Santillana del Mar: a Spanish Brigadoon

January 24, 2016January 24, 2016 / Marie / Leave a comment

Every once in a while in my travels, I come upon a place that seems arrested in time. If I look closely, I might find anachronistic details that verify I am still living in the 21st century. If I allow myself to be fully immersed in the charming beauty of a place, my mind filters out those pesky modern details, and I can imagine that I have stepped into the past. Or that a gem of a village has been hidden for centuries, and only the luckiest of travelers arrive in the right place in the right time to enjoy its beauty. Santillana del Mar is one of those cherished places.

Hidden on the north coast of Spain, about a 20 minute bus ride from the ocean, Santillana del Mar has the combined charm of a small Spanish medieval village with the green landscape of an Irish coastline. One can easily imagine fairies and leprechauns hiding in the fields around the town, with an occasional curious creature exploring the village itself. Every picture you take, every corner you turn in Santillana yields beautiful and breathtaking sites. It is also an extremely restful and peaceful place. It is the kind of place where sitting and lingering over a two hour lunch, and blissfully strolling down the medieval streets, or watching your children play in the plaza, playing tag while weaving through archways and columns, is the best kind of day.

It is the kind of place where magical things happen. We stayed in a hotel on this “main” street running through Santillana. Once upon a time, it was the house of the Marquis of Santillana del Mar, and it retains much of the charm of a 15th century manor. Our second night there, the restaurant across the street had a magnificent singer performing in the outdoor courtyard. The music tugged at our hearts. There was no resisting the pull of good music and good food to enjoy with those we love best in the world. We got our children dressed and went across the street to the restaurant for churros con chocolate, to be enjoyed as a light night treat. We ate together as a family, enjoying the music, but the magic of the evening could not just end there. We danced in the street with our children. It is a memory that they still recount, a magical moment that I hope they never forget. If only we could always find those magical moments in each day of our lives!

Disneyworld: Fastpass Plus, Good or Bad?

February 23, 2015 / Marie / 2 Comments

Photo courtesy of themeparkuniversity.com

For this particular trip to Disneyworld, we stayed in one of the resorts. Everyone who visits Disneyworld has access to the new Fastpass Plus system. The advantage to staying in one of the resorts is up to three months prior to your trip, you can select your Fastpass choices through MyDisneyExperience.com. Fastpass had changed to this new system from the last time we were at Disneyworld, and we didn’t quite know the best way to use it. So, here are some things we learned, some things we liked, and some things we didn’t like about the new fast pass plus.

Under the new system, you can make up to three Fastpass selections for each day of your Disneyworld trip. You can either use kiosks at the parks, or use MyDisneyExperience.com. Your Fastpass selections must all be in the same park for that particular day. Our Fastpass selections were spaced fairly close together, so we still had the option of going to a different park for the rest of the day if we wanted. Fastpass gives approximately an hour window for you to use it, or you lose it. You activate your Fastpass entrance by using either a magic band or park ticket. There are always two places on each ride you must scan your Fastpass, at the entrance to the Fastpass line and just prior to joining the stand-by line.

For new and extremely popular attractions, such as the new Seven Dwarves Mine Train ride, you have to book your fast pass as soon as possible. We were not aware of the ability to select Fastpasses so far in advance, so the Seven Dwarves Mine Train ride and Meet Elsa and Anna were no longer available by the time we made our selections. Fastpass was still available for popular thrill rides such as Space Mountain and Aerosmith’s Rockin’ Rollercoaster.

What I did like about the Fastpass was the guarantee that there were at least three must-do attractions on our list everyday that we didn’t have to spend a long time in line for. In our case, this was especially helpful since part of our party (children too small to ride the faster thrill rides or grandparents with health issues that prevented them from riding) couldn’t go on some of our fast pass selections. We could get the children a snack, like Mickey Mouse ice cream bars, go ride the ride, and get back by the time they were finished with their snack. This prevented several meltdowns because they needed some down time, and allowed my husband and I to ride several rides together without children in tow. It was like a mini-date! For us, that was a win-win situation.

