Summer Lovin'...Had us a blast! Summer of 2011

This was a week of rest from our trip to Boston. However, it was also the week where Bank Of America sponsors Free Museum Day. So, we all agreed to head to the Intrepid Sea, Air, and Space Museum. It was a hot day and I haven learned that to keep ourselves cool, I put bottles of water in the freezer (make sure you pour some out first) and when we head out we each carry a frozen bottle of water to place on our pulse points to keep ourselves cool. It also gives us really cold water to drink. It certainly helped with my kids and their complaints about the humidity.

The Intrepid was very interesting and one could spend at least 4 hours there.

Space Hands

Rock the Boat, don't rock the boat baby.

As you can see, it is very interactive. There is also a cafe there in case you or the little ones get hungry. The boys all had a great time. They probably could have spent more time there; however, they were also getting tired.

During this particular week there was a lot of heat and humidity. There was one particular day where it was at a heat index of 110 degrees. This was when we decided to drive to the Liberty Science Center in New Jersey at Liberty Park. It's a lovely location. This is also where you can get the ride to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty; however, since we did this just 2 years ago, we opted to just head to the Science Center. Plus, it was just too hot to be anywhere outside.

As I have mentioned before, if you have a Science Museum membership where they belong to the ASTC group, then you have reciprocity amongst these museums. The best is that you get in FREE when you live 90 miles or more from the museum. It's great because we used this at the Boston Science Center as well. It was a great day for the kids and we all stayed cool inside.

1776...no, not the musical June/July 2011

(This is a repeated blog. I thought I hadn't posted this trip, but apparently I did. Check out: "Who's Got the Paine or just re-read and enjoy) We had the fortunate chance to meet up with our oldest son's classmate in Boston. His classmate's father is a Bostonian and we decided to head to the Boston Museum of Science and then to walk the Freedom Trail with the kids. This was a great way for the kids to experience history. There are walking tours that you can take; however, we had our own guide decided to forego the paid tours.There is a wonderful website that you can use in sync with your smartphone of the Freedom Trail that will offer all the history you need as you arrive at each landmark.

Freedom Trail (red line)

Paul Revere's House

oldest street (cobblestones)

Faneuil Hall

oldest restaurant

 The Museum of Science is located in Science Park. It's an easy ride there via train or bus. The day we went MBTA was renovating the Science Park train station and so notices from the Museum and various postings throughout the train stations stated how MBTA would provide us with a bus to connect with the museum at its nearest train station. It was all very easy.

On another day, our friends invited us to their family summer home in Little Compton. We have never been there and found out it was just Rhode Island (about 1.5 hr away from Boston proper). It was a gorgeous getaway that reminds me a little of Martha's Vineyard. What fun we had that day kayaking (clear bottom kayak), boogie boarding at the nearby beach, looking at the many lobster traps and the beautiful sunset. We were very grateful to have been invited to such a lovely place for some relaxing fun.

Little Compton

Oh Canada!!!! Arriving in Vancouver, B.C. Summer 2017

As I have been blogging off and on for almost a decade now, I have found myself traveling with teenagers. Yes, they do grow and how we travel begins to change and shift. I will continue blogging about my travels and share with you what I do presently. Here we go...........

Our lives are quite busy nowadays with sports and a lot of other extracurricular activities. I just realized it's been 2 years since I have blogged about our travels. I can't believe life got THAT busy, but it did. When they say it gets easier when the kids grow up, they are wrong. The kids can handle themselves more independently, but extracurriculars are insane. We aren't the type of family who makes the kids do everything. We are far from that so I can't imagine how other parents do it. I will admit that it takes a village to raise your family.

I will try to catch up on the other visits we made between my last blog and this one. For now, I will start with what is fresh in my mind.

Our family reunion has been planned by all of my cousins and my aunts and uncles. Unfortunately, this reunion was brought about by my mother's passing. Her brothers and sisters felt we all needed to see each other more often for good reasons rather than to say our goodbyes to those who will be missed.

Since I have family in Vancouver, British Columbia, we all decided that would be a fun place for a 4-day reunion (long weekend). My husband, myself, and the kids stayed a bit longer to meet up with friends. This is one of those trips where I didn't have to do too much research since my family were the best tour guides. I had been there before, in fact many times growing up; however, this is only the second time for our boys and now they are teenagers it will be memorable.

