalows. They usually have only two or three electrical sockets in the whole structure, simply wooden furniture, maybe an old television. The sink in the kitchenette is porcelain and stained, the floor is linoleum and covered with woven polyester place rugs, and the shelves are lined with ancient bleached shells and coral. As Lindbergh writes of her seashells on her desk and ruminates what significance they hold, I can't help but imagine what calm and peace she must have felt there on the Island, sitting in her quiet cabin listening to the sea, separated from all those who knew her intimately. The ability to relax and reflect must have enabled her to find pervasive truths of her life that ring so true in my own. I must not be the only woman ever to have responded this way as a result of reading the short book; it's now being published in its 50th anniversary edition.

What I find the most remarkable about the essays is their timeless quality. Lindbergh made her trek to the sea and wrote these words before the Women's Liberation Movement of the 1960s, yet the identity issues that she grapples with still ring true with me today. Who am I if I don't take the time to be still and listen to myself? What does it mean for me to be in a relationship with my spouse and with each of my children? How much am I adversely affected by the clutter of unnecessary things and ideas around me? She certainly wasn't the first one to discuss these ideas, nor the last. But she succinctly discusses each one for just long enough to get the gears in my minds turning and then curtly stops in order to let my mind continue thinking.

Maybe I'll reread the book again next winter when I need to feel warm and refreshed again.

At the seaside

Choctawhatchee Bay, Destin, FL

Cocoa Beach, FL

Lighthouse Point, FL

Lessons learned by the beachside

When my oldest daughter was 10 years old, she and I and my soon-to-be-and-now husband went on our first trip together. The three of us took a road trip south to Tybee Island, Georgia, a little beach town about 20 miles east of Savannah. One of my friends was getting married on the beach; I was the maid of honor. My daughter was the only child on the very short guest list of 25 or so.

There was a lot for me to contemplate in anticipation of that trip.

By the time we had arrived, settled into our hotel and met up with the bride and groom at their rented condo, I started grappling with how to get my daughter to behave like all these childless adults would expect a child to behave in such a setting: she would need to be out of sight and out of mind. Seen and not heard. Putting it simply, she would have to be perfect.

The bride had no such illusions in her mind. My friend welcomed her into the bridal suite of the rented condo, first showing her the luxurious bathroom and then the television with satellite access. My daughter contentedly sat down and watched satellite television to her heart's content. Sponge Bob and That's So Raven and so many other shows that I had never heard broadcast because I didn't have a television, much less satellite access.

I was slightly horrified. I thought it was somewhat impolite for my daughter to be taking over the suite of the bride and groom, not to mention that she was watching shows that I found to be annoying at best.

The next day was the wedding, all of us on the shore at nine in the morning. By ten, we were all back indoors eating brunch. My daughter decided she would like to go back to the beach. She wanted to go play with the bride's standard poodle. On the beach. My reluctance took a physical form as I started feeling panicked at her doing this by herself. But once again my friend stepped in. The bride not only gave my daughter permission to go to the beach with the dog, she encouraged her to run and wear the dog out. After my daughter left happily, my friend assured me that nothing would go wrong. The dog was well trained and would look after her. Besides, my daughter had a new cell phone, right? And we could watch her from the condo balcony.

Sure enough, nothing went wrong. I started to relax. I started to realize that maybe my daughter could handle this freedom and it would do us all good.

By the last morning we were there, my daughter asked if she could go out and play with the cats at the hotel. It made sense to let her go. We had to finish packing and also put together some breakfast. We would spend the rest of the day in the car. Best to let her get her energy out now, and best to start the day without a 'no.' My husband encouraged me to let her go since she had been so happy with the freedom we had granted her earlier in the weekend. So she left the room happily, promising not to go farther than we had told her to.

I'm naturally an overprotective mother, I know I am. I'm the kind of person who would rather be safe than sorry. But in my role as a mother, I have learned that there's a fine line between being protective and being smothering. That trip to the beach was my first glimpse of my daughter doing things independently, out of my reach, and trusting that she would be alright. I fear the worst could happen to my children, but the worst has never happened. It has never even come close to happening. I learned to let go of my daughter during that trip and to trust her. I think she had much more fun and enjoyed the beach much more freely because of it.