The Fastpass Plus system also insured that at least three of our favorite attractions were easily accessible without a long wait. The longest line I think we stood in for anything during our trip was 35 minutes for the Winnie the Pooh, which we did not have Fastpass for. We felt like we were able to see and do a lot during each day of our trip.

Perusing the Fastpass selection also prompted us to do some things we might not have otherwise thought of doing. We met Mickey Mouse at Town Hall. I never would have thought of seeking out that opportunity, but it was our youngest daughter’s favorite experience from the trip. She still walks around saying, “Mickey Mouse hugged Aeryn!” What a magical moment it was for her! Even the grandparents had a great time meeting Mickey Mouse. He even sounded like Mickey.

Mickey Mouse Hugging Aeryn!

What I did not like about Fastpass was the spontaneity it removed from our trip. There always had to be some planning involved, especially with such a large group, but it seemed that our days were planned directly in response to our Fastpass selection. We also lost some of the flexibility often necessary with young children. When they need the bathroom, or food, or some time to sit and look at the flowers, they need it now. They really don’t care if you have a fast pass that expires in the next half an hour. We didn’t use several of our Fastpasses because of situations like this. We also lost using one or two because they were assigned early in the morning. My family does not do early in the morning. At least the majority doesn’t, and it is much harder to convince night owls to wake up early than it is to convince early risers to stay out a little later. That caused some frustration and bad feelings, and made it more difficult to spend time with one pair of grandparents who are more on the get up and go side of the scale.

Overall, I appreciate the opportunity to have some short wait times during the day. I am glad that Fastpass is an option when visiting Disneyworld. I think you have to be okay with not always using your Fastpass if the children would rather do something else during that time, and I am curious how well the Fastpass system works when the parks are really crowded. We had moderate crowds during our time there.

What are your experiences with Fastpass?

Nostalgia in the Mundane

February 9, 2015February 18, 2015 / 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.

Our Christmas Tree Travel Log: A Christmas Tradition

December 25, 2014February 18, 2015 / Marie / 2 Comments

There are some family traditions that are created through a definitive decision, and intentionally implemented into family culture. There are other family traditions that grow organically through experiences and a multitude of smaller decisions made across a period of time. Our Christmas tree tradition is one of the latter. Here is our story.

When my husband and I were first married we lived in New York City. We were both students at the time, so money was pretty much not available in any kind of significant quantity. I love Christmas trees. Every year I would drag my poor husband through the icy cold of a windy, snowy New York winter to see the tree at Rockefeller Center with me. This particular Christmas, our first as a married couple, we went to Macy’s to look at the Christmas decorations. We went only to look at the Christmas decorations, with no intention to buy any.

On the top floor of the very large Macy’s at 34th Street and 8th Avenue, was a veritable Christmas wonderland with Santa’s workshop, fake snow, and a parade of Christmas trees full decorated with ornaments, angels and stars that you could purchase. One Christmas tree was fully decorated with symbols of New York, including the Statue of Liberty, taxi cabs, and……..pigeons. Yes, that’s right. Pigeons. It was NOT a tree that I liked very much, aside from reminding me of New York City, which I happen to love very much. My husband, however, decided that he really wanted one particular ornament on the tree. The pigeon. The gray pigeon with a bobbly head and I “heart” NY written on the side. I thought it was one of the most hideous things ever. But I loved my husband and so I consented to buying the pigeon, it being the only Christmas ornament we would purchase that year. But there was a deal involved. Next year, I would pick out an ornament to add to our collection.

That is how it started. The next year we had moved to another location, and decided it would be fitting to find a Christmas tree ornament that captured some of the essence of our new home.

We ended up with this little beauty. So instead of our Christmas tree tradition being a taking of turns to add a new ornament, each year we pick an ornament that symbolizes something momentous that happened that year. The general overall look of the tree also was developed to somewhat camouflage the pigeon, blue and silver with highlights of red. I still didn’t like the pigeon and somewhat resented having it on my beautiful Christmas tree.

When we had our first beautiful little baby, we of course had to have an ornament that celebrated her birth. Subsequently, each of our children have their own special ornament on the tree that they get to hang up each year. It celebrates the joyous occasion when they first joined our family. Each child knows which ornament is theirs and loves to find a special place for it on the tree.

In years that we are not moving or having a new baby join our family, we spend a lot more time traveling. We often go on a large international trip or to an exotic location. These family adventures are also all memorialized with their very own Christmas tree ornament. As we decorate our tree each year, each ornament rekindles memories of the various destinations and adventures we have experienced together. We have a lot of fun reminiscing and then discussing where we want to go for our next grand adventure. Here are some of our favorite travel ornaments.

I have come to love this family tradition, which is a log of our traveling adventures and how we have grown as a family. I have even developed some fondness for the pigeon, which somehow started it all.

How do you remember your traveling adventures? What are some of your family’s Christmas traditions?

Tongue 1 and Tongue 2

December 18, 2014February 18, 2015 / 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.

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.

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?

December 11, 2014February 18, 2015 / Marie / 2 Comments

Ready, Set, Done!

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

December 8, 2014February 18, 2015 / Marie / Leave a comment

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.

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

Local Adventures and Family Fun

November 28, 2014February 18, 2015 / Marie / 1 Comment

The kinds of activities you participate in as a family in your local area are also the kinds of activities you’ll likely participate in while you are traveling. Aside from just having a lot of fun and bonding together as a family, local adventures are a great way to prep your children for travel. The children learn appropriate behaviors for hiking, museums, tours, or whatever your family likes to do. Parents learn valuable skills like knowing when the children are close to a melt down so they can preemptively strike and diffuse what could be a very stressful situation.

Really, we just like to explore and have fun as a family. Last weekend our local garden was hosting a family photography class. I like photography. My husband likes photography. Our children, even our 2 year old, are always taking whatever camera they see and taking photos with it. I thought this would be a great opportunity for us to expand our skills, so I signed us all up.

A professional photographer gave a brief lecture about the five elements of composition. We then had some time to head out into the garden and practice with our newly acquired information. Each person had some time to sit with the photographer and discuss a few of their favorite pictures. Then, as a class, we each shared one or two pictures and again talked about the elements of composition.

This is how each member of our family reacted to our experience.

My husband, being the very busy man that he is, relished the chance to work on his photography skills, even if he was sharing our DSLR camera with me.

I would have liked to take a few more pictures than I had the opportunity to, but really enjoyed watching my husband and children have a good time. The fact that it was a beautiful, sunny day surrounded by beautiful plants and my beautiful family, I probably would have had a good time even if I hadn’t taken any pictures.

Our six year old relished holding her own point and shoot camera and taking as many pictures as she wanted. She was thoughtful about her compositions, remembering the lecture we had regarding what makes a good photograph.

Our four year old loved taking pictures of her baby brother. She could have cared less about taking pictures of the landscape. At least we will know who to go to for good portrait photography some day.

Our two year old had my old iPod to take pictures with. She felt like such a big girl running around the gardens with her big sisters.

Our little baby just enjoyed being pushed in his stroller in the beautiful weather.

The class was a little long for the four and two year old, but we managed to hold off any meltdowns by discussing our next move of getting lunch, and asking for their input. The class was the perfect length for our six year old. She ended up with some really beautiful photographs. Let me share a few with you.

Our next big trip, we will provide a point and shoot camera for our children to share. Maybe they can make their own photo book with the pictures they take. Who knows? We’ll see where they want to take this new skill. The most important thing is we had a mini family adventure close to home, and had a really great time.