We flew WestJet airlines and it was very affordable coming from the SF Bay Area. This is the one area I knew I had to put in some work. We knew about the family reunion about 5 mos in advance and hence, my constant search for the best flight prices. I looked through various airlines to compare the prices and to search for direct flights. Out of the many airlines flying into Vancouver, we found that WestJet had the best economical prices. I did keep in mind that it was only a 2 hr flight and flying in something more economical may not give us the most space, but for a 2 hr. flight I knew we would be fine (the flight ended up taking us only 1hr 45 min). The flight was clean, efficient, and on time. Once again, I like the early flights because of the traffic here in the Bay Area. I like to avoid the traffic and it leads to less people in the morning. We flew in on a Thursday and the prices were still very good.

I had booked a rental car via Travelocity and used my Discover card to reserve our car. This was my first mistake!!! Canada is not familiar with the Discover card and not many

businesses take it. I didn't realize this and should have thought about it initially. So, this led to a horrible experience trying to get a rental car. They only take Visa or MasterCard. Since I didn't bring mine with me (well, I had a Visa Debit, but they didn't take that), I had to call my husband. He was there already for a quick job that had ended the day before. Fortunately, my cousin was able to bring him to us so we could use his card to get our rental. What was frustrating was that we used the local car rental place and they were of no help whatsoever!!! They just denied our reservation, although the reservation was confirmed via Travelocity, and then did us no help (poor customer service) to help us find another car rental place. This car rental place was off the site of the airport. My boys and I carried our luggage and walked to another car rental for help. Enterprise was wonderful!! Even though they didn't take my Discover, they let my boys and I sit there, cool off, took our luggage to a corner of the office so we could sit and wait for my husband. There was a Costco across the street. We were hungry. My boys were getting hangry!!

We ended up eating lunch at Costco and the beauty of a Canadian Costco? Poutine!!! My boys love fries and they especially love poutine. We were able to grab a bite and when my husband arrived with my cousins, they ate there as well. Enterprise must have felt bad for us because they ended up upgrading us to an SUV from an Economy car. We drove to my other cousin's house where they had an in-law for us to stay during our visit.

Lions Gate Bridge

Our first stop, since we arrived @ 10am, was to Stanley Park. It reminds me of our park here in San Francisco, the Golden Gate Park. The boys enjoyed stretching their legs and climbing trees and tree stumps on the waters edge. It was a beautiful day in Vancouver, B.C. My uncle stated that I always say that when I'm there visiting them. He said that it's because I'm only there during the summer months which is why everything is so lush and beautiful. The rest of the year, it's pretty wet and cold. The weather is probably a lot like Seattle. Oh, and one more thing. My Canadian cousins stated that it's not always easier to fly to Seattle, rent a car, and drive through the borders. Apparently, their last drive through the border took over three hours. There are a lot of people crossing the border and the border agents aren't the quickest in processing. Unless you have the Nexus or Global pass (?), you will sit for a bit. We were happy flying direct to Vancouver. For everyone else, heed this warning.

Hawaiian Honey of Mine (Radio Gals)

 Our trip this Fall Break was to Hilo, Hawaii. If you look at my post 7 years ago, you will find our trip to the other side of the Big Island of Hawaii, Kona.

This was our view from the plane of Mauna Kea. This place was amazing to visit and I'm going to write about this now because in order to go stargazing at Mauna Kea, you can't have any light (even from the cellphone) and service is very limited.
Mauna Kea is about 13,700 ft and is an amazing place to view the stars of our planet. You can go up to Mauna Kea visitor center just before sunset and hike as well as watch a few videos of Mauna Kea and the history of the volcano.
It gets quite cold up there. There was about a 25 degree difference in temperature when we went there. It was about 86 degrees and when we arrived at Mauna Kea as the sun was setting, it was 62 degrees. My suggestion is to have layers in the car so you and the family can stay warm. The gift shop does provide t-shirts, beanies, sweatshirts for purchase as well as hot chocolate, coffee and other foods. However, always best to be prepared. The number of incredibly expensive telescopes were placed as the astronomers were setting them up for the public to enjoy. These park professionals are quite serious when they say no white light. Here's another suggestion: bring flashlights and put a red film on top to avoid the "finger pointing" of who has the white light on. Also, get there at least an hour before sunset so you can find parking. The parking lot is not very big and gets full quite quickly. If you have children (U16) with you, you will not be able to pass the visitor center to head up to the Observatory. The amount of people getting altitude sickness is serious! Also, you will have to have a 4WD car. Yes, there are people from the park who are monitoring who goes up to the Observatory. It's that serious!
The night sky was unbelievably clear. The sky was filled with stars every which way. It was really incredible and such a beautiful sight to see. A few of the telescopes were pointed at Saturn. It was very clear and one could see the rings around Saturn. Caution: if you bring the children, make sure they do not touch the telescope. They may accidentally move it and then the astronomer has to come over to recalibrate the position of the telescope. The reason why I mention this is because there is typically a long line behind the 4 - 5 incredibly large telescopes, it's cold, and people can get a little impatient. So, just take a look and enjoy, but don't touch. There were other celestial notings that other telescopes were pointing to and it was really fun to learn about them.
About an hour and a half after sunset, there is an astronomer who will give you a tour of the night sky. S/he is filled with lots and lots of information. Your children as well as you will enjoy the lecture/tour. We all had a great time!