Baked Apples, done the easy way

If you'll recall from my first Foodie Friday post here at Midwest Parents, I am not a great cook. What I cook well must be simple and fast and please the masses. For this installment, I ask you to imagine, if for only a moment, the following scenario:

You find yourself living in post-Soviet-era Russia, yea, Siberia, in a small flat with barely-a-kitchen(ette). Your barely-12-month-old is along for the ride while you are teaching English a few days a week. In the kitchen(ette), where you cook almost all the meals for yourself and said baby, you have a non-stick frying pan, a sauce pan and a few utensils to cook with. It's winter and, it is a bit of an understatement to say, the fruits and vegetables available at market are scarce. Sure, you've brought along packets of Hi-C mix from the United States so that the baby can at least get a regular dose of vitamin C, that is, once you boil the water to remove any bacteria and you grind the coarse sugar you can afford at market into powder that will dissolve and you make the drink mix and let it cool down and then you give it to the baby. But a baby can't live on Hi-C alone. She needs more vitamins. But the only fruits that are easy to find are apples, bananas, and lemons.

I'm not making this up. The year was 1995, the baby is now almost 16 years old, and me? Me? I was crazy for ever taking on such a challenge. But nonetheless, I did it, and there I was in Siberia in the winter with a baby. There are only so many days in a row that the baby can eat bananas and apple slices before it gets a little old. So I started getting creative. (Necessity is the mother of invention, afterall.) One afternoon I came up with "baked" apples.

I put "baked" in quotation marks because these are not the kind of apples that are carefully cored and then peeled just around the edge and filled with sugar and cinnamon and baked in the oven. No, these "baked" apples are made in a frying pan in 5 minutes. Great for a crazy and adventuresome new mom in Siberia...and great for a more reserved mom 15 years later in the midwest.

You'll need:
1 honey crisp apple
1 tablespoon salted butter
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
(+ sour cream or vanilla ice cream to complement the apples when served)

Let's start with the apples. Since we're in the midwest where our varieties are aplenty (unlike Siberia), indulge yourself in some Honey Crisps.


I just found out about honey crisp apples this fall. Turns out that they are hands down the best apples for baking that there are out there. They retain their texture well, their flavor is good and tart, and their color holds even after being heated.

One apple will be enough for 2-3 people. Slice it into quarters and take out the core. Then slice each quarter into thin slices, giving you 20 or so total slices to cook.

I had a cutting board in Siberia too. This one looks much like the one I had there. Um, eep.
No matter, it works well.

Now, get a non-stick skillet and heat it over medium heat. Add butter to skillet and melt it. Once it is melted, spread the butter throughout the surface of the skillet. Add the apples right away and spread evenly on the skillet surface. Add 2 tablespoons of sugar, sprinkled generously over the apple slices. Then sprinkle 1 teaspoon cinnamon over the sugar-covered apple slices.


Let this cook over the heat for about 3-4 minutes. Since the apple slices are thin, they will cook quickly. Don't stir the apples at all until they get a chance to cook.

Some of the sugar will gradually slip off the apples and mix with the butter in the skillet. When you notice it start bubbling and creating a syrup, stir the entire apple mixture, trying to flip each slice over.


Cook the apples for only one minute longer. Remove from the skillet immediately and put into a covered dish to keep warm until serving.


Once you are ready to dole out the apples, garnish the fruit with a dollop of sour cream. The homemade sour cream in Siberia, smetana, was incredible, as creamy as it was biting. It was the perfect complement to any sweet fruit. Since we don't have smetana in the United States, if you want to try the apples as a smooth desert, try serving them with vanilla ice cream instead (yum!).


While in Siberia, the baby loved these apples, and so did her mom ;-) Now I have a new baby. My guess is that once she starts solid food, she will like them just as much as her older sister did. Also, not only is the taste of the apples kid-approved, the recipe is as easy as it gets. Just so I can convince you of how easy this recipe really is, when I prepared and cooked them for this post (as well as photographed them), the baby was wrapped around me in her baby sling. That's an instant winner for me.

