June 10, 2025 • 36 mins
In today's episode, Sarah and Laura chat about the start to their summers, and then dive into the topic of whole-family fun. Laura's kids are 5-18, and Sarah's are 7-13 -- both acknowledge the challenge that "whole family fun" can present especially with decent-sized age gaps, and provide some ideas to help (or in some cases, arguments for throwing in the towel and splitting things up!).
In the Q&A, a listener writes in for tips on traveling across time zones (in both directions!).
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hi. I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist,
and speaker.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
And I'm Sarah hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician, writer,
and course creator. We are two working parents who love
our careers and our families.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about
how real women manage work, family, and time for fun.
From figuring out childcare to mapping out long term career goals.
We want you to get the most out of life.
Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura. This
episode is airing in sort of early mid June of
(00:47):
twenty twenty five. We're going to be talking about things
that are fun for the whole family. Maybe not many
things are fun for the whole family, but perhaps some
things are fun for the whole family. So we decided
we were going to give it a try. Sarah, when
this airs, are you guys done with school yet? Are
you into the summer?
Speaker 2 (01:05):
We are, officially, as this comes out into the summer,
into what I would call quintyle three. The kids got
out of school about five days before this episode airs,
and we've already had our yearly celebratory tradition, which is
that they like to go to the melting pot at
the every end of the school year. We've tried to
(01:26):
get them to branch out, but no, this is like, no,
they want cheese, cheese and chocolate.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Cheese and chocolate. Wow, I get it. Many people like
cheese and chocolate.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
And at this point it really does feel like a marker.
So I guess that's what we do at the end
of the school year.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
What about you. Yeah, my kids actually go to the
seventeenth the Tuesday. They have a half day on Tuesday
the seventeenth, so that's and I know at least some
of them still have events on the sixteenth, so he
can't really bail out on that. That said, my senior
Jasper has been done for weeks. They had their finals
(02:02):
the last week of April. Beginning of May. He's been
doing his senior project, which will also be done by
this point, but he's been working in a first grade
class and it's been kind of fun to have him
sort of manage that on his own, because he gets
up and goes to work and comes home from it
and the students call him mister Conway. So I love that.
(02:27):
I love that. That's amazing.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
I feel like that's a significant senior project, like he's
really going on.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
I think he could have done something a lot easier,
but he's doing this, and I'm glad because it's good
experience and working with a manager like the teacher is.
You know, he has to be there at time she
tells him and sort of they communicate back and forth
on what he needs to do. And yeah, I've been
glad to see it happen. We will have also just
had two graduations on the same day. Jasper's high school
(02:55):
graduation and Henry's preschool graduation are in fact on the
same day. Not at the same time, thankfully, but definitely
on the same day. So that will be fun for
feeling simultaneously old and young.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
I wonder if you're gonna cry more at one or
the other.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
I oh, no, we'll see, We'll see, but I will
report back. Wow. Yes.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Side note, This whole thing of seniors ending weeks before
the end of the year was not a thing when
I was a senior, and I really would have loved that,
So props to both public and private schools. It seems
like embracing this tradition of just letting them finish because
they're mentally done anyway.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
They're mentally done anyway for sure, and yeah, showing up
would not really be all that fun at this point.
But this episode so fun for the whole family. Was
inspired by a listener who pointed out that this can
obviously get challenging as there is a wider age spread
of children, and we agree. We had some trouble making
(03:57):
this list. We're like, ooh, fun episode, and then we're like, hm,
we are always sensitive to what can be a full
episode and what will not have enough material. So maybe
this one was right on the line, right Sarah.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Yes, but we're hoping, I mean, we're going to be
real about this and actually acknowledge that this is really
not easy. I think the thing that the wider the
age spread, and probably the more kids and personalities you
have in the mix, the harder it is. If you
have a set of twins, this is like you're like,
I don't need this episode at all, And if you
(04:28):
have like Laura's family, you're like, I actually have very
few solutions, but we're going to give you the best
that we can come up with, but also acknowledge some
of the challenges to maybe make you feel better when
you are not easily able to put together an entire
weekend of family fund on the regular.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Yeah. So Sarah, your age spread right now?
