If you’re one of those families that has a tried-and-true vacation spot, maybe even a timeshare that you’ve visited every year, why not look into week or points exchanges that can get you beyond amazing deals on someplace you’ve never been!

However, regardless of your destination, and whether or not you’ve been there 100 times already, it’s always important to review safety when traveling anywhere away from your home turf.

Documentation.  Always make back up photocopies of all documentation (passports, credit cards, birth certificates, photos, etc) and keep a set in your luggage.  Additionally, leave leave a set with a trusted friend that can be accessed anytime if your set gets lost.

Registration. Register your kids with a national database.  I know it’s icky to think about, but it’s a true peace-of-mind maneuver.

Information. Take the time to get familiar with your destination, including where you should and shouldn’t go after dark, places with heavy pick-pocket activity, etc.  Typically, the more touristy the area, the higher the tourist crime rate.

Vigilance. Keep an eye on your kids at all times. Younger kids should hold your hands; older kids should walk in front of you.

Summer is a time for relaxed vacations and exciting adventures.  But no matter where you go, you’re a tourist and therefore a potential target for opportunists.  Stack the odds in your favor by following these four tips and then sit back, relax, and get ready to make some family memories!

May Craft

Technicolor Suncatchers

May Snack

Strawberry Cheesecake Poppers

Rinse strawberries and cut around the top of the strawberry. Remove the top and clean out with a paring knife. Prep all strawberries and set aside. In a mixing bowl, beat cream cheese, powdered sugar, and vanilla until creamy. Add cream cheese mix to a piping bag or ziploc with the corner snipped off. Fill strawberries with cheesecake mixture. Once strawberries are filled, dip the top in graham cracker crumbs. If not serving immediately, cover well and refrigerate until serving.

May Outing

Colorwalk

Paint the bottom of each compartment of an egg carton a different color, then challenge kids to find natural souvenirs in a matching hue!

 Enjoy…and may MAY be ever in your favor!

Spring is a time when you have to put aside your concerns about dirt and let the kids play in the mud.  You have help refocus you children’s attention off their indoor activities and into the yard.  It’s a time for everyone to look up and witness the leaves budding at the top of the tallest tree in the yard, and look down to gape in wonder at the way a worm moves.

Earth Day is Sunday, April 22.  Here are some great ways to get out of the house and celebrate Earth Day the way in which it was meant to be celebrated – by enjoying Spring outdoors.

Worm Round Up.  Scientists are sure why this works, but it does!  Take a 12-18” stick and push it 2-3” into the ground.  Take another stick and rub it vigorously on the stick in the ground for about 2 minutes, and then watch all the worms in the area wriggle to the surface.  Do you see any baby worms?

Sights and Sounds of Spring Scavenger Hunt. 

How many of these things can you see:

• Worms
• Bright Red Male Cardinal
• Child Rollerblading
• Blooming Flower
• People sitting outside
• Budding trees or bushes

How many of these things can you hear?

• Birds singing
• Lawnmower
• Woodpecker tapping
• Wind rustling in the trees
• Children laughing

Set up an obstacle course.

There’s nothing kids like better than jumping, bending and running!  Set up sticks to leap over, hula hoops to run through and hopscotch courses to navigate.  You can even use a jumprope (on the ground) as a tightrope.

With all that spring has to offer, it’s much to0 short a season to let it pass waiting indoors for warmer weather.  Get outside and have some fun!

Keeping healthy on the road does require a little more diligence, simply because you are out of your normal routine.  Also, the added stress of being away from home can work against you by lowering your immune system and making you more vulnerable to ailments you would normally fight off with ease.

Follow these three basic rules to keep you and your family in top shape during your next getaway:

1. Drink plenty of water.  When we’re away from home and we don’t have our handy water bottle by our side, keeping hydrated can get overlooked.  But dehydration can lead to fatigue, headaches, overall crankiness and a lowered ability to fight off minor bugs.
2. Wash your hands.  It’s not as easy or convenient when you’re not at your own house, but even keeping a supply of wet wipes and hand sanitizers on hand can greatly reduce your risk of picking up a bug.
3. Get plenty of fresh air and exercise, even if it’s cold outside.  It’s good for the heart, good for the lungs, and good for overall energy levels.  Fresh air and exercise promote a feeling of well-being, which reduces vacation-related stress.  Lower stress keeps your immune systems functioning at full strength.

Have a happy and healthy trip!

QuickSmart BackPack Stroller

This innovative stroller had redefined the way the world categorizes lightweight travel gear. Top quality Australian engineering allows the 11.5 pound stroller to fold down completely into a backpack that fits easy into the overhead compartment of a plane (no more broken gate-checked strollers!), a trunk or a closet in a tiny apartment.

Floaties Water Confidence Products

CARES “Kids Fly Safe” Child Aviation Safety Harness

CARES (Child Aviation Restraint System) is the ONLY harness type child aviation safety restraint ever certified for airplane travel by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Unlike other airplane harnesses, the CARES harness can be used for all phases of flight, including take-off, turbulence and landing.  Other restraints are not allowed to be used at any time other than smooth cruising.

CARES is an elegantly designed belt and buckle device for kids 22-44 pounds  that is easy to use and creates a safe airplane seat for your child without the hassle of carrying a 20+ pound car seat.

CARES weighs just 1 pound and fits into a 6″ stuff sack!  It is simple to install, adjustable to virtually any size airplane seat, and keeps your child as safe as a car seat would.

CARES is made of the same industrial-strength webbing as your own seatbelt.  It is engineered and manufactured by AmSafe Aviation, the world’s foremost manufacturer of airline seatbelts.

CARES also offers a version to accommodate older special needs users as well.

Click here to enter the giveaway!

How to earn ADDITIONAL ENTRIES

1. Tweet! Up to two tweets per day; must include @QuickSmartGo and a link to the contest page.  Worth one entry each.

2.Respond! Respond to the questions posted on our Facebook page. One response per question.  Worth one entry each.

3.Blog! Mention the contest on your blog. Make sure to link to the contest page! Post your blog link in the comments of this post. One blog post per week, worth 5 entries.

4.Post! Post the contest on your FaceBook Page!  Be sure to tag us in the post! Up to one post per day, worth 2 entries each.

5.Upload! Upload a photo of your sweeties in their QuickSmart gear to our Facebook page. 2 entries for each photo.

6.Comment! Leave a comment to this post about where your would take your kids for Spring Break if you could go anywhere in the world

Winner will be picked randomly and announced on April 1, 2012

Good Luck!

Click HERE to go to the contest page

However, on the saltier (and more abrasive) side, road trips are usually longer than air travel, which translates to more stress on your vacation zen as you attempt to maintain order/thwart anarchy from the front seat.

But not to worry!  A fun and adventurous road trip can be yours if you just follow these three simple Rules of the Road Trip:

Due Diligence

Research your trip before you go, looking for all the fun/interesting/obnoxiously touristy/places along the way.  Encourage your kids to love the journey just as much as the destination!  A great resource for planning your route and all the attractions it may hold can be found at Road Trip America.com

Distractions

A well-stocked toy chest, complete with each child’s own hand-picked snacks, games, books (and DVD’s if you want), will do wonders during those times when the road is long and manners/patience/goodwill towards humankind are short supply.

Determination

Fun is all about attitude.  If you are determined to have fun, then you will have fun. Period.  Arm yourself with family games and music CD’s that the whole family will like.

The American Road Trip is a rite of passage.  Treat it with the respect it deserves, and it will reward you with laughs, bonding, and a backseat full of great memories.

It is sticky, moist, often smells like wet/moldy…something, and has the potential to clothesline you with exhaustion.

Unless you have the right attitude.

Traveling with kids is ALL about attitude.

In fact, the potential joy or disaster of family travel can be boiled down to the 90/10 rule:  The success of your trip is 10% of the circumstances thrown your way, and 90% of how you react to those circumstances.

Traveling with kids can bring you joy, laughter and the heart-squeezing beauty of seeing a child experience something new. It can bring you closer together as a family.  It can plant the seeds of adventure and encourage self-esteem as kids learn to navigate outside their comfort zones.

But you have to expect the joy.  You have find it in unlikely places.  And you have to ignore the people who tell you that you are crazy for wanting it.

You have to make up your mind ahead of time that you, and you alone, can make or break this vacation.  Yes, your toddler threw up in the rental car.  Okay, the baby screamed the whole flight. I get that.  It stinks.  It’s hard.  You’re tired.

Step back and take a deep breath, because you have a choice to make.  It is always about choices, right?  You can choose to laugh it off.  You can choose not to make your child feel worse than she already does by lamenting a ruined sweater. You can choose to let that rude comment from another passenger float away, unacknowledged.

You can choose not to worry about the size of your child’s suitcase, if the hotel restaurant will have french fries, or how long it will take to get over jet lag.

You can also choose wholeheartedly to feel the joy of the moment when your child runs, leaping and giggling, over the incoming tide.  You can choose to accept that it’s money well spent to hire someone to help you with your bags.

Enjoy each moment as it comes your way.  The moments that are more difficult to enjoy?  Do not give them power.  Lift your head out of the gray clouds until you feel the sun on your face.  Then choose how to act.

Your choices will define the differences between a great trip and a “never-again.”  You will also be showing your children how they, too, possess the power and capabilities to shape their own experiences.

Yes, travel with children can be both a blessing and a curse.

As you wish.

As a born-and-raised Californian, weather like this makes me inclined to high-five strangers and give money to puppies.

My enthusiasm, apparently, is contagious.  My kids share in the giddy eagerness that goes hand in hand with the promise of doing something, anything, that is outside of the house.

We have long since abandoned the idea of skating on the lake; sledding is little more than a distant memory, eclipsed by the unseasonably green hills.

All we need is a visible driveway!

Instead, we have broken out the roller blades and scooters, drawn by the smooth black expanse of our uncharacteristically snow-free driveway.  Although the bike paths are muddy and messy, it has not prevented races around the block and trips to the nearby grammar school to take advantage of the swings that are usually too cold to touch.

My son digs out the pogo stick, and suddenly there are impromptu obstacle courses that involve the trampoline, skateboards, and other dangerous combinations that I try not to watch.

I know, in my logical mind, that winter could come back to bite us at any time.  It is not unheard of to get 12 inches of snow in March.

But right now, after 15 years in Chicago and what feels like a lifetime of cold, I am embracing Mother Nature’s tentative gift.  There will be time to be cold later.

Now we play.

Baby not included!

Simply post a picture of your precious one dressed in their best Valentine’s Day finery to our FaceBook page and we’ll pick a winner at random on Wednesday, February 15th. Check out the entry form below for more ways to earn entries!

Sharing the Love!

a Rafflecopter giveaway