Children

Nostalgia in the Mundane

/ Marie / 4 Comments

My children are all in bed, if not asleep, and the house for once is quiet. I was reading a story on the blog, Storyshucker, called “Birds of a Feather“. At one point, the author talks about how anything can make him feel sentimental, or nostalgic. Well, I was sitting on my bed reading, while nursing my little five month old son to sleep. I looked at him and thought about how tall he is getting, and how he still seems so little at the same time. When my babies were really little, I used a Boba Wrap to carry them while running errands, hiking, traveling……just about anytime I didn’t want to use a stroller because it was too bulky or unwieldy, or I just wanted to have my hands free while still experiencing the sweet sensation of snuggling such an amazing little person close to my body. Lately, my little boy has strained against the cocoon like sensation of being wrapped in the Boba.

So, this last trip we went on, I used an Ergo for my baby carrier. Now, the Ergo is great. It’s comfortable. It allows the baby to look around with a good field of view even in a front facing in position. My little boy was much more comfortable in the Ergo than he has been lately in the Boba Wrap. But it doesn’t have quite the same snuggly feeling. It highlights the fact that my baby is no longer a newborn, or even a very young baby. He is rolling over. He is eating baby food. It is one step forward in my child growing up.

My oldest child also picked out new rolling luggage for this trip, an R2D2 shaped roller that beeps just like the robot. She gave up her Trunki, a suitcase she can pull and ride at the same time, because she is too big for it. The Trunki she gave to her two year old sister, who is now old enough  and coordinated enough to ride on it. Our little boy is our last baby. The Boba wrap I gave away this week to someone else who could use it. It felt like a bandaid being ripped off. Except, the sentimental pain has not really faded over the course of the week.

I keep remembering moments with one or another baby snuggled close to me in the Boba. I remember how excited Alyssa was when she first used her Trunki. Children grow up and leave these things behind. But even hints of these memories can send me into bittersweet nostalgia. I am both proud of how my children are learning and growing into wonderful people and want to simultaneously freeze each moment to be relived over and over.

Even though my children were in bed, my sentimentality urged me to go and say good night to them one more time. My two oldest were in bed talking about how they were going to sail that night to Neverland, to play with Peter Pan and Tinkerbell. They are growing up, but at least tonight they don’t seem to be in a hurry to do it. And that is just fine with me.

I Never Want to Fly U.S. Airways Again

/ Marie / 4 Comments

There are times when flying with my family that I end up feeling that airlines intentionally make it more difficult for families to travel in order to discourage them from doing so. Our family’s trip last week to Florida and home was definitely one of those times.

We made it to the airport two hours before our scheduled flight. We were flying on a domestic flight, so this early arrival should have provided plenty of time to check in, make it through security, and have time to at least buy food to take on the plane with us. Neither my husband or I had the opportunity to eat breakfast before we left. We were counting on being able to eat at the airport. Does that seem like un unrealistic expectation? I didn’t think so.

For this particular trip we were planning on using public transportation that did not require car seats. We were ecstatic! For anyone who has gone through the process of lugging car seats and/or booster seats (especially 4 of them) through the airport and then gone through the lengthy process of checking them in, covering them plastic, and getting them on their way to baggage knows the joy of being able to skip this ordeal. We were able to get all of our children, luggage and ourselves from the parking lot to the ticketing area in record time. We thought again, that we would have plenty of time to take care of everything and make it to our plane. We did not anticipate the rather lengthy and slow moving line at ticketing. It was a Sunday morning, so we expected a little bit of a line, but nothing like what awaited us.

Upon approaching the line, trying to figure out exactly where we needed to go next, we were pointed to the self automated kiosks to check in for our flight. This filled us with a little bit of trepidation. The line was long and there are two scenarios where checking in at a kiosk has never, never, did I say never?!? worked. The first is when checking in car seats, which thankfully we did not have to do this time. The second is when flying with an infant in lap, which we were doing. Despite our protests that it would not work, the airline workers shunted us into the very long, seemingly never-ending line. Why did we not insist on speaking with an agent? I’m not sure, but we should have. Sometimes trying to be polite, accommodating travelers works against us.

