50 places to take your kids

My husband, who knows my great desire to get kids outside, showed me an article from Outside magazine, 50 great family adventures.   While I applaud their desire to get families out into nature, these over-the-top $20,000 “dream” vacations, are way out of reach for the average American family.  So, Jack and I got together and came up with our own 50 Great Family Adventures not far from our own back yard.  Most can be done in a day or a weekend.  All are located here in the Upper Midwest, which was (in my opinion) sorely underrepresented in the article.  True, we don’t have mountains or an ocean coast line, but there are still plenty of learning opportunities and places to make lasting memories here.

We will be posting our suggestions on Jack’s blog site.  Which I recently revived.  Follow the link.

Jack’s Penguin Slide

impossible photo request

The Sierra Club asked for a photo of my favorite public land.  Well, not just me personally,but everybody.  And I thought, just one photo?  Just one favorite place?  Impossible.  I’ve loved every tree in every park on every hike I’ve ever taken.  My heart is full.  Here are a few photos of the many favorite places that reside there.

winter photos at Starved Rock State Park

A day off from school and perfectly brisk winter weather made it a good day to check out the ice falls at Starved Rock State Park near Utica, Illinois.  We’ve been here in the summer and fall before, but this was our first walk here in the winter.  I think we may have picked the perfect day for it, we spent a happy couple of hours on the trails, and added a brown headed cowbird to this year’s bird list.

box

My 3-tray, hand-crafted worm bin arrived yesterday (vermiculture, woot woot!) in a box just begging to be upcycled.  When I unpacked it this morning, I left the empty box sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor, wondering if Jack was still of an age to be interested in an empty cardboard box.  It’s been awhile since we’ve had a box of any significance in the house, and I thought maybe at 10, he had outgrown the obvious attractions.  Does the child who snipes zombies online with friends, still have room in his heart for an empty box?

Imagine my joy then, when we came home from breakfast at Denny’s (pancakes, woot woot!) and the child asked “can I make something out of that box?”.  After some deliberation, it was agreed that it was the perfect size for a Sarah Dog house, and then we spent a wonderful couple of hours crafting the dog her own bungalow.  Now if we could just convince her to go inside it.

panda

When the weather turns cool (and by that I mean frigid), I like to cuddle up with a used sweater, purchased on dollar day from the thrift store and shrunken down to unwearable size in the washer and dryer, and hand stitch a nice animal or two.  I recently learned that an extra large sized men’s Abercrombie and Fitch 100% wool sweater can net me a panda bear, penguin, pig and very small teddy bear.  So far I have only put together the panda bear.  Which I will now list on Etsy…

I wish I could get paid for this…

A million years after the fact, I finally get what my last college photography instructor was trying to teach me.  Of course at the time he made me cry, quit photography, and take up painting instead.  He wanted us to make a still life, but not the kind with fruit and flowers.  It was suppose to be something completely constructed, and I just couldn’t seem to do it at the time.  It was only recently I realized that I have been doing it all my life, but just never thought of it as art.

and my top book pick for 2012 was…

For the second year I met my self imposed reading challenge of 36 books.  I read 38 books to be exact, although truthfully many of them were children’s books read with Jack.  I was trying to get through as many Pulitzer prize winners as I could, but it turns out that they are mostly all the same book, they just change the name and sometimes the gender of the characters.  What did I like about my 2012 reading list?  Drum roll please…my top 5 favorite books in no particular order were:

1. The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon- an unusual Pulitzer prize winner that follows the lives of two Jewish comic book writers during WWII.  

2. The Road by Cormac McCarthy-also a Pulitzer book, disturbing to say the least, and not a bad movie either.

3.The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins-an excellent young adult book even if it is widely popular.

4. Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv- a nonfiction take on why children need nature and why their parents should be more concerned about giving it to them.

And 5. A Cricket In Times Square by George Selden- a sweet and pure children’s classic, made better by a visit to Times Square.

a painting for John

I have no job.  So if I buy John a present, I am just using his money to buy him a present.  It seems to me that he should go buy it himself, and get what he really wants, and not what I think he wants.  This year I decided to make him a present for Christmas.  We have never had a headboard for our bed.  We’ve talked about getting one for years, but haven’t ever found one we like (or can afford).  I am not a carpenter.  So making a headboard was not an option for me.  But I did have an extra, large frame collecting dust under the couch.  I had decorative paper and sheet music and craft paint in the basement.  And I made him this (to hang above the bed).

A Few Photos of Christmas

I always feel a little bit like a hypocrite this time of year.  I have no real reason to be celebrating Christmas, and yet I do.  I keep telling myself that I do it for the kids, so they don’t feel alienated from their peers or left out, but I know deep down that’s not entirely true.  There are a lot of things I like about the Christmas season.  I adore the colorful holiday decorations, especially if they are made from paper or fabric.  I absolutely love the cookies, especially if they are frosted.  I enjoy a good meal and a glass of wine with friends and family, especially if it is followed by board games.  The music makes me happy, the memories make me smile.

Photos of a childhood remembered kind-of-sort-of this way

Jack had a three day weekend at the beginning of November.  I used it as an opportunity to go see family (and friends) in Minneapolis.  While we were there we used the unseasonably balmy weather to take a walk in one of my favorite childhood parks, Bunker Hills Regional Park, near Blaine, Minnesota.

I haven’t been there since I was in my teen years.  If you put me down in the middle of the park now and ripped off my blind fold, I’d be totally lost.  Everything has changed.  So I spent the afternoon with my mom playing tour guide and pointing out to me where everything I loved used to be.  The sandy bottom pond is now a water park.  The swings I played Star Wars on with my cousin are now a terraced garden.  The camping ground with the suicide bike hill has been expanded.   She wasn’t sure what happened to the wetland observation deck, although the wetland is still there.  At least they kept the tank.  They moved it, but at least they kept it.  And it’s still full of garbage.

Later we did one of my other favorite childhood things, and built a club house in the brush pile in my mom’s backyard.  With the help of cousin Nik, of course.

The last few pictures are of my mom’s winter garden.