Okay, that was a digression, but had to share that info with you while I had the picture from the plane. Now, to find housing. We chose Hilo, HI originally because we wanted to go back to Volcano National Park. The boys loved it there the first time and since they are older now, we chose to revisit the place to see how much they remembered.

Hilo is the rainy side of the Big Island (Big I). It received 155" of rain a year. There are no sandy beaches on this side of the island. However, there are a lot of tide pools and the underwater life is truly spectacular.

I wanted to find a place to rent because there weren't a lot of hotels that seemed fitting for our family. I went onto TripAdvisor to research all the reviews. I use TripAdvisor a lot! I like doing my research there. And I started my research at least 4-5 mos. ahead of time. With my busy schedule, it takes that much time for me to find the place I think would be fitting for us.

Lanai from Family Room

Back of Mele Kai

     We found this place called Mele Kai. It is a vacation rental near the towns Pahoa and Kea'au. The price was right and the place was beautiful. The photos are exactly how the house looks and we thoroughly enjoyed. Not a lot of homes in Hilo have a/c and that is the one thing I had a hard time acclimating to. The humidity made it hard for me to sleep the first night; however, it didn't seem to bother the children or my husband. The tradewinds do pick up; however, when it's 85% humid and still fairly warm outside, all the windows being opened was not really cooling me off. There were ceilings fans throughout the house and that helped. By the second night, I was doing a bit better and the weather did cool down a bit in the late evenings as the week progressed. 

There were a lot of lovely details to the house that we really enjoyed. The high ceilings were wonderful and the architecture of the house surrounding the lava was clever and gorgeous. The house was only about 100 steps away from the beach. There is a private gate to the property as well as to the beach. However, "Beach Rd" was a popular destination for the locals. They go there to fish and a lot of dog walkers are there in the early mornings and evenings. 

walkway to front of house

 Our lanai looked out into the ocean and it was always breathtaking to have breakfast out there every morning. The ground is uneven when you walk in the backyard and to the ocean front as it is all lava (pahoehoe) so be prepared to have proper shoes as you walk toward the ocean.

back of house near ocean

Beach Road

Ocean front

pahoehoe

hello from Master bedroom lanai

Small details surrounding the house that the kids enjoyed looking for while perusing the grounds.

foyer

entrance to interior of house

This is the foyer to the house. It splits into the upper and lower levels of the house. The lower levels have the 2 bedrooms and the double sink and outdoor shower (beautifully designed). The laundry room is here as well. The foyer is open to the lava and is stunning when you first walk in.

Something else to keep in mind around this whole neighborhood (neighbors aren't that close to you). There are wild roosters and hens throughout the island. They just roam around and are quite fun to watch; however, they crow early in the mornings. EVERY MORNING!!! They would start crowing around 5:30am. By the third night, I was used to them and it didn't bother me too much. But, coming from the Mainland, those first few mornings, was quite exhausting. The Coqui frogs are all around as well. You will hear them every night, but they didn't bother any of us. We enjoyed their songs every night. 

We rented our car from a local company. They truly offer the best prices!!! We went through Hawaii Drive-O to get our Standard SUV. They were significantly less expensive than renting directly through Alamo. When I say significant, I mean by a few hundred dollars. But, you must reserve earlier. We almost did not get our rental car from them and would have had to pay a lot more for a smaller car, but a cancellation came through and we were able to secure our SUV. 

Because we were about 25 min south of Downtown Hilo, we decided to purchase our groceries before heading to the house. This was also at the advice of Juan de Armas, who was the agent taking care of the rental. He gave us great directions to this place! Not easy when there are no street lights and lava grounds are black. Makes for a really dark ride and can be tough to find this hidden treasure called Mele Kai. We also rented our snorkel gear from Nautilus Dive in Downtown Hilo. They were very accommodating. We arrived in Hilo around 4:35p and by the time we got our rental car, it was 5pm. The shop closes at 5pm; however, they told us to go ahead and call them because if they are still there, they will let us pick up our rental gear. Sure enough, they were there and stayed open for us. They are only about 7 min. from Hilo Airport. It was an easy and quick drive to them. They were very affordable ($6 for mask, snorkel, fins/day ;  $24/week). 