As we neared the end of the long check-in line, almost an hour and one bathroom emergency later, the agent informed us that they wanted to check our stroller with our luggage. Apparently, even though for years strollers have been gate checked with no problems, now carrying strollers up and down the stairs is resulting in injuries to the workers, and so they are changing their policy for any stroller weighing over 20 pounds. Our double stroller is one of the lighter ones out there, and I think it is  under 20 pounds, but since I had a baby carrier with me, and I wanted to hurry along the process as much as possible, I agreed to check our stroller with our luggage. I also want to be a good and helpful traveler. I think this might be the wrong track to take when dealing with airline check-in, as it only seems to backfire. I don’t like to be impolite, even in stressful situations. It might work better to be politely assertive. I am going to have to work on this balance.

We finally reached the kiosks! The moment of truth had arrived. Would we be successful in checking in? Would we finally receive our boarding passes? (FYI – if you thinking checking in online works with an infant in lap ticket, it doesn’t. We’ve tried that, too). After trying to check in using our name, flight number, frequent flier number and credit card, we still had no boarding passes. After some valiant effort on our part trying to get the attention of one of the airline workers, we were finally escorted to a new line with an actual ticket agent at the end of it. When our turn came, we tried to politely explain the situation. Now, I understand that it would probably be emotionally tiring to be empathic with all of the passengers you check in during the course of a work day. However, you could at least be efficient at your job! Even though all members of our family were standing right in front of her (minus our baby who was in his baby carrier, but still visible to the ticket agent), and despite the fact that she had all of our i.d.’s in front of her, it took her something like six tries to even count the number of boarding passes we required to get on the airplane. Then it took several more tries to make sure she had all of them printed out. This would have just been a minor convenience, except for the fact that we had maybe half an hour by this time to get through security and make our plane. Remember how we were at the airport two hours early?

Well, she finally printed our boarding passes. It took her a few more minutes to check our bag, which thankfully went smoothly. Then, it came time to check our stroller. Having just checked our bag, you would think this would go smoothly. No, not really. As we were walking away, having been assured everything was ready to go, we hear our check-in woman saying, “Did I check that stroller, through to Seattle?” Seattle is the opposite direction of our actual destination. The other gate agent said something like, “I don’t know. Where is it supposed to go?” You would think at this point that one of them would go to actually check where the stroller was tagged to. But they just stood there, looking at each other with a blank look on their faces, as the stroller moved farther and farther down the conveyor belt into the black hole from which we hoped it would eventually emerge unscathed at our destination. They kept asking each other about the stroller, but neither could be bothered to make sure it was going to the correct place. It was like a bad skit on Saturday Night Live. The kind where you know that the outcome is not going to be a good one for the owner of said stroller. My husband and I looked at each other horrified, as we literally ran to security. If there had been time, we would have stopped and sorted out the destiny of our red double stroller before heading to the gate. But alas, there was no time. We commented to each other that it did not look good for our stroller. But having to choose between making our flight and addressing the stroller issue, we chose making our flight.

Our family raced to security, which thankfully was efficient, pleasant, and not crowded at all. If it had been otherwise, we would have missed our flight. As we passed a restaurant I looked longingly at the food that we did not have time to buy. As a nursing mom, I am more hungry than I was when I was pregnant. Missing breakfast was not a good idea. Plus, not eating makes me less patient and more grumpy. This is not a good combination for traveling, especially when trying to help my hungry children be more patient and less grumpy. Our flight had almost finished boarding when we reached the gate. We hurried to our seats and got settled just minutes before the door was closed. Thankfully, we made the flight.

For over four hours, as we soared above the land to our destination, we pondered the fate of our stroller. Was it on the plane, deep in the belly where all checked luggage journeys with us? Was it on a different plane to a different destination? Would we ever see our stroller again?

At our destination, we hurried to baggage claim. Our checked luggage came through the ordeal without any difficulty. Our stroller…..we waited and waited. We checked the oversize luggage area. We checked a different oversize luggage area. Finally we realized that our stroller was gone, never to be found again.

