Category Archives: Travel with kids

July 3, 2014 · 2:21 pm

STONEHENGE! Mom Camp Day 16 part two

I know, it’s a bit unfair to split one mom camp day into two. But, Stonehenge deserves its own post.
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Woodhenge

Woodhenge

Before getting to the main event, we had a little time to kill and decided to go to the Woodhenge site. Yes, it is lesser known. Yes, it was made of wood– so it has disintegrated. But, archeologists have placed markers where the wood beams would have stood. Stonehenge is not really its own independent site. It is the most striking element of a larger complex that spans thousands of years in its development and use.

I wanted to share that the larger significance of the place with the kids. To some degree Cinco got it! We watched a National Geographic show about the complex and how the subsites might fit together. He really took it in. The theory is that Woodhenge and Stonehenge were part of a day long elaborate ritual of life and death.

2014 06 09_England 2014_0437Today, Woodhenge is just sitting there in wide open field.  The sheep keep the site company and you must use your imagination to envision life the ancient word.

After getting a little taste of things at Woodhenge it was off to the big time! The last time I was at Stonehenge was in the mid-90’s and at that time, you couldn’t get too close to the stones. Tourists sort of viewed them from afar. While I was researching this trip, I discovered that English Heritage will still allow SMALL groups of people to enter the stones before and after normal visiting hours. It is not prohibitively expensive, but it can be tough to get the tickets. I made our reservations in September 2013. It was completely worth it!

What I did not realize is that the Stonehenge site has JUST been revamped to make it more tourist friendly and you can get near the stones again. Although, you must keep to a path and cannot go into the center of the stones–like we did!

2014 06 09_England 2014_0456We arrived early enough to take a look at the some of the outside exhibits that English Heritage added to the site. The kids and I attempted to push a replica of one of the colossal stones.

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Inside the roundhouse

hutWe also toured the roundhouses. At this point our weather luck started to run out…a evening rain began falling on our heads. I tried to get the kids thinking about what it would have been like to live inside one of the houses. The rain added to the idea of roughing it!

Lucky for us, it only rained for a little while once we actually got to the stones!  I took a picture of Cinco at the stones and I have never actually seen him smile so wide!  It was the most amazing, happy mom feeling in the world.  I got the chance to live my own excitement and look at the world through my son’s eyes!  It was the BEST moment of the trip.

2014 06 09_England 2014_0484We got up close and personal with the stones. We spent time learning how the stones fit together before we left so seeing in person was very exciting for Cinco.

2014 06 09_England 2014_0489We also got so close to the stones we could see the graffiti that other tourists left behind!

The kids got hold of the camera and went wild snapping pics and telling us where to stand.

We only had one hour inside the stones, but the kids LOVED it and we had a very nice time! It was something special that we will always remember!

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July 3, 2014 · 12:38 am

Stonehenge and Winchester: Mom Camp Day 16

It was time to say good-bye to our tournament tent. I think we were all sad to leave such a lovely place. But, more adventure called.

The next stop was a day trip to Winchester. In case you don’t know, Winchester was the Saxon capitol of England.

The King Alfred Statue

The King Alfred Statue

It was where the West Saxon kings ruled including, King Alfred the Great. (Shameless plug for my King Alfred book.) So you know we had to stop here!

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Walking Tour Anyone?

I found a great walking tour of the city and we started at the famous King Alfred statue.

After the statue, we followed the river walk. Again perfect weather allowed us to enjoy every minute. The walk took us past the town’s old Roman Walls to Wolvesey Castle.

The Castle was occupied by King Stephen’s brother during The Anarchy and the city and castle played a role in the battles between King John and the rebelling barons. All this means William Marshal would certainly have been familiar with the place. (Shameless plug for my William Marshal book.)

2014 06 09_England 2014_0384_edited-1Wolvesey Castle is now a ruin, but Cinco and I had a great time exploring it.  We practically had the place to ourselves and Cinco took a number of photos on his own!

Finishing up at the castle we followed the walk to Winchester Cathedral.  We opted not to go inside to save time and because we also planned to visit Salisbury Cathedral.

It was time for lunch at the Wykcam Arm.  It is an old pub in the town.  But, the kids couldn’t eat inside so we had our meal in the garden out back.  The best thing I saw there was the toilet.  It seems they have an antique toilet and it was made by Thomas Crapper!  (No, I am not kidding you. The inside of the bowl had the name printed on it and everything!)  The walls of the WC were also decorated with copies of old ads for the toilet.  Now I know where the saying crap comes from— a famous British toilet maker.  Really, how did I forget to bring my phone to the bathroom?

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Photo by Cinco

After lunch we stopped by the Winchester Museum.  Each floor of the three-story building covered a different time period from the Romans, to the Saxons all the way to the present day.

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Roman Mosaics– Photo by Cinco

The kids got another scavenger hunt and away they went!  Cinco had a great time.  He dressed up as a Roman Senator and took lots of photos.

We moved on to the Great Hall and West Gate.  The gate is from the middle ages and the Great Hall is all that remains of the royal palace in Winchester.  The rest of the palace was destroyed by Cromwell.

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The Round Table

Inside the Great Hall, we examined the rendition of King Arthur’s round table–that is about 700 years old!  When I first planned this trip Cinco was much younger and really loved the Knights of the Round Table.  Now, he liked seeing it.  But it was NOT a major highlight.

2014 06 09_England 2014_0421The windows also had lovely stained glass shields of the English Royal houses.

Outside the Great Hall is the Queen’s Garden.  It is a recreation of a 14th century, formal garden.  It was much smaller than I expected.  I was a little disappointed.

After our day in Winchester, we got in the car and headed off to Salisbury.  We arrived too late to check out the cathedral (but don’t worry, we saw it the next day).  A rest and dinner followed and then it was time for STONEHENGE!

And, yes…. I am making this mom camp day into two posts!

 

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June 25, 2014 · 2:46 pm

Let’s Wonka-brate with Dragons: Mom Camp 11

This mom camp day was all about going to see the London Dragons and the new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory musical.

In preparation for the trip, I went to the local library and checked out some travel videos. One of them being, Rick Steves’. Cinco watched his tour of London and wanted to see all the places he covered.  I didn’t realize he was ACTUALLY paying attention to the show…

One of the things Rick pointed out were the London Dragons.  They are statues that demarcate the official medieval boundaries of The City.  Historically, it is important because the people of London had special privileges and rights they wrestled away from the kings over the years. Today, it’s not so important.

The London Dragon on Embankment

The London Dragon on Embankment

Still, Cinco wanted to find and photo the dragons.  First, we found the pair of dragons along the Victoria Embankment. But, Cinco also wanted to find the older dragon near temple bar.

20140624-193116.jpg I was running around looking for Temple Church (site of the Marshal’s effigy), not paying one ounce of attention to finding dragons. Low and behold, I look up and there is a dragon! Needless-to-say, Cinco was very pleased with our discovery!

 

 

 

After that we walked over to the West End.  Stage DoorThe show was playing at the Theatre Royal on Drury Lane.  There has been a theatre on the spot ever since the mid-1600’s.  Although, the current building dates from the early 1800’s.  Why is this exciting?  Well, before coming to London we read the second Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place book.  In the book, the kids go to the very same theatre to see a silly play called Pirates on Holiday!  Cinco and The Princess were very happy to find out our show was playing there as well!

2014 06 04_England 2014_0952Queen Gram really did her homework and discovered that some kids do not like being too close to the stage. It seems they use “pyrotechnics”. Let me say this: it’s more like a fog machine than pyrotechnics. Maybe I am jaded coming from Vegas. But, I don’t think the production needed a disclaimer. After speaking to the box office, Queen Gram somehow ended up with seats in the balcony far away from the oh so scary stage. Ugh!

Of course, there were Wonka Bars for sale.  They were huge!  We bought two and shared them.  Again, the kids were in hog heaven.

We attended the matinée along with every school child in London! But, once the show started, everything was fine. The kids liked to show. I thought it was only OK. I am real follower of the original Wonka movie!!! Plus, I love the song Pure Imagination… Childhood memories. The best part of the show was the end when Wonka sang that song! In fact, a few of the school boys seated near us began singing along! It warmed my heart that they were fans of the old song as well!

And, don’t worry Bookymom made Cinco read Dahl’s book while we were in London. As if, I’d let him get way without reading!

After the show it was off to the market at Covent Garden.  This was a challenge for Cinco.  He was saving his money for the Lewis Chessmen set at the British Museum.  However, there were tons of little items to buy, tempting a young heart.  He did well and stayed on track for the Chessmen.

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June 23, 2014 · 11:42 pm

Mom Camp Goes Sideways: Day 9

Even the best planning can be undermined by good ol’ public transit. Our third day in London, the Tube’s Green line stopped working and our plans to head off to Hampton Court via Wimbledon were ruined! This sent me running sideways to figure out our next plan.