I hope you enjoy!

It's the most horrible time of the year

Am I the only one who finds the first week back after New Year's the bleakest of them all? The festivities are over, we're all trudging back to the normal routine, the winter weather is suddenly no longer charming, and we're all realizing that the egg nog and candies have indeed had their effect on our waistlines. Right now my den has become "De-Holiday-ication Central," complete with a 7" desiccated Douglas Fir and more bags of discounted holiday paraphernalia than I care to admit to. And through it all, I just keep nibbling on the leftover gingerbread men and red, green and silver chocolate kisses.

The day before we left for Christmas weekend, December 23rd, I had my prescription for migraine medicine filled at our local pharmacy. I just picked it up yesterday. They had messed it up, billing it incorrectly and giving the incorrect amount of pills. It took 2 hours this morning to sort it out.

The weather outside is frightful, no? We don't even have it that bad compared to the rest of the region; we're in the 20s with flurries. My recollection is that this same time last year we were having days in which the temperature stayed sub-zero around the clock. Still, the clouds won't break and it's making things a bit dreary.

Just yesterday, my oldest daughter, a high school sophomore, brought me a note from her orchestra conductor. The note came home two weeks ago, of course, but I was just getting it on January 3rd. The message? She needs to perform her solo piece with accompaniment at a school recital in a week. There are two catches: she's not ready to perform it...and I'm her accompanist. I hadn't even looked at the music until I saw the note. Eep.

The laundry is piled up in the basement, the kitchen is a mess, the baby is turning 5 months old this week and I STILL have not sent out birth announcements. I've been trying to hang window treatments in the den and in the nursery for months to no avail and we're still trying to solve the problem of sweating windows throughout the house (maybe it's an unknown setting on the humidifier we had installed in March?).

My birthday is coming up in 3 weeks and I'm feeling old. And fat. And tired.

And yet...

In each of these annoyances, isn't there a blessing?

I have a home, one I have wanted for years. The first home my husband and I have ever shared, even though we were married for three years before having one home we called "ours." More than that, it is more than I could have ever dreamed I would have. Plenty of space, lots of comfy corners, and beautiful wildlife that visit every day.

We have a driveway that needs to be cleared if we want to drive out of the house. But we have a car and a driveway and places to go in the car.

We have clothing to put on our backs to keep us warm. More than we need, in fact. We should donate some of our less-used coats and sweaters to a charity. Especially at this cold time of year.

I have health insurance with prescription coverage. And I can afford the co-pay. Yes, I could bitch all day about how broken the system is when it takes so long to get the medicine I need. But five years ago, I was suffering without the medicine, dealing with migraine pain with overdoses of OTC pain medicines because I didn't have sufficient insurance coverage. I'm definitely better off than I was five years ago.

About a year ago, I got a piano for free through our community's freecycle. Because of this, I have been able to enjoy making music in my more dismal moments. Sure, I've got to practice my head off in order to perform with my daughter in a week, but it's a simple pleasure that doesn't present itself often. It's a pleasure I wouldn't have at all if someone else hadn't given their piano to me.

We had a wonderful gift-giving season, full of family time and plentiful provisions. Food was flowing, and the smiles were all around. The gifts were spot-on and I went out today donning all new clothing. Clothing that fit around my broad belly. My broad belly that really isn't that broad, but I'd like to believe that I should have my 25-year-old body back despite my lack of discipline.

There, now. I think I've gotten my head screwed back on straight-like. A new year full of blessings.

Christmastime in the Windy City

For  a peek at other fun photos, visit 5 Minutes for Mom or Wordless Wednesday .

Inexpensive Family Fun

One of the things I quickly learned after relocating to the Midwest is that people who live here have an affinity for the state of Florida. I’ve lived on both coasts, north and south, and have never known so many who make an annual pilgrimage to our orange juice capital.