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Yes, so ours is seven to thirteen, about six years.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Yeah, and mine is eighteen to five, so a bit
of a spread. I also don't deman and that the
older kids usually do things. There are very few things
that are required for the whole family. There are a
few things, but not too many. But we'll start with
the category of sort of lower key activities like TV
(05:13):
and media. Sarah, are you guys well between seven and thirteen,
it feels like you should be able to come up
with a few things. Yes, and no.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
You know, the things that interest the older kids are
not always appropriate for Genevieve. Now, our family is pretty
darn permissive about what we consider appropriate for anyone. I
might get in trouble for this, but like, we watched
Dirty Dancing the other day and it was awesome and
everyone kind of liked it. We did fast forward certain parts,
but it was just like too awkward. I'm like, no,
(05:45):
I cannot so, yeah, like you find these rare movies,
but Cameron has his own he likes action, and Annabel
is like completely turned off by anything in that realm,
So it's actually fairly challenging, but we really work hard
because it is fun when we can all sit there
together and we will spend a solid fifteen twenty minutes
(06:06):
trying to pick stuff out, watching previews in the hopes
to get something to work, and usually we can find
something recent hits. In addition to Dirty Dancing, which may
or may not be appropriate for.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Your values, Wicked Stick It.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Which is like a gymnastics movie, so that kind of
got all three kids because like the stunting kind of
side of things, and then certain reality stuff with baking
and cooking in particular, like Kids Baking Challenge or old
episodes of Chopped Junior. I also feel like if a
movie is somewhat new ish and they have like heard
of it from the theaters somehow, it just has more appeel.
I mean that probably is where Wicked came from. But
(06:44):
like also Disney movies, anything that was fairly recent rerun
and then dumped onto Disney Plus or Netflix, they're like, ooh, exciting,
and so we usually try to embrace those things.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Yeah, so movies are not fun for me if we're
trying to find things that are fun for the whole family.
I'm not really a movie person, but my husband takes them,
and I will say that four out of five children
went to the Minecraft movie with him, and the other
one went with friends. So in theory that could have
been fun for the whole spread of family members. I
don't know. I guess if I had gone, I would
(07:16):
have been like on my phone with headphones in the
back or something. I'm not really sure how that would
have played out to fund for the whole family. Are
adults included in that? Do your kids play video games together?
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Well, not super often, but they know that's a loophole
when like, we're almost always going to say yes to
like video game time, so they're smart and if they're
like oh, parents are clearly like over us being on
our devices. Sometimes someone will pipe up and be like
can we all play like Mario Kart together? And we're
like sure, So I would say yeah sometimes, And I
think it's lovely when they all do it together, especially
(07:53):
if it's like the kind of multiplayer game where they
can all be fairly engaged. Obviously, Genevieve is not going
to play at the same level as the two older kids,
and honestly, Cameron probably can blow everyone else away with
most games.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Just because he plays more video games.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
But yeah, when they can do it, we embrace it,
and we do look for opportunities to, like for a
holiday gift, perhaps purchase a game that they might all
enjoy doing.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Yeah, sometimes the kids have done Mario Kart together, are
various Roadblocks games together, not frequently, some combination of them
will sometimes play Fortnite together. But yeah, there's always the
different levels of skill. So you know, maybe people closer
in age could do that outdoor fun. How about outdoor fun, Sarah.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Yeah, I feel like the more open ended the better
for multiple age groups. Like when they were younger, of course,
going to the butterfly garden or something very specific worked
really well, But now it's more about finding an open
space where people can do their own thing a little
bit more. The beach is kind of timeless. I mean,
I enjoy the beach. I don't enjoy so in the ocean.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
We all know that.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
But I still enjoy going to the beach. And one
thing that can really change the vibe and make things
more enticing for older kids is the offer of bringing
a friend.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
So I think we're going to talk about that a
little bit more later in the episode.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Okay, fine, well that's its own half. But I do
feel like just like open ended places playgrounds less so,
but like beach or just a big natural area where
everyone can kind of do their own thing.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
A hike if there's a lot of snacks at snacks,
snacks are fun for the whole family. Family bike rides,
I will throw it out there. I don't know, we
may try doing this by the time this will have
aired over one of the weekends before this. You know,
especially if you have very young kids, they can go
in a burly or the sort of five year old
(09:46):
range can be in a tag along. It is kind
of a pain to get organized in our family. It
requires two cars. The bike rack like seven bikes. It's
really kind of a whole production. On the other hand,
it is something that everyone that can. You can also
do a more interesting hike. We found this one at
Hawk Mountain, which is about an hour north of us.
(10:07):
That is called the River of Rocks, and it just
tons and tons of rocks that you can climb over.
I feel like a hike needs to have some interesting
component to keep the kids into it, and like teenagers
might be into I don't know if you have to
like hold on to rails, crawling on a rock. But
of course then if you have little kids, they probably
(10:27):
have to be at a backpack for it. But it
can work if there's something that keeps everyone engaged. And
I would say say ice skating is again there's a
stop on the youngest probably has to be about five
for this to be doable, but a wide range of
people can enjoy, say an outdoor ice skating rink in winter,
(10:47):
so that's worth a shut. We're going to take a
quick ad break and then we'll be back with more
on fun for the whole family. Well, we are back
talking fun for the whole family. Things that seem to
(11:10):
make everyone at least mildly amused, if not having full
on blissful fun. Sarah, what about food? Food categories that
are fun for the whole family.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
I already mentioned snacks, but yeah, food's a big draw.
