It really shouldn't have been a good camping trip. 95-degree days in the Carolina low country, with an average of 85 percent humidity? Two kids, one a toddler, who had never camped before? I expected it to be kind of a grind but we had a surprisingly great time during our three-day stay at Lee State Park over the eclipse weekend.

We decided to camp because literally all of the hotel rooms and Air B&Bs in the whole area were booked up by the time we made our reservations. We chose Lee State Park as our camping spot just because it was near Florence, where our friends were staying. But once we were there, and saw all the park had to offer, we were glad we chose it. First of all, Lee State Park is home to some of the largest numbers of hummingbirds in the state of South Carolina. We saw so many different varietes of them, whirring about like little jewels. Did you know they make a clicking, chirruping sound as they fly? At some points we were surrounded by what seemed like a full on swarm of them.

Besides that, we saw a ton of other wildlife during our stay. Anouk's nature journal features several different frogs, spiders, centipedes, fish (in the kid-friendly swimming hole on the grounds), lizards, and a bobcat (that we heard yowling outside our tent one night, eek!)

But probably the most interesting things we saw at the park were the artesian wells. I had never seen one before and didn't know what they were so if you're in the same boat: Basically, an artisean well is a pipe stuck down into groundwater reservoir that's under pressure so that it flows up to the surface without a pump. The water is uncontaminated so it is clear and cold and clean. In the 1930s, the CCC drilled several of these wells at Lee State Park and most of them are still pumping over 80 years later! The kid were able to splashed and played in them like fountains. It was a nice way to cool off.


If you are looking for tips for camping with kids in extreme hot weather, here are some things that helped make our trip a little easier. First, frozen water bottles. Before we left, we froze 24 water bottles and loaded them into our cooler. At night, we all took bottles to bed with us. If you wrap them in a sock adn stick them under your neck and arms, it can bring the temperature down enough so that you're comfy enough to sleep.

Second: head lamps. Anouk kept losing her flashlight in the dark and freaking out, but once we stuck the head lamp on her, she was fine and bonus was able to use her hands to make smores.

Third: the Story Nory podcast. Before bed the kids wanted bedtime stories but it was dark and by the end of the night the grownups were pooped. We put on the Story Nory podcast and let somebody else read to them instead and didn't have to haul a bunch of books around in our packs.

Four: You can never have enough toilet paper. Bring several rolls.

Five: Sawyer Picaridin Insect Repellant Lotion. (You're welcome!) It has literally no smell, doesn't feel greasy, and works just as well as DEET. It evaporates more slowly than DEET though so you don't need to reapply as often. It also doesn't carry the same neurotoxicity concerns as DEET, according to my pediatrician. Sold!

Are your little ones happy campers or do they prefer to stay indoors? What tips/recommendations can you offer for camping with kids? Hit us up!

We were on our way home from a weekend in Farmville when we saw a sign for the Crewe Railroad Museum off the highway. The little town of Crewe is in south-central Virginia, about two-and-a-half hours away from the Hampton Roads region, maybe a little far for a day trip but worth it for the look of joy on your tiny train lover's face when you arrive. And it's definitely worth a pit stop if you find yourself traveling out that way. 

The tour of the place starts with a look at old fashioned artifacts from the town's railroad days. Anouk had NO idea what the typewriter was, which was hilarious. Also hilarious: watching her try to dial an old school rotary phone. (The telegraph machine seemed completely obvious to her, "It's how people sent texts in the olden days.") From there, you move into the model train room, which was Gus's dream come true.

But the real amazing thing about the place are the train cars outside. You can climb up and go in them, sit in old passenger car seats, pretend to shovel coal in the engine, tour the caboose. The kids had so much fun looking at and touching everything and I have to admit that J. and I did, too.





It doesn't take long to see everything but after we had finished the official tour we found a shady place and let the kids play. I wish we'd had a picnic basket and maybe a stack of train books to complete the trip. I also kind of wish that I'd gotten a Norfolk & Western coffee mug from the tiny but well-stocked gift shop.

Did I mention that admission to the Crewe Railroad Museum is FREE? And that they do a huge holiday display every December?

We've been on vacation for the past week! We go to the Outer Banks of North Carolina every year so you would think that we've seen everything there is to see there. But we're still making discoveries of new and cool places to visit! Flippers Arcade is one of those places. It's not in the Outer Banks but on the way, in Grandy, which is the perfect place for a pit stop on the way home to keep the fun going.

Flippers isn't huge but it is packed with arcade games. There are traditional skee ball and air hockey and a few racing games but the real highlight are the dozens of pinball machines that line the back and side walls. There are over 60 machines in all, and seeing all of them was almost as fun as playing them. There was a Metallica pinball machine, South Park, Flintstones, and Game of Thrones, among others. In the way back of the store are some vintage arcade games, including Asteroids, Cetepede,  Pac-Man and Tron.






My only complaint was that the tokens work out to be a little pricey, since almost every game requires two (to four) to play. And not many machines give tickets so the kids were a little upset when it came time to trade them in, there weren't many options for low ticket counts. Luckily there's pizza and soda and ice cream and candy available for purchase which you can distract them with.

On our recent trip to Philly we also stopped by the Philadelphia Museum of Art. So much fun to be had in this space -- I could probably write several thousand words about how well curated their collection is and how much fun it would be for littles to walk through! Instead, though, I'll write several hundred about some of the fun books we found in the gift shop and took home to read.