After giving this some thought, I’ve decided it’s a combination of factors that create this phenomenon: Midwesterners tend to be down-to-earth (St. Barts where?) and frugal (flights cost how much?). Add to these traits the long winters we endlessly endure, and suddenly appeal of driving to Florida becomes clear.

However, even if we drive, we still have to pay for gas, hotels, food, and probably some dreadful theme park. And this is a tough fiscal year—most of us are trying to keep more money in our pockets and give less of it to Shell stations and Holiday Inns.

So if we’re not jaunting off on a big holiday, how can we find fun closer to home? For starters, you can check out the blog of one of our other writers, minnemom. Her blog has tons of tips and ideas for Travel with Children. Because they live in Minnesota, many of her day trips aren’t accessible to those of us in other Midwestern states. But get creative! The ideas are good—put them to use in your own town. If she does an article on taking her kids to a puppet show, for example, and you think, “Hey, I wish we had that here,” do a little research. Maybe you do.

Even if you don’t, there are still plenty of creative, inexpensive ways to have fun with your family. We tend to enjoy three types: inside fun, outside fun, and fun-at-home.

Inside fun away from home

· Peruse books and music and Barnes & Noble. Spring for treats at the end, or make some when you get home.

· Walk in the warmth of an indoor horticulture garden. Pretend you’re far, far away among the palms and coconuts.

· Visit an aquarium. Look for buy one/get one entrance tickets before you go.

· Museums often run weekly specials. Find out which ones offer a discount on certain days or nights & visit them then.

· Play Mario Andretti at an indoor race track. The kids will easily beat you, so don’t take it personally.

Fun-at-home

· Game Night. The trick here is to change the scenery. Make popcorn, serve cream soda, light the fire—do a few things you usually don’t, to make the night feel special. A few of our favorites: Yahtzee, Rummikub, Life, Blokus, Clue, Monopoly. (Remember, we're currently a Wii-free family.) Sometimes we have to pair our youngest up with one of us for a “team,” but he gets to make the decisions.

· Darts. I have long been fearful of sharp, pointed objects flying around our home. But my younger brother has no such fear. For Christmas, he bought the boys a fancy dart board, complete with aforementioned sharp objects. And guess what? They love it! We love it! Everyone can do it. Sometimes younger brothers are right, I guess.

· Homemade Pictionary and Charades. Not my fave, but the kids love it. Enough said.

· Cooking night: Make homemade pizza together, including the dough. Our kids absolutely love this and can’t wait for these nights. Sometimes we make cookies, too. We're crazy like that.

· Movie night: Every now and then we rent two—one for us to watch with the kids, and one for us to watch after they’re in bed. My husband is a much bigger movie-buff than I am, so he loves these nights.

Outdoor Fun

· Tubing. Look for specials or this won’t be inexpensive. Sometimes the Entertainment book or local magazines have a buy 1 get 1 free for this kind of place. It’s worth looking around.

· Sledding. To make this an adventure, get out of your backyard. We drove 35 minutes, which seemed like an eternity to me, to try out a hill at a state park. It was huge! The kids absolutely loved it & the fact that it was new to us made it an adventure. Whip up a batch of hot cocoa when you get home and you’ve had a lot of fun for a few dollars in gas.

· Ice-skating. Each winter, our downtown creates an outdoor rink at one of the parks. If we bring our own skates, it’s free; or, we can rent them for $2 a pair. Totally fun. Check for something like this in your area. Sometimes the indoor rinks have special rates, too. Ask!

· Winter hike. Hit a nature trail at a park you don’t typically visit. Take time to search for tracks, berries, and other signs of winter life. Watch out for bears!

· Cookout. This sounds crazy, right? We used to live in Wisconsin, and the winters were nearly unbearable, especially for a girl who spent her high school years in North Carolina. But every December, we headed out to the Nicolet National Forest with a group of about 15-20 friends. Somebody brought a grill, we brought burgers and hot dogs, fruit salad, pasta salad, warm beverages in thermoses, and all sorts of games: footballs, Frisbees, etc. The kids loved it and, truly, the parents did too. It’s a bit out of the ordinary, but isn’t that just the right ingredient for creating lasting family memories?