We spoke with the baggage claims department. They at least were polite and tried to be helpful while we were at the airport. They submitted a claim for us, but since we were never given a luggage tag at our departure point, they had nothing to go on but the description of our stroller. We never heard from them again. And we never saw our stroller again.

At this point, we did not put our blind faith in the efficiency of U.S. Airways to find our stroller and get it to us. Amazon.com made it possible to order a new stroller, which arrived at our hotel in less than 48 hours. We were able to use my baby carrier and the generosity of grandparents willing to carry small children from place to place to transport all our children during our site seeing until the new stroller arrived. Thank goodness for helpful grandparents! We don’t always have them with us in our travels.

Upon check in on our return journey, the ticket agent asked us to check our stroller with our luggage. I just said, “No, we’re not doing that” in a very firm tone. They didn’t argue with me. My husband says I can be scary sometimes. I think this is rather funny since I am 5’4″ and not a very large person. Apparently it was helpful in this situation. Thank goodness we did gate check our stroller this time. When we got off the plane, our 5 year old was fast asleep. Our baby had to go in the stroller because our baby carrier was covered in apple juice. Riding in a wet carrier would surely have elicited screaming from our very tired, but not yet sleeping baby. Our 2 year old was too tired to walk and insisted on being carried. I am grateful on trips like these that our 7 year old is a night owl, and can generally be counted on to move under her own power through the airport even late at night. But even with our stroller, it was not comfortable to transport all our children and belongings back to the car. Without our stroller? It would have been a scene of screaming, crying, cacophonous sounds that would have made everyone’s travels terrible, including our own.

U.S. Airways is the least family friendly airline we have experienced. Their policies and corporate culture penalize families for traveling, and do nothing to make it a pleasant experience. We will go out of our way to avoid them in the future. Thank goodness we are flying British Airways when we travel to Spain.

Hong Kong: A High Flying Box of Terror

/ Marie / 2 Comments

852Shrouded in mists on a mountain top on Lantau Island sits the Tian Tian Buddha. The largest outdoor seated Buddha in the world exudes a sense of peaceful welcome, even while towering over the surrounding valleys and mountains. One of the ways to reach Ngong Ping Village and see the Tian Tian Buddha is to risk crossing Lantau Island in a cable car, a box of glass and metal suspended only be a series of cables gracefully arcing over water and land.

The Ngong Ping cable car was not my first experience with a cable car. About a year previously we had ridden the Sandia Peak Tramway outside of Albuquerque. I read that it was one of the longest cable cars in the world, and was so excited to ride to the top of the mountain. I’m usually not that scared of heights. Flying in planes doesn’t bother me; hiking near steep mountain drop-offs doesn’t usually bother me. So, I was unprepared for the terror that I would feel as our cable car soared out over jagged rocks, slowly moving up the side of the Sandia Peak. While my then almost two year old exhilarated in the ride up the side of the mountain, I sat crouched down on the floor of the cable car trying not to envision the precariousness of a single cable holding up the cable car with a drop below onto jagged rocks that would almost certainly mean instant death if something went wrong. Meanwhile, my delighted little girl giggled and said, “Pick me up, mama! Pick me up!” So, I alternated between holding her up and cringing in terror.

When I heard about the Ngong Ping Cable Car, I wanted to ride it. Why, you may ask? I think I’m addicted to new and unique  experiences, especially if they are travel related. If it’s the longest, biggest, highest or most beautiful I want to give it a try. Terror settled in my stomach as I remembered riding the Sandia Peak Tramway, but how could I resist soaring over Lantau Island on my way to see the Tian Tian Buddha? Even if I was terrified the entire time? When I expressed concern about being scared, my sweet little girl smiled at me and said, “Don’t worry, Mama. I’ll help you and protect you.” At that point I knew that even if I was afraid, I would face my demons and ride that cable car. Especially when I could simultaneously teach my little girl about facing fears. And give her the chance to let her kind little heart shine in helping me overcome mine.

