Wisconsin Dells

June 13, 2009

As a child living and learning in Wisconsin, I knew the Wisconsin Dells were the only part of Wisconsin that did not get flattened and scraped by the ancient glaciers. Very much later in life I explored them a little bit. The Wisconsin Dells are great for family expleriences galore! The Wilderness Resort website has all kinds of ideas for activities.


Green Hour

June 12, 2009

Lots of my past blog posts support this concept – the Green Hour. Here is the Green Hour website encouraging parents to get their children playing outdoors for at least an hour a day. It is a program sponsored by the National Wildlife Federation.

Other posts with the Green Hour tag.


Kids Soar on Wings of Butterflies

June 11, 2009

Suzanne Broughton from the ‘ocmoms’ Orange County Register Moms Blog (with photos) wrote a great article about the St Regis Monarch Beach resort weekly Butterfly Release Ritual.

For the price of the valet parking, the whole family got a very special opportunity to watch the release of Monarch Butterflies from a big jar into the Dana Point, CA sky and the magical experience of each child to have a single butterfly on his/her finger for a while to marvel before it flitted off. Suzanne’s daughter to her “that her heart was beating so fast when they brought out the butterflies, she could hardly breathe.”

You have several opportunities to do this with your family if you are in the Southern California area – St Regis does it every Saturday at 7 p.m. through Sept. 5.

For other free or low-cost activities for families, visit ocregister.com/momblog.


Walking – Favorite Exercise for America

June 10, 2009

Richard Seven wrote Walking Toward Well-being: America’s Favorite Exercise in The Seattle Times. It’s fun, easy and inexpensive! An hour of walking outdoors with the grandkids counts as an hour of outside activity for Go Play Outside!!

Richard’s article had a link to find a walkers group if you’re interested joining one — or starting your own — see http://walkers.meetup.com. You can enter your own zipcode to find groups near you – or see a list of people interested in joining one if you would start it! There are all kinds of interesting groups: for example, a Tacoma walking-with-dogs group, or a collaboration of Redmond/Kirkland moms-with-strollers.


Great American Backyard Campout

June 9, 2009

Be Out there! On June 27th join the Great American Backyard Campout with the National Wildlife Federation Great American Backyard Campout. Planning your campout is helped along with this website. Campfire songs and crafts and activities are linked here. And don’t forget to review my earlier post about camping with children!


New Whitewater Park at Rock Park

June 8, 2009

There is a new Whitewater Park at Rock Park in Sparks, NV. Now there is quite the rapids to get through if you start at Reno and float your way down to Sparks on the Truckee River! Overcoming early obstacles, the revamping of the river at Rock Park is the start of river restoration that’s taking place. More info is here.


Ten Tips for Camping with Kids

June 7, 2009

Ten Tips for Camping with Kids was an article in the 6/6/09 Reno Gazette Journal that called out to family campers. The attitude of the GROWNUPS is key!! Plan for fun but still have rules! This is well worth your time even if you aren’t in the Reno area – apply it to your area!


Free Fishing Days!

June 6, 2009

This next week (June 6-14) is National Fishing and Boating Week. It is every year for the first full week of June. It coincides with Free Fishing Days in most of the States. Free Fishing Day means Grandpa can take the grandkids fishing and not need a license to do so! Check out the details at www.takemefishing.com. You can select your state to see if and when your state’s Free Fishing Day is.

The Reno Gazette Journal article identified June 13 to be Free Fishing Day at Nevada’s Division of State Parks parks. According to Dave Morrow, administrator of the Nevada Division of State Parks, “all of our water-based parks are participating by giving free entrance to visitors who show fishing poles at the park entrance.” Some of the participating parks are Washoe Lake, Sand Harbor, Dayton, Rye Patch State Recreation Area and Fort Churchill State Historic Park.

From the Nevada Department of Wildlife site, the Sparks Marina will have Rotary members from Sparks and Reno and staff from the Nevada Department of Wildlife on hand to assist those with little or no fishing experience. Fishing equipment will be available for children to use if they don’t have their own. Parents must accompany their children to the event.


Go Play Outside!

June 5, 2009

The Grandparents.com website is logging the number of hours grandparents spend outside with their grandchildren this summer. For every hour logged Grandparents.com will donate to KaBOOM! to bringing play into the lives of children. Remember my blog about KABOOM!, finding Playspaces and Julianne Hough earlier? This effort to log outside activity is a fun one for grandparents to get involved in!


Nana’s Corner of Life

June 4, 2009

I found a really neat grandparent website called Nana’s Corner of Life that is really worth checking out! There are awesome poems and good information there! Her motto is “Together we can create a better world!” Yes, we can! It’s well worth your while!