For groceries, we found a lot that was available to us. There was Safeway & Target in one lot and next to them was Walmart (all of them on Makaala St. off the Hawaiian Belt towards Pahoa). However, since my boys love their Asian foods and we love poke, we went to KTA supermarkets. It's across the Hawaiian Belt/Hiway11 near the Walmart (other side of freeway). Great variety of poke, seaweed, portuguese sausage, rice, rice crackers, etc. We just purchased what was necessary for the next morning and would take the next day to do more shopping for food. 

Fall Break 2015 - Hawaiian Airlines

I"m sure some consumers might know this already, but we were testing out when was the best time to purchase flights. We are heading to Hawaii and about 3 mos prior to our chosen date, the price was quite good. Being the frugal person I wanted to purchase them. But, we thought we'd test out what the cost would be as we got closer to the date of departure (yes, we already had our vacation rental in place). We were definitely being daring, but hey, if we could do our own test and pass along the info, then we will. We just purchased our airline tix and we are about 3 weeks out. The prices were up by a lot while we were waiting, but 3 weeks out, the prices dropped back to the price of what they were 3 mos. out. Phew! I just kept checking the airplane for seats available. Sometimes Travelocity, Orbitz, etc purchase a block of seats, but those weren't being filled. The airline site also showed us available seats. We purchased them on a Thursday night (cheapest offers for 3 weeks in a row so we waited for a Thursday night) and was able to get a good price on our seats. Now, if you're only 1 person, you can probably get better prices because you're not having to worry about getting 4 seats in the same row (have to keep the kids near us). So there you have it, 3 mos. or 3 wks prior seemed to work. 3 wks prior can lead to some sweaty palms, but hey, it worked!!! This is our info for you all today. Enjoy!

update:
We went with Hawaiian Airlines and we are so glad we flew Hawaiian Air. We were still served a complimentary breakfast with all the wonderful extras i.e. juice, snacks, etc. They were really wonderful to fly. 

later update:
My friend did frown upon HA customer service. It wasn't about the flight itself, but trying to get a gift certificate from them. So, maybe they aren't so great with the customer service; however, I had a different experience with customer service when discussing our return flight and my family did not have assigned seats. They were wonderful and stated that we were red flagged to sit together due to the fact that we had 2 minors with us. They did keep us together. 

Aquarius......(back to my musical theater titles!)

Kennedy Space Center is about an hour away from Orlando/Kissimmee. I was pleasantly surprised at all the fun things to see and do here. After many hours at Universal Studios, it was a nice change to see something that was all about science, aeronautics, space. The boys enjoyed this place with all the hands-on activities. So, here's a couple of the things we thought were worth our while.

There was only so much theme-park food that I could handle. So, I made a reservation for lunch with an astronaut. It was a very good lunch! Plus, the astronaut was truly fascinating in his slide presentation and all the questions he answered from the audience. The tables were nicely set (rather than the hoards of people at the theme park) and the food was very good (nice and hot and chef-made). This was really a great treat for us all. Met some really amazing people at our round table. We met a wonderful lady from Poland working at the University of Chicago as an oncologist doing her research. Fascinating conversation. Another young man who had just started college and really wanted to do psychology with astronauts. I kept encouraging him because we need this in our future. Another family where the father was a writer. So much fun and knowledge to soak in.

The bus tour of the Kennedy Space Center was also very interesting. It took you pass some space shuttle launching pads. The reveal to the Atlantis was mind-blowing!!!! Lots to do in there as well.

    


The rest of the Center was a lot of information. We enjoyed this place. Please give it a whole day! You will need it. I am very happy we did the lunch because the other food places were like the theme-parks (concession stands). The Rocket Garden is quite a site to see.

        

Final suggestion: Find a place for dinner before you go there. We didn't think it was going to take us the whole day and at night it is very dark there. So, make sure you have your cell phone and find a place to eat. We know how kids can get when they are hungry. Or, just get some food there for the drive home. We didn't do this and had 2 very grumpy kids on our 1 hr. drive back to the hotel.

It's been a LONG time! Here we come Orlando, Florida December 2014

I know it's been such a long time posting anything on this blog. Well, life got really busy with the kids growing up, extracurricular activities and choosing to work a bit more than part-time as a mom. I hope this entry makes up for some of it.

Our last few trips involved some of the same places that we have been to. For example, Boston, MA & Hawaii (this time Oahu). I will try to post something about those trips later.

For now, we are in Orlando, Fl. We decided on this trip because my husband was working in Tampa and in order for our family to spend Xmas together, we met up in Orlando for a week before he heads back to work. Also, it was an incentive for our youngest son to completely finish reading the Harry Potter (HP) series. He did and couldn't be more excited about our trip to Universal Studios (where HP world is set).

As you all know, I have to be frugal with our vacations due to having a family and just being raised to be frugal. I booked my flights for this holiday time in August because I had been checking on flight fees for the past 3 most prior to Aug. Finally, when I knew that school was going to start again and prices would drop, I would see if the tickets were going to be worth it. And.....they were! I was able to find round trip tickets on United. Now, my expectations of United Airlines are not high.

We chose to stay at the Caribe Royale. After searching on my favorite sites esp. TripAdvisor, Travelocity, Expedia, Caribe Royale came up as a positive place to stay for families. I was happy to say I was correct. The hotel is like an Embassy Suites where there is a living room with a sofa bed, microwave, refrigerator separated by a door. The kids could have their own space, if they wanted. We purchased the special where we receive breakfast every morning at The Tropicale Restaurant on the premises. I think this is a huge savings with 2 growing boys and heading to attractions where we are walking all day. The rooms are clean, the staff is friendly, the pool has a slide and is open till 11pm. This late closing time is crucial considering we are out all day and typically the pools are closed by the time we get back to the hotel. But, Caribe Royale keeps it open till 11pm and the 3 hot tubs are an excellent place for our tired feet and tired adult bodies. Parking is FREE!!!! This is also a huge savings. The Walmart is only a 5 minutes drive from the hotel and there are nights when we don't want to eat out and just get something nuke-able. The breakfast buffet has it ALL. There is an omelette station, potatoes, hot/cold cereal, breads/pastries, bacon, sausages, all kinds of egg dishes, pancakes, waffles, french toast and more. The wait staff will bring you your drinks and the rest is up to you. As much as you want is a great option for our growing boys. There are 2 arcades for the kids to play as the adults have a cocktail. 

I went through Undercover Tourist to get our tickets for Universal Studios Florida. It was a great deal for our family. There wasn't a discount on our tix to Kennedy Space Center so I just went through the KSC site.

We went to Universal Studios and HP World did NOT disappoint. The trick is to get to Diagon Alley first thing in the morning. The ride at Gringott's is brilliant and the line wasn't too bad. So, we went on a few times. Warning: if anyone is sensitive to motion sickness, I would suggest to skip this ride (I didn't think it was that bad) and the ride in Hogsmeade called Hogwarts Ride. You can take the train at Kings Cross to Hogsmeade as long as you have a multi-park pass. It's a clever and easy train ride that fulfills anyone's imagination who has read HP. Olivander's is less busy at Diagon Alley than Hogsmeade. The Butter Beer hot/cold is sweet. The kids loved it, but we adults thought it was a bit too sweet. The Leaky Cauldron is a great place to eat as their are servers helping you and you don't have to fight your way or even look for a place to sit. It's expensive, but our kids were on the verge of losing their tempers due to them being hungry. So, we bit it and paid for our meal. It was a good meal, just expensive. The Dragon Challenge ride is quite fun. The red track is much faster and seems to be more exciting than the blue, but both tracks are still a good roller coaster ride.  





We did get stupyfied by our youngest and purchased him the robe and wand. One can purchase an interactive wand which lets you perform spells throughout HP World. The robe is a nice added plus for our youngest's imagination. All employees speak to him as if he was a Hogwarts student and he LOVED it! Being spoken to : "we'll see you back at school Monday" "please sign for the Ministry of Magic" "would this be on your muggle plastic?" We all loved it!
 


 

After 2 days at Universal, we went to Spirit of the Swamp for an airboat ride through the headwaters of the Everglades. It was a great experience. Our suggestion? Take the earliest tour. We hit it perfectly. 10am tour gave us sights to 5 gators and their babies, turtles, river otters, deer, cows, horses, various bird species and vegetation. The smell of water lilies was amazing. Our captain was Capt. Dale and he was very informative on the land. Our 1-1/2 hr trip went by quickly! It was well worth our trip which was only about 15 min. from Caribe Royale. Capt. Dale suggested The Catfish place to eat. We haven't gone yet, but will in a couple of days. I will review it after our meal. Apparently, they have good gator meat and various exotic meats and good Southern food.



We will be heading to Cape Canaveral for our trip to the Kennedy Space Center soon. I will review that when we have completed that trip. In the meantime, I hope you enjoyed my review so far. Please feel free to comment and ask me questions. I have not commented much anymore on packing due to my kids being older.