Summer will come again, thank goodness. In the meantime, enjoy creating winter memories with your family!

photo credits: Jenah Crump, LinksmanJD

There's No Place Like Home?

Because my husband is a real-life farmer, his "busy season" at work lasts from March through November. This makes summer-vacation planning quite difficult. IF it rains a lot and IF he's caught up on things and IF there's nothing on the calendar, he MIGHT consider a last-minute weekend trip somewhere, but actually planning a good-old two-week family vacation is out of the question.

I don't give up easily, however. My sister moved to Ohio three years ago, and with a new baby in her house this spring, we were eager to go visit. Thus, we decided to take our "summer" vacation over Christmas break.

Ohio was our original destination, but once we looked at the map, we realized how close Columbus is to a lot of things on the east coast. (And yes, I realize that "close" is a relative term. Another 8 hours on top of a 17-hour trip to a midwesterner is not such a big deal. 8 hours to someone who lives on the East Coast is much more daunting.)

We went to Columbus, and then continued on to Philadelphia to see all the things that normal families visit on summer vacations. We even went to New York to see the Statue of Liberty since it was "only" another 2 hours away. (Truth be told, though, in true rural-Minnesota-I-don't-like-crowds-or-traffic fashion, we parked on the New Jersey side rather than attempting to drive in New York City.)

We were gone for 17 days and covered 3725 miles, giving us the opportunity to see a lot of the country and meet a lot of new people.

Before we left, we'd hear comments like "My brother used to live in Pennsylvania, but it's just not the same as the Midwest, so he came back here." At the church we visited near Philadelphia, we were told that most of their members hail from the Midwest and return there the first chance they get.

So what is it that makes the Midwest so appealing to one who grew up there? Do people from other parts of the country say the same thing? "I just couldn't wait to move home to Texas," or "The Pacific Northwest is where my heart will always be." Is it just because home is where your heart is, or is there really something special about where we live, with our fields of corn and soybeans, our "Minnesota nice" and wide open spaces with "the Cities" not too far away, our good work ethic and family values and wide-open spaces?

I don't know. We found people all along our journey friendly and helpful, polite and considerate. We saw beautiful countrysides and pieces of history, six-lane highways and winding back roads, just like we have here.

Still, after enjoying the trip and seeing many new things, it was good to be home again.

What do you think? Is there really something special about the Midwest? Or do we just love it because it's what we know the best?


If you've ever wondered what it would be like to travel halfway across the country with a minivan full of kids in the middle of winter, my blog has all the details.

Perspective

Last summer (the one a year ago, not the one we just had), our family visited Sleeping Bear National Park for the first time. Having previously prided myself on being somewhat of a traveler, I was stunned to realize that this beauty, this absolute gem of a place, existed right in the middle of our country and I’d never even heard of it.



As we drove and hiked and admired the natural beauty all around us, my husband declared that we ought to return in the fall, when the leaves were turning. I wholeheartedly agreed.

But you know what happened, don’t you? Soccer and football and school projects and life. We didn’t get back to Sleeping Bear that fall, or this past summer, either.

But this weekend, we watched two soccer games then headed north. We stayed a night in our cottage, watched the boys play in the yard, enjoyed the peace, ate at our favorite pub, and roasted marshmallows by the fire.

And then, we got up really early and kept on driving until we reached the national park. As expected, the leaves were breathtaking. On Friday, before we left, I despaired of all the things I wouldn’t accomplish at home: sorting through the mail that somehow continues to accumulate, even though I am constantly weeding through it; finishing the laundry that multiplies every time I turn around; printing photos that ought to have been printed months ago. And, yet… As we drove, I was thankful to have heeded to my husband’s request, to be enjoying the indescribable beauty and the time together as a family.




We had a lovely day, despite the hours of driving, and to the boys’ eternal happiness, we were able to listen to most of the Packer’s game on the radio, and to reach home just before the end, to see them beat the Colts.

As we sat together at the table and recounted all of the adventures of the day, we talked about our favorite part. Excitedly, my second son declared, “Seeing the end of the Packer’s game!”

It's all perspective, right?