844The wait to ride the cable car was actually rather long. I think we stood in line for an hour and a half. That was somewhat unexpected, and the long wait made me more nervous. Finally, it was our turn to board. The Ngong Ping cable car sailed gently out of the station and out over the South China Sea. Maybe it was the bravery and kindness of my sweet little girl, maybe it was the more horizontal journey that reminded me of clouds blowing gently through the sky, or maybe the length of the ride gave me time to work through my fear, but the ride was actually very enjoyable. We passed over water and mountains. Ancient foot trails along the ridges of the mountains were visible below us. The water sparkled when the sun managed to peak out from behind the clouds. Our family had a relaxing (eventually) time together talking and singing as we sailed through the sky. I almost wish I had been brave enough to ride one of the cars with a glass bottom. If we ever go back, I think I’ll give it a try.

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Hong Kong: A Story of Jet Lag and an Australian Steakhouse

/ Marie / Leave a comment

ry=480Jet lag. Twelve hours of time difference. Exactly opposite of what we were used to. Adults have a hard enough time with jet lag. We can rationalize to ourselves why we feel so out of sync with our surroundings, and force ourselves to stay up as long as needed at our new destination in order to quickly acclimatize to our new destination. For a three year old and 18 month old, a rational explanation of why they need to either stay up or go to sleep NOW doesn’t work under normal bed time circumstances, let alone when day and night are so perfectly backwards to what they are used to.

The first few nights in Hong Kong, our girls would wake up around 2 in the morning, wide awake. We would combat this by giving them a snack, some Benadryl, and let them watch one movie. After the movie they would go back to sleep until a more normal waking time.

About the 3rd or 4th night we had gone to bed, and everyone woke up around 11pm. My husband was our late night food scavenger. On previous nights he would come back to the hotel bearing chocolate milk and Pocky. (We all loved Pocky after this trip.) On this particular night, he came back and asked if we all wanted to go to a steakhouse. Under normal circumstances, our restaurant of choice is more often a thai restaurant, or one that is very kid friendly, like California Pizza Kitchen. However, these were not normal circumstances, and isn’t that part of the fun of traveling?

So, we set out with our two small children at 11:30pm to go to Wooloomooloo Steakhouse in Tsim Sha Tsui. When we arrived it was mostly empty. The staff was very accommodating and friendly, although surprised to see us at that late hour. They did look very confused when we asked for a high chair. They didn’t have any, and in British English, at least in Hong Kong, it is called a baby chair or baby seat. But the Chinese people in Hong Kong seemed to love children. The whole time we were there they would ask to hold them, or take pictures with them. One of our girls was very blond at the time, and they were somewhat awed by the color of her hair. A pile of cushions was brought over to the table for our children to sit on.

By the time we ordered and our food arrived, which was very good, the restaurant was mostly empty. Besides our family, there was one group of Japanese businessmen who were drinking and dancing to the live band playing. The band members were all Chinese, and they were singing American songs. It seems like we hear American songs all over the world when we travel, even in very out of the way places. Picture the situation. Our very American family with two little girls at an Australian Steakhouse in Hong Kong in the middle of the night, with Japanese businessmen dancing to a Chinese cover band singing American songs. Do you know what made the surreal experience even more surreal? They started singing “Play That Funky Music”.

Sometimes the most memorable travel experiences are hidden in the most mundane of tasks, like dealing with jet lag or feeding your family. I guess the trick is to be in the moment, and find enjoyment in the new and different.

Hong Kong: First Impressions

/ Marie / 4 Comments

As the list of cities that I have visited grows, I become more and more interested in what sets each apart from the other. When we first land in a new city, we like to spend some time walking around and exploring, without too concrete of an itinerary set. Our first few days in Hong Kong, we stayed in Kowloon, very close to Tsim Sha Tsui Promenade. As we walked out the front door, one of the first sites that met our eyes was a couple dressed in clothes from a bygone era. It was like they had stepped straight out of the 1930’s in a British colonial style. Of course we knew that Hong Kong had been owned by the British for over a hundred years. It had only recently been returned to the rule of China. But it was still interesting to see how the British and Chinese cultures meshed within the modern city of Hong Kong.