Going with the flow, we hopped a cab to Southwark to see the new Globe. Meanwhile the kids were holding a hunger strike because they didn’t like any of the British food. Priority number one was finding lunch. Based on their love of breakfast we opted to have breakfast for lunch– which satisfied my wild beasts for the time being.

MBridgeSadly, by the time we got to the Globe, the tours for the day were over! Ugh. I however, paid too much for the airplane tickets to be defeated so easily!

Pulling a page from the Harry Potter movies, I took the kids across Millenium Bridge.

Once across the bridge we went to St. Paul’s Cathedral.  I’ve been to England four times before this trip and not once did I ever make it to St. Paul’s.  I am rather surprised I never checked out the dome before.  I love a dome–St. Peter’s in Rome, The US Capitol Building in Washington, DC, Haigia Sophia Dome in Istanbul.dome

We all went in and headed straight to the Whispering Gallery.  It is located about half-way up the dome and you can whisper on one side of the gallery and be heard on the other side.  I resorted to asking a guard exactly how it worked because we had a little trouble figuring it out on our own.  Once we got if figured it out, the kids really had fun playing with acoustics over an over.

We kept climbing the dome and made it to the first outdoor level.  I tried to get Cinco to climb all the way to the top, but it wasn’t for him.  He stayed on level 2 with Queen Gram and The Princess and I went to the top!  She started to get nervous as the stairs got tighter and higher, but she made it.  Only 5 years old and she made it.  We took a few cute pictures and headed back down to Cinco.

London StoneBefore we left for England, Cinco and I studied some of the foundation myths of London.  One dated back to the story of Aeneas.  One of his sailors, Brutus, founded the city and this is the foundation stone. It’s in the old city and we walked by after the Cathedral.

Then it was off to bed!

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June 20, 2014 · 10:16 pm

London’s Natural History Museum: Mom Camp Day 7

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Our second day in London was spent at the famous Natural History Museum. We arrived and went straight to the dino exhibit.  It fills up fast and I wanted the kids to get a good view of everything!

Pictures by Cinco!

Pictures by Cinco!

Cinco and The Princess LOVED it! Cinco even asked to borrow my phone and used it to take photo’s of the dino bones. I think he must have taken over 100 photos. Everything was interesting to him and everything needed to be examined and documented.

At the end of the dino exhibit is an animatronic T-Rex. Everyone bottle necks in the room and watches it for quite sometime. What was rather funny about the T-Rex, is that our local Natural History Museum in Las Vegas has an almost identical T-Rex. We went all the way to London and stood in a big crowd to see something we could see at home any old time… haha..20140617-131835.jpg

We got one of the explorer backpacks for kids from the main desk. Our was about Mammals.20140617-150047.jpg Based on clues in the backpack, we had to play detective and figure out our mammal. The choice was quickly narrowed down to either a wolf or a bear. We had a claw, a set of teeth and a patch of fur. Cinco got it right off the bat and The Princess needed all three clues before she figured it was the polar bear.

Then it was time for another great museum lunch! The kids were less than happy.

Having read the Ashton Place novels–particularly the third one (Review Available Here)–, the kids were very interested in the birds. The were most interested in the ostreages and dodos which are prominently featured in books 3 and 4. We made it to the bird area and everything was going well. We saw the dodo and the ostreages.

Then things took a turn for the worse…we happened upon a series of glass cases displaying only the bird’s head– mainly humming birds. This did NOT sit well with The Princess. She quickly figured out that these little creatures had been decapitated in LARGE numbers. There was no crying but rather an uncomfortable horror at the notion that anyone would think cutting the heads off these beings was acsetpable. I think it hit her hard because we have many humming birds that come to visit us in out backyard and they are very small and rather harmless.

After hightailing it out of there, we explored the museum’s amazing earth science section. The area is accessed through an escalator that goes into a structure meant to be the center of the earth. This was somewhat unsettling for the kids after the bird experience. By the time we reached the earthquake none of the kids would do the simulation. So, I went ahead and did it without them! It lasts a lot longer than I thought it would.

The Princess never really recovered from the bird incedent so we left the museum and went out into the nature garden behind the building. The weather we lovely and the museum was sponsoring a Ladybug hunt. Amazingly, we found quite a few. Most of them were young bugs that had not transformed into the bright red, spotted bugs we all know and love.

 

 

 

 

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June 18, 2014 · 3:29 pm

FLYING FUN with Mom Camp Day 5

Yes, I am counting the flight and the airport time as two separate days. I mean come on, it’s an international flight and keeping the kids together (figuratively, not literally is challenging!) on the flight is enough to turn any mom’s hair gray.

First of all, I cheated! I bought tickets on Virgin Atlantic. It’s more expensive, but the inflight entertainment is totally worth it. Each person gets a choice of movies and games to keep them occupied. Frozen and the Lego Movie hurrah! And, Virgin even offers special kid friendly meals. Not that anyone loves airplane food.

Kid stuff

Girl’s Pack

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Boy’s Pack

Second, I am going with the old standby toys. Each one has a backpack filled with little items. There is one item per hour per child— a lot of stuff.

A few things are from the dollar store, but a lot of the things are print outs from the internet about England:

 

  • PaperToys.com has a ton of stuff. Why not print out a double-decker bus? Big Ben? Shakespeare’s Globe? I had to cut out the patterns before we got on the plane to avoid the TSA scissor issue (although I hear now you can bring tiny scissors with you). I also packed glue stick for the kids so they can glue the paper crafts together and crayons.

 

  • Practical Pages offers tons of adorable paper dolls and period costumes for boys and girls. You can find Romans, Vikings, women from the Georgian period, and Elizabethans.

 

  • The Official Page for Hampton Court offers printable hats and hoods from the Tudor period for boys and girls. I printed them on card stock. I packed a few stick on gems to go with this craft so the kids could really bling out their creations. I mean, that is how King Henry VIII would have wanted it, right?

Third, snacks. I know, chips and candy aren’t the best food in the world. But hey, it’s a vacation!

snakcs

Fourth, I did not forget the disposable tooth brushes with toothpaste already applied on them. I have fuzzy socks and sleep masks for both kids. Cinco even got a mask with Zombie eyes on it. So fun…

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June 17, 2014 · 1:20 pm

Mom Camp Day 4: At the Airport

With a 10+ hour flight from Las Vegas to London, Mom Camp’s fearless leader, ME, had to get creative.

Before even getting on the plane, we needed to get the airport 2.5 hours early for an international flight. After check-in and such, we had time to kill. I decided we needed to have a few games for our downtime at the airport. These games needed to involve full body movement without bugging the heck of everyone else waiting for their airplane.

  • Simon Says: This is always a good one to pull out of your pocket when you have a little space and little time to kill. I had the kids do things such as marching in place, turning in a circle, jumping jacks and just plan old jumping up and down.

 

  • A few choruses of Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes: I know Cinco is a bit old for the song but The Princess is still a perfect age for it and well, he joined in because she was doing it. One word of advise….make sure the kids sing it in a whisper.

 

  • Airport Scavenger Hunt: This one required Queen Gram to watch the bags, b/c heaven knows I am not toting a round a bunch of carry luggage as we comb through the airport looking for things. This is another good time killer that gets the kids up and moving. Try The Game Gal’s Hunt. It’s easy for littler kids or as she suggests, you can modify the items to make them more specific and a tougher for older kids.

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June 10, 2014 · 3:38 pm

Mom Camp Goes International

This year mom camp is taking it to the next level. We are going on expedition to Great Britain. I know it is insanely ambitious to take a 5 year old, 8 year old and my hubs over the ocean for two and half weeks, but I’ve wanted to go on this trip for more than 3 years.

The basic plan is that my mom, hence forth known as Queen Gram (this is a title she gave herself), will fly over with me and the kids for the first week in London. Then The Captain joins us and Queen Gram flies back to the states. The Captain does not like big cities and has been to London before and frankly has to work so someone can pay for our journey. For the following week and 1/2 we drive around the southern part of England until we hit Wales. We drive up the coast of Wales and leave out of Manchester.

(This is right about the time you must be thinking I am smoking crack…. really all this with two kids under 10! At least The Captain convinced me NOT to add another week and take the kiddos to Ireland, too…. Yes, folks crazy bookymom really thought that was a good idea at first. I mean the flight are so expensive I wanted to maximize the experience. But, The Captain made me realize if I kept us on the road that long, our vacation might end in divorce!)

Now, you keep you updated, I have planned this out as much as I can. I mean I have a 32 page agenda that contains all sorts of information… such as the best park lots for our visit to Bath, England. It’s not unlike when Jillian and I went to Italy. The poor dear had to put up with one of my mega agendas. She politely started calling our trip “Tour of the Obscure”. Although, I think she had an okay time when all was said and done….

None-the-less, I full expect there will be LOTS of hiccups and hopefully, lots of good stories!

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