• active family travel - Travel

    Snorkelling in Yelapa Mexico with Mosquito Jellyfish

    July 4, 2014 - By 

    When the mosquito jellyfish bit me I stopped short a moment, treading water, breathing and wondering what just happened. Am I hurt? Did I imagine that? Should I bail? I am far from an adventuresome swimmer. In fact, truth be told, I almost drowned once in a wave pool. Michael Phelps, I am not. But my kids swim beautifully and are well on their way to summers filled with pool parties and maybe even jobs as lifeguards. Today I am snorkelling in Yelapa, Mexico with my daughter and some travel bloggers. Living the life, admiring the view until this happens….…

  • active family travel - family - parenting - Parenting - Travel

    Summer Math and Travel With Tweens

    July 3, 2014 - By 

    This summer I am trying my hardest to trick my brain into forgetting summer math. June plus July plus August equals my three favourite months. Summer is fleeting, especially in Canada. It’s a blink-and-you-miss-it-kind-of-season. Time flies, but summer time well that’s like a Concord whipping by at breakneck speed. how many more weeks do we get to enjoy this beautiful weather? How much more time off school? How many more summers with my kids at home? Only 6 more years and one will be in college or university. That’s tween Mom math. Summer math. In my experience, the only way…

  • active family travel - family travel - Travel

    Funky Mural in Puerto Vallarta Mexico

    June 25, 2014 - By 

    Mad love for Mexico any time of year. It is always a reliable family trip and affordable as well. But the public art and the food tours this last time sealed the deal for me. Check out this funky mural in Puerto Vallarta Mexico.           This was a quick tour through a very funky hotel inspired by Frieda Kahlo. It is in the old downtown area not far from the flea markets and the Malecon in Puerto Vallarta. The colours were magnificent and we might not have stopped if not for Raj. But sometimes when a…

  • active family travel - family travel - Travel

    The CasaMagna Marriott Puerto Vallarta #travel #PVpresstrip

    June 12, 2014 - By 

    Let’s start at the beginning. I have so much to share about our mother daughter trip to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. There’s the time my 12-year-old zip lined high above a Mexican canyon of sorts and then rappelled down the side of a mountain and swam with dolphins. But, you will have to wait for that. This is the story of our resort. The place we ate and swam and hung out at the beach and collapsed fast asleep. The CasaMagna Marriott Puerto Vallarta Resort and Spa, was located less than a ten minute drive from Gustavo Diaz Ordaz International Airport Puerto…

  • active family travel - Health - infertility - parenting - Parenting - special needs

    Hoping for Okay: Sending A Special Needs Child To Camp

    July 23, 2013 - By 

    Sending kids with special needs to camp is never simple. You have to vet camps hard to find one that might be capable of handling your children. Oh I know most make mention of inclusive policies and such. But, I have seen how this works in practice sometimes and it doesn’t. So, forgive me while I hold my breath and pray that this camp works this time. This morning, I woke fingers crossed and holding my breath. Today I have both kids at camp. No fires to put out. No demands beyond work. No calls from the camp stating: “What…

  • active family travel - parenting - Parenting

    How Do You Measure Eleven?

    July 2, 2013 - By 

    This was 11. This was 11. The year you grew maybe an inch in height. Not so much really compared to all the years that came before, but then again who really measures growth in inches? Eleven was the year you faced camp, for the first time on your own. A week with friends and it was glorious, or so I am told daily as the camp countdown begins another year. This was the year you finished grade six. The year I had to pull you out of school for two whole weeks because of a terrible fit between you…

  • active family travel - family - parenting - Travel

    Addalock Review – Safe on the Go #Travel Lock

    April 30, 2012 - By 

    Addalock Review   Imagine a lock on the go. Addalock is a simple effective little invention you can toss in your suitcase and carry with you anywhere. When I heard about the device I was interested because safety is a huge priority here and because I have a child with special needs who wanders. Now, I am pretty sure that Addalock wasn’t intended necessarily as a special needs tool, but I can see useful applications here. My daughter from a very young age could get out any door and had very little impulse control, so we were hypervigilant, and we…

  • active family travel

    Safety Tat Review: Keeping Your Children Safe #travel

    August 1, 2011 - By 

    My daughter using the Safety Tat on her arm at Disney’s Blizzard Beach recently Safety Tat goes on like a transferable tattoo but it has the thickness and texture of a bandaid Did you know that 90 % of families will experience losing a child in a public place? Almost everyone will remember the trauma of getting lost. And in the US over 2,000 kids get lost every day. In Canada, in 2009 alone 50,492 children were reported missing. When it comes to safety and public places you can’t be careful enough with children. And even when you are sometimes…