Our first morning wanderings brought us to one of the main shopping districts of Kowloon. At first glance it looked very similar to a street you might see in New York, or any other large fashionable city. There was one striking visual difference.

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The scaffolding was made of bamboo! I decided the bamboo scaffolding is much more visually pleasing than the metal and blue walls that is used in New York. Building and renovating happen in cities all over the world. The small differences in details in universal activities like this are just so interesting.

Another difference we noticed as we strolled along were number of jewelry stores, and how different the jewelry was. The gold was yellow, a much deeper and richer yellow than gold used in jewelry in the U.S. In China (and Hong Kong) they use 24k gold to make jewelry. It is a tradition that brides are given gold jewelry by their families when they marry. Their jewelry is one of the few items that traditionally they retained ownership over. The deep yellow of the gold is gorgeous and attention catching. The other jewelry that was really interesting was the pearl collections. So many different colors and sizes! While the pearl jewelry in Hong Kong didn’t quite rival that of Mikimoto (a Japanese jewelry designer), it was still far more varied and intricate than pearl jewelry in the United States.

If you would like to see a sample of the gold jewelry from Chow Sang Sang, click here. To see a sample of the pearl jewelry click here.

I love visiting the green public spaces in the middle of a towering urban metropolis. There is something really interesting to me about the juxtaposition of nature and concrete jungle. The layout of the park, its structures and plant life, as well as the people in the park, can give you a taste of the culture of an area.

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Kowloon Park was a beautiful green oasis, filled with quiet waterways, animals, and a playground that our kids loved. In Central Park you’ll find people doing yoga. In Seattle’s public spaces, you’ll possibly see Butoh or Capoeira. In Hong Kong, you see people practicing Tai Chi or martial arts.

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The Peninsula Hotel, an icon of British colonial culture in the midst of Hong Kong’s Kowloon, is located very close to the Star Ferry. This hotel oozes with the luxury of a bygone era, reminiscent of the height of British colonial power. You can go to the Peninsula and experience afternoon tea, in true British style. Although intrigued by the idea, we didn’t go to afternoon tea on this trip. Maybe next time!

***Correction – The above picture is not the Peninsula Hotel, but a nearby building called 1881 Heritage. You can follow a link to the Peninsula Hotel’s Website here. ***

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This is a part of Tsim Sha Tsui looking over Victoria Harbor into Central Hong Kong. I love these kind of relaxing moments when traveling with our children. No one can teach you to stop and enjoy the moment like small children, who find the joy in splashing in a fountain, gazing at reflections, or watching the ships moving across the water. The Star Ferry was a big hit with both of our girls. It is really a very short ride to cross Victoria Harbor from Kowloon to Central Hong Kong. I am more used to the ferries going to and from Seattle, which are much bigger and far longer crossings. The Star Ferry is about a 10 minute ride, but it gives you an excellent vantage point for taking in the skyline of Central Hong Kong and Kowloon. Plus, I just love the name. Who wouldn’t want to ride a Star Ferry?

Destination Hong Kong: The Flight

/ Marie / 3 Comments

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Without children, airline flights can be somewhat restful. You sit and watch a movie, or read a book. It can be tedious if it’s a long flight, but you are free to pass the time in pretty much any way you would like. With children, not so much. The flight itself becomes a long contest, a battle of wills, an exercise in creativity. Sometimes flights with children go well, and sometimes they don’t. The worst flight we ever had with our children was a flight from Athens to Paris when our oldest daughter was nine months old and teething. She was inconsolable and screamed pretty much the entire three hours. We could feel the hostility from everyone on that flight, except for an Argentinian couple sitting in front of us. The air was palpable with it.

Anyway, the flight to Hong Kong was not that bad, but it was a little bit of an adventure. We lived near NYC at the time, so we took a straight shot from JFK to Hong Kong, roughly 16 hours of flight time. We’ve found that flying with children is a much better experience if you prepare them, and have a plan in mind. And a back-up plan. We had two children at the time, a three year old and 18 month old. Luckily for us and traveling, our 18 month old loved watching movies. We prepped our children by telling them we would get to watch two movies, have dinner, and then it would be time to go to sleep. We would be on the plane almost all night. When they woke up, we could have breakfast, and watch another movie, or maybe two. At the time, the length of a movie was a measure of time our 3 year old could understand. We brought a portable dvd player, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and several Kai-lan movies.