Kid Artists: True Tales of Childhood from Creative Legends by David Stabler. I brought this back as a souvenir for Anouk and we've been reading a chapter or two every night before bed. Who ever imagined Picasso of Van Gogh as a little kid? But it makes these greats seem very accessible and gives a hint into why they focused their art the way they did. For instance, knowing Beatrix Potter was the lonely child of rich and inattentive parents makes you really appreciate the tiny animal friends she created for herself. Knowing Theodore Geisel (AKA Dr. Seuss) was bullied mercilessly at school makes you understand why he would want to escape into a world of fun and silliness. There's a Kid Athletes and Kid Presidents volume in the series, too.




The Game of Patterns by Herve Tullet: Tullet of Press Here fame has a whole series of books that we got to play with at the museum's play area. The Game of Patterns, The Game of Finger Worms, The Game of Shapes. They were beautifully done like all of Tullet's works and a nice break from ducks and rabbits and traditional board book fare.



A is for Art Museum by Katy Friedland. Alphabet books are nothing new but this one highlights a masterpiece seen at PMA for each letter. The text also helps children begin to understand how to see and talk about art. (Next to Picasso's Three Musicians: "M is for music. Three men dressed in costumes play music. Can you see the circles and lines of their musical notes?") Friedland's other books is Art Opposites which also focuses on the PMA collection.

I wish we could go back to Philadelphia Museum of Art soon because their Wild: Mike Nichols exhibit opens at the end of June with tons of photographs of the natural world and creatures in it. If you can't make it either, see a trailer for the exhibit here.

Ever since Darcy blogged about Philadelphia's Magic Gardens yeaaaaars ago I knew that I wanted to go there. A few weeks ago during a girls' weekend in the city, I got the opportunity to do just that and to take Gus along.

The Magic Gardens is an outdoor art installation featuring sprawling mosaics made by artist Isaiah Zagar. The mosaics are made up of bits of broken plates and tile, mirror, and ceramic cast by Zagar himself. At first it seems like total chaos, but after a while you realize that the flow of the mosaics highlight different aspects of the artist's life, his marriage and friendships, his feelings about himself. Altogether the space spans several different levels and is twisty turny. We went through the exhibit several times and saw something new on each turn. NOTE: there is a lot of nudity to see, as Zagar seemed to enjoy depicting it very much! Something to keep in mind based on your comfort level with this subject matter.

I especially liked the Magic Gardens because the little ones could enjoy it even without knowing all this backstory. They loved creeping up and down the stairs and popping into the little cubbies and hideyholes all over the place. For older kids, the staff has arranged a scavenger hunt, and I wished so hard Anouk was there to help me find each little bitty shard.








Besides the outdoor space there was an interior gallery with more examples of Zagar's (non-mosaic) work and a small but awesome gift store.

The Magic Gardens has a ton of family friendly events including mosaic workshops, twilight events, and hands on family fun. If you're local or planning a trip, click here for more info.

Anouk got a rock collection for her birthday and has been really interested in geology lately. I thought over spring break that maybe we would drive to Luray Caverns to check it out but after looking at a map decided it was too far. Much more reasonable for a day trip was the Lucky Lake Gem and Mineral Mine in McKenney, VA, just over two hours west of Norfolk. At Lucky Lake, you can see the same sorts of rocks and minerals you might find at Luray...just on a smaller scale.

Lucky Lake features flume mining, which means that you shovel buckets of dirt into small trays and shake and swish it around in the water to reveal the treasures hidden there. We examined each rock closely, kept the ones we thought might be special and dumped the rest (the staff at Lucky Lake goes through your cast-off pile to make sure you're not throwing away anything remarkable). After you've finished sifting through the bucket, they sit down with you and tell you about all of the minerals and rocks you've found, show you what they look like when they're cut and polished, and share the supposed mystical properties of each crystal (Anouk has been sleeping ever since our visit with her uncut amethyst, which is supposed to take away bad dreams).

We found aquamarine, rubies, beautiful blue sodalite, garnets and a lot of quartz. We also purchased the option where our bucket came with an already cut stone in it, so that was exciting to find our mystic topaz glimmering there. Another slightly more expensive option was to get any stone from your bucket cut and mailed to you.

Besides panning there is a picnic area and fenced yard where the kids can run and play. We brought our lunch, which ended up being good because there isn't much else around the McKenney area at all. We debated stopping in Emporia on the way home but ended up driving back, which made for a lot of driving in one day and some cranky kids. Our advice would be to find a place to camp overnight or to make a detour to McKinney on a trip to Richmond, just to prevent this from happening to you.

But overall, it was worth it, even the cranky kids. One of our coolest road trips to date!

One of the signs of spring in the Coastal Virginia area is the annual Gloucester Daffodil Festival. Anouk loves daffodils (her birthday flowers) and begged to go, and so we made the hour and a half or so drive from Norfolk this past weekend. Worth it! Besides enough flowers to make a horticulturalist (or Anouk) happy, the daffodil festival features a parade, vendors, food, crafts, music, and enough more to keep a couple of kids occupied for four or five hours, give or take a minor meltdown or two.
All three of our kids loved the dog show (so many furry friends to pet!). They also enjoyed peeking into the Gloucester Court House and History Museum, and running around the grass outside. Anouk had a blast working with the Fairfield Foundation as they did archaeological work uncovering the site of a 19th century store. Gus was pretty happy with the giant bag of kettle corn we bought.



 It would have been nice if the kids area had featured more activities that didn't involve waiting in the longest-ever lines, but we are already looking forward to coming back for the Daffodil Festival next year and spending more time in Gloucester in general. It's one of the cutest little towns in the area and there were so many local businesses we didn't get to stop by on this visit. I probably could have spent four or five hours in the used bookstore alone.

The daffodil has a long history in Gloucester County, which I didn't know until the festival, and for centuries was one of the area's biggest sources of income. Super interesting (if you're into that sort of thing, which I am). Read all about it here.