A rich archive of weekly “Taking the Kids Columns” in newspaper syndication since 1992
Need a saddle blanket? Not to keep warm, to eat. In cowboy parlance, a saddle blanket is a pancake; belly wash is coffee and Pecos strawberries are beans. Welcome to Fort Worth, Texas, which prides itself on being known as the City of Cowboys.
It’s worth the effort, I promise, to take the kids and grandkids. For a few hours you can forget the baking, the shopping and the wrapping and just enjoy the holidays and each other.
Let’s play the what-if game. What if Mother Nature derails your holiday travel plans — as it did for so many people I know earlier this month during Hurricane Sandy and during the Christmas blizzard that crippled the East Coast two years ago?
Inevitably, we’ll reminisce about less-than-perfect Thanksgiving gatherings, like the time we arrived back home at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago to discover our car battery was dead, or the time in Connecticut our dog devoured the homemade pate a cousin brought to Thanksgiving dinner before anyone had a bite.
The Hall of North American Mammals, with its famous mammal dioramas, includes several that recreate scenes from national parks and monuments that Theodore Roosevelt helped preserve and protect.
it’s worth checking out a bike tour wherever you are visiting with the kids. You can bike along the new beach promenade in Clearwater, Fla., or sample Portland’s famous local eats on a Bites by Bike tour that claims it is the best in the country for cyclists, offering an extensive network of trails.
You don’t need a gourmet meal to enjoy snowshoeing. It’s fun to take a sandwich and hot cider with you in your backpack; it’s fun just to get out and enjoy the back-country landscape away from the hustle and bustle of a snow sports resort. I try to take a day off from skiing each trip just for the experience.
Thirty-seven percent of leisure travelers say they’ve traveled with grandkids just this past year. Twenty-two percent report they are even leaving their children behind and just inviting the grandkids along….
No guilt allowed! We keep telling ourselves that all weekend. I’m in Scottsdale, AZ for a moms’ getaway weekend with an old friend I don’t see nearly enough. She lives on the West Coast; I live across the country.
If you’re thinking Halloween is weeks away, think again. These days, Halloween lasts the entire month of October! There are frightful — and not so frightful — theme park extravaganzas, boo at the zoos and much more…