Everything went very smoothly for most of the flight. Our 3 year old even tried beef for dinner, and didn’t complain about eating something new and somewhat exotic for her small taste buds. She even laid down and went to sleep when we told her it was time. (This in itself is a miracle. She hates going to sleep.) We didn’t even need to use our back-up plan. (It was benadryl, just in case you were wondering.) Indeed, it was almost magical for me as a mom that both girls were so well behaved. I started to breathe a sigh of relief as we came close to our destination.

One of the rules we have while traveling is that our children must use the bathroom before the plane starts descending. So accordingly, I took our three year old right before they announced the plane’s descent into Hong Kong. As the plane started its final approach, our three year old started to say she needed the bathroom. I knew she had just been, and probably didn’t actually need to use the bathroom. She was clearly uncomfortable, and started yelling that she needed to use the bathroom. At this point, we were really very close to landing. I told her to hang on. I would take her to the bathroom as soon as the plane landed and stopped moving. Her screaming grew louder and louder as the plane descended lower and lower. Then, just at the very moment the plane’s wheels touched the ground, she threw up.

She threw up, for the first time in her life, all over herself and her seat the minute we reached Hong Kong. Knowing that cleaning her up would take some time, and wanting to quickly get her cleaned up so she would be comfortable and stop screaming, I stripped her clothes off of her, threw one of the airline blankets around her, and started wiping up the vomit with baby wipes. Baby wipes are lifesavers in these kind of situations. I might still carry them around with me even after all my children are potty trained. As soon as the plane stopped taxiing, my husband ran to get our carry on luggage. One of our other international traveling rules is that we only take carry on. In this situation, it was extremely helpful because we had a change of clothes at our immediate disposal. Meanwhile the plane had emptied of passengers, except for us. The flight attendants started to insist that we leave as well. It was a little bit harrowing, trying to get her cleaned up enough to put on clothes and get off the plane with several flight attendants ordering us to move. In what was probably record time we got her changed, gathered our belongings, and deplaned. At the first bathroom we saw I rinsed out her hair, and brushed her teeth. She felt much better after she had thrown up and been cleaned up. She sang a happy song as we moved through customs, excited to be in a new place.

Even though the beginning of our trip was a little bit explosive with the wrong kind of excitement, we really did have a great trip in Hong Kong. Stay tuned for more stories of our Hong Kong adventures.

Tongue 1 and Tongue 2

/ Marie / 4 Comments

To amuse myself while I am sitting and nursing my baby, which is a substantial amount of time throughout the day, I’ve been reading some photography tutorials to learn how to take better pictures. I want to have the skills to take awesome photographs of my children, of my travels,  of pretty much everything. This post isn’t really about travel, except that I would like to take better travel photos. But, I think it is amusing, so please read on. Last week I came across a tutorial about how to take action photographs of dogs. I decided to give it a try. Here is one photo of our male dog.

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This is the kind of photo that the tutorial was discussing. It’s a fun photo. I love how insanely puffed out his fur looks while running. I swear they could make stuffed animals that looked just like him, and children would go nuts over them.

Now, we have two dogs, a male and female. They love to lick babies. Love, love, love, love, love, love, love it. Especially our female, Sophia. My husband and I joke that for the first few months of life, our children know our dogs only as Tongue 1 and Tongue 2. Their soft, luscious fur remains elusively out of reach to our tiny baby. But their tongues can cover a huge amount of distance! Our dogs are also kind of mischievous like Thing 1 and Thing 2 from the Dr. Seuss books. They are not the most well behaved dogs in the world. Anyway, one of the pictures that I ended up with was this.

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This is Tongue 1. If you love dogs you probably are laughing right now like I was when I saw this gem among the other dog photos. I love how her crazy, flipped out tongue is the most in focus of anything else in the picture. It just really captured her personality, a little neurotic, very loving, and very mischievous. So laugh away, and maybe try taking some photos of your own dogs.

Here is a link to the article about taking dog action portraits for your enjoyment.

http://digital-photography-school.com/6-tips-for-photographing-dogs-in-action/

Enjoy, and have a great day!

Travel for Christmas, Do You or Don’t You?

/ Marie / 2 Comments

Ready, Set, Done!

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We don’t. Travel for Christmas. When my husband and I were married we literally lived across the country from both sets of parents. I decided that I wanted Christmas to be a joyous celebration within our own home. I wanted to have our own Christmas tree and open presents in our apartment on Christmas morning. This had less to do with avoiding the hassle of traveling at Christmas and more to do with establishing our own family with our own traditions. Now that we have four children, I’m glad we established Christmas as a celebration in our own home with our own family. Partially because transporting Christmas presents for the entire family to and from a location where driving for a trip of short duration is out of the question, is out of the question. And I’m not sure how you could even make that happen with air travel. As a family, we like to travel as lightly as possible. Sometimes I feel a little bad for depriving the grandparents of the joy of seeing their small grandchildren light up with joy and excitement on Christmas morning, bare little feet running down the hall to see what Santa has brought. They could come to us, but we are the only ones living in this area of the country. Every single one of my brothers and sisters (there are 5 of us) live within a 2 hour travel time of my parents. My husbands family is not as geographically condensed, but still a lot closer than we are. So, it doesn’t make sense to ask them to travel during such a hectic travel season, leaving behind the majority of their family. Of course it is much warmer here, so that could be an added incentive for making the trip. Which means, it is much colder there. That is a definite deterrent. So for now, we will maintain our tradition of enjoying Christmas morning with just our own beautiful little children. I’m not going to feel too bad for the grandparents, at least for this year. At the end of January, we’ll be meeting them all in Disneyworld.

All Aboard for Christmas Fun

/ Marie / Leave a comment

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I love trains. There is something so freeing about leaving behind a car and allowing a train to transport you from one location to another. When traveling internationally, we depend on trains and buses for transportation almost exclusively. I think the one time we rented a car in another country was when we traveled to Trinidad and Tobago. On Tobago, a car is a necessity if you want to leave the resort areas by the airport and explore the rest of the island.

But, I digress. The movie “The Polar Express” was very popular a few years ago. My mother-in-law sent the movie to my girls as a present. Now, while it is not my favorite movie, my daughters became entranced with the idea of riding a train to the North Pole to see Santa Claus. Sometimes, what seems kind of cheesy and unbelievable to adults, is pure magic to our children.

My husband and I decided to take our girls on the North Pole Express, an event train experience provided by the Essex Steam Train in Essex, CT. We dressed our girls in their pajamas and headed up to the train. The train is pulled by a steam powered engine. How is that for drawing your mind to a different era?

An elf greeted the travelers in each car. While en route to the North Pole, passengers were treated to a musical rendition of “The Night Before Christmas”. Sleepy elves traveled through the train cars providing hot chocolate and cookies made by Mrs. Claus herself. The magic and excitement grew as the train travels closer and closer to the North Pole. Lighted Christmas figures are placed outside the train car en route to the North Pole. Once at the North Pole, Santa and Mrs. Claus climbed aboard the train for the return journey.

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They greeted each child, and gave a special gift, a bell from Santa’s sleigh. Our children’s excitement was so endearing as we made this magical excursion together! On the way home to the train depot the passengers sang Christmas carols together.

Riding the Essex Steam Train North Pole Express has been one of my favorite Christmas experiences with my children. Short of going to the North Pole itself to meet Santa Claus, this is much preferable to seeing Santa at the Mall or other more commercial settings. I love how the gift itself is so simple, and a symbol of the power of a child’s belief. The bells our girls received on this magical Christmas ride have outlasted many of the more expensive Christmas gifts that they have received. Experiences are far more enduring than things. That is one of the reasons our family loves to travel together. We build amazing memories together. Memories last a lifetime.

http://essexsteamtrain.com