I mean, we all enjoy food, and especially if it's
something like fun food. So if we want to really
not have any complaints about doing something together, we will
suggest let's all go to get ice cream together, and
then all of a sudden everyone wants to join in
the family fun Starbucks for us also works in that way,
(11:41):
and my kids actually kind of enjoy like restaurant meals,
some of them mostly because they're like I can get
a lemonade, and then others because they're interested in more
different cuisines and stuff. So people can enjoy that at
their own level. I will, of course note, if you're
listening to this and you have like an eighteen month
old and a three year old and to throw something
at the audio device that you're listening to, I get it.
(12:04):
There is definitely like a minimum age at which restaurant
and eating based excursions. Although your toddlers can still enjoy
ice cream, but that sit down restaurant experience is not
fun until you reach some sort of minimum age. In
my experience, that's around like five ish.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Yeah, And I will admit that we allow the younger
kids to have devices for a restaurant meal because honestly,
then it makes it more pleasant to linger over it
for the others, and our older kids will talk with us.
And so given that the younger two at home would
have probably jumped up and gone somewhere else within a
few minutes, that kind of recreates that option, making it
(12:44):
more pleasant for a restaurant meal. So just throwing that
out there as an idea we don't. We tend not
to go out as like a regular thing just because
there are so many of us, but when we do
it on vacation, that's actually one of the things people
like the most. I will say that any sort of
active food at home can be fun for the whole family,
like fun do s'mores, make your own, pizza, make your own,
(13:09):
I don't know, tacos, make your own? What do you do?
Do you do anything else other than those? We haven't
done a lot of make your own, but I see, yes,
that would be one. Yeah, oh yeah, sure, definitely in
the community. Now, I will say that some institutions, even
if you kind of think of them as being for
younger kids, may in fact have elements that are fun
(13:30):
for older people too. Like a good science museum, so
we have gone to whatever the flagship exhibit will be at,
Like the Franklin Institute, they have rotated, like every four
months or so, they bring in something new, and so
we might go to that and then it's new, so
we can go see it and then go wander around.
And sometimes the older kids are fun to you know,
(13:51):
look at something that they haven't seen before, or you know,
visit something that they have in the past. And of
course little kids have lots of different entry points at
things too. When we were on vacation two years ago
and went to the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry,
I know for sure that everyone had something they enjoyed there.
So you know, if you've got any resource like that
a good aquarium, the little kids might enjoy seeing the fishies,
(14:14):
but the big kids are kind of like ooh, sharks,
you know, especially if it's the one where you can
like walk over the shark tank or something that can
be a bit more of a teen draw, especially if
they get Starbucks afterwards, or even the zoo like longtime
blog readers may recall that I was supposed to take
my older two sons to Scotland over Labor Day weekend
(14:36):
last year, and thanks to some United awfulness at Newark,
did not make it over to Europe. But when we
were trying to figure out what else we were going
to do with the weekend, we wound up at the
Bronx Zoo, which they had wanted to go to, like
that was something they both agreed on and they had
a really good time, Like you know, we're like looking
(14:56):
at lions and giraffes and snakes whatever else. And I
know for sure little kids would love a zoo, so
if again, a very good zoo could also be fun,
especially if you get them ice cream or.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
And let's point out that's not even boring for adults,
you know, like adults are having their own good time.
They're outside in nice weather, maybe taking a walk, seeing
cool animals. That truly can be fun at every level.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Yeah, some zoos even specifically have stuff that you know,
like they might have a beer garden. You never know.
I mean, there could be all sorts of things that
are adult friendly at a zoo or an arcade. Maybe
mom and dad don't love the idea of an arcade,
although go karts can be kind of fun, but big
(15:44):
kids can like stuff like that, and the little kids
might enjoy doing ski ball or something else. And I
would say something like Dave and Busters, like if your
kids are old enough that you can let them wander around,
they do have bars, so you can sit there and
have a beer with your partner while your children wander
around playing video games, and that could be fun for
the whole family as well.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
We are as. This is airing in New Hampshire and
one of the top destinations for every member of the
family except maybe me, is this giant place that has
all video games from like different eras. I can't tell
you how excited my husband is to play the video games.
So once again, this will be the whole family. And
I might just bring a book because that will be
(16:26):
really fun for me to kick back and relax while
everybody else is so occupied with their video games.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Yeah, you could do that. On the Jersey Shore in
Asbury Park, there's a place called the silver Ball Museum,
which is a basically a giant arcade of pinball machines,
and that is another big hit for almost everyone. They
have stools so little people can also play the pinball
machines and you just pay a certain amount and they
(16:54):
go there for two hours. And yeah, that is something
that can be fun for the whole family as well. Shopping, Sarah,
that's something your family enjