The WEATHER is NOT Cooperating!?

The trip is perfectly planned, you've crossed all of the "t's" and dotted all of the "i's", made all of your connections without a hitch. After arriving at the dream beach house, the inclement weather arrives, and you've found you are NOT prepared for this situation.... (oh, and we want to help you NOT turn on the TV.....)

Here are a few things you can do almost anywhere, anytime....

• Lean 'em" card toss game: no card reading skills necessary, just deal the cards out evenly amongst the players, choose a spot away from a wall, and try to toss and get the most of YOUR cards to lean up against the wall (obviously easier on a carpeted floor, but take the challenge on a hardwood floor!). Make up your own point system for those leaning tall or horizontally etc.. Different colored decks of cards per player make it easier to figure out who owned which cards (or sort by suit)
  
• Trail Mix: Head to the kitchen and mix up some trail mix. Go traditional and use peanuts and raisins, add chocolate (make it colorful with M&Ms), we also like to add any 'brown' cereal (like bran chex), pretzels, Goldfish snacks - use your (healthy) 'snacking' imagination
  
• Draw a Meal: have a child that doesn't want to help put a meal together? Get him/her a placemat-sized piece of paper (or try one of these DOODLE pads to get you going), and have them sketch out their napkin, knife, fork, spoon, plate(s), glass/cup, etc. - ending with drawing their meal!
  
• Crayon Rubbings: add a piece of paper and rub over any object. Things that are always handy; coins, puzzle pieces, pieces of cloth, bandaids, rubber bands, paper clips
  
• Collage: gather newspapers and old magazines, child safe scissors and some glue sticks and let the creating begin. A great exercise in 'art from recycling!'
  
• Dollar Quiz: can your child find the following: name of the President, where the bill was printed, Series year, value of the bill, how many times the value (number) of the bill is on it, make up your own 'finds'
  
• Learn Sign Language... start with the Alphabet, here's a link to a site we like.
  
• Play the little game of "I'm on a trip, the weather is NOT cooperating, and I wish I'd brought....". We like to play starting with an "A" object, then "B" etc... as the next person has to repeat all previous items before adding a new one, and it makes it a bit easier to remember that way
  
• Silent Game :-) Challenge the kids (and adults!) to 'how many minutes can you go....' without speaking, moving, blinking.... or whatever you'd like them to try. Or just do a charade like game where you must communicate without talking.
  

A few things we recommned having for an 'emergency'

• Crayons
• Scrap Paper and/or drawing Pad (paper airplanes?)
  
• Playing Cards
• String Thing (Cat's Cradle!)
  
• Marbles
• Scrap Paper
• Magazines, Newspapers
• Child-safe Scissors

Remember, with a little planning (and trying to see the 'unseen') will make sure your "kids travel happy" :-)

Keep it Simple... you'll be amazed

After a weekend on an island (this sounds like a bigger story than it actually was....) with 10 adults and 11 kids, we realized how excellent it is NOT to have much for toys and to see what the kids come up with for entertainment. Of course I'd love for KidsTravelHappy to be able to take credit for supplying all (or at least SOME) of the unplugged entertainment for the kids, but nature and seemingly mundane tasks did that for us.

We were amazed at the kids dedication and focus on sawing wood for the fire (with adult supervision of course) - not only was this entertaining, but very purposeful, as the weather was chilly and we used the fire to cook and to gather for warmth and conversation.
A little background.... we were on an island on a lake in Western Maine called Mooselookmeguntic (after some research, we find that the interesting name "Mooselookmeguntic" is said to have come from an ancient Abanaki word, meaning 'portage to the moose feeding place, or moose feeding among the trees.") Ironically, we did see a moose just before we arrived at the lake. The moose had nearly missed a fatal crash with a pickup truck one vehicle ahead of us!

In order to camp on Students Island, one has to paddle a canoe (or other craft) to the island, and transport all the stuff one might want for the extent of time one is there, in our case this was 3 days/2 nights. For us it meant two trips "from the mainland" (an adventure in itself), one with some things, and the kids, the second with the dog and the rest of the supplies, very little of which was toys.
What else did we do? Hike, swim (despite the chilly days), nature walks (older kids guided the younger teaching about trees, mushrooms and more), roast dinner on the fire, run (run, run), play games with 'sticks and stones' (and NO broken bones!).... It makes me happy to see kids do SO much with so little - no beeps, electronics, battery toys, etc. just plain old fun; more like what I remember doing with my friends growing up. Best of all, I'd like to think that the kids will take these memories with them into adulthood. And, with 3 dogs in our group, even they wore each other out (note photo of our black lab mix above, asleep....)

View.... CLICK... View... repeat

We are so excited to bring these to our site and to our shop! Nostalgic, fun, simple, entertaining, and inexpensive. What else could one want??

The View-Master is back! One of the original reliably fun & battery-free toys from my childhood! If you can't find YOUR old one, $4.99 will get you started with our RED View Master and a DEMO reel. Then, you can start collecting some of the many 3-reel sets available! Happy 'viewing'.