First Family Vacation

It's not like we don't go places. We do. But most of those places are vacations we take to see people or vacations we take with family or friends. Last week we finally took our first family vacation all by ourselves. We rented a beach house in Castroville, CA (artichoke capital of the world) and went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. It was five years in the making and it was worth it.

This is a video I took of some jellyfish, my favorite thing at the aquarium. It should be noted that Milo's favorite thing at the aquarium was the escalator. You can view the rest of the pictures here.

Review: Sequoia Survival Kit

Marco's parents live in Montana and we've driven there from Northern California nearly every year since 1999. We've even made the trip for Christmas through a lot of snow and ice. This year for the holidays we're flying, primarily because we've already made the drive out there this year, but also because we've gotten wiser in our old age and we've realized that weather is not always our friend.

If you're still under the impression that weather gives a damn about you, may I recommend a Sequioa Vehicle Survival Kit? The folks at Sequoia Survival were nice enough to send me one of these kits to review for the Parent Bloggers Network.

Here's the thing about survival kits. You hope you never have to use them. So, even though the kit has been in my car for a few months, I'm pretty glad I still can't give you a review of how this really works in an emergency. I like that it's compact. My only real complaint is that I wish our minivan had a compartment for the kit, so it didn't clutter up the car. But really, is that such big price to pay for survival?

Here's what the kit contains:

• 32 oz water
• Meals ready to eat (MRE) for 2 people for 1 day
• 151 piece first aid kit
• Two thermal emergency blankets 
• Two rain ponchos 
• Two 6-hour hand warmers
• Two 12-hour light sticks
• Windproof and waterproof matches
• Crank radio/light and cell phone charger (compatible with most models of Nokia, Samsung, Motorola, and LG cell phones.)
• Multi-function hardware tool
• Leather work gloves
• Duct tape
• Rope
• Cleansing wipes
• Toilet paper
• Notebook
• Pen
• Playing cards

I'm not much of a survivalist, so I'd love to hear from you all if you think this kit is pretty complete or if it's missing some major items. In other words, what's in your emergency kit?

Back from Vacation

I apologize for the silence of the past few weeks. We just returned from a road trip to Bozeman, Montana to visit Marco's parents.

We've been visiting Bozeman for almost 10 years and each time it changes. Sure, the town itself has exploded in both good and bad ways. But what I'm talking about is how our 1,000 mile drives to get there have evolved over the years.

We used to drive alone and stop when we felt like it, sometimes driving all day and into the night. Then we did the drive twice when Annabella was an infant. The first, when she was two months old, we stopped every two hours so I could nurse her, but there were still long periods of time when she napped. And then there was our first Christmas as a family, where we'd intended to fly, but missed our plane and ended up just getting in our car at the airport and driving the rest of the way to Montana. The way there was pretty easy, considering, but on the way back the roads were closed in Tahoe for 6 hours. I was still nursing, but Annabella was also eating baby food. If you have the opportunity not to feed your child strained spinach in her car seat, I suggest you run with it.

Last year was our first trip with the boys and the first time we discovered that removing a seat in the minivan gave us room to strap a laptop to the top of the cooler with bungee cords so we could play the Toy Story DVD seventeen times in a row. The boys still cried a lot, mostly because I think they truly believed that we had moved into our minivan and this was where we were going to live from now on. But at least they napped. This year, not so much. And when I say "not so much," I mean "not at all."

But, once we got to Marco's parents house all the angst-filled hours of "Are we in Montana, yet," "Can I get out of my seat," and "Can you come back here and pick up that toy I just dropped," were replaced by lots of swimming, lounging, and spectacular views that made it all worth it. And, of course, all that granny and grandpa time is worth twice that long in the car and I'm not just saying that because they read this. Granny and Annabella share a fondness with pigs that is too similar not to be genetic and nobody gives better rides on his mower than grandpa.

We also rented a cabin nearby for a few days where we stayed with old friends while the kids stayed with the Morrones. We took a day trip to Yellowstone to commune with the elk and the bighorn sheep, followed by a soak in the hot springs at Chico. If you ever make it to Western Montana, I highly recommend either a day trip or a longer stay at Chico Hot Springs Resort. Unless drinking a frozen margarita while sitting in a really hot pool staring up at the Montana sky is not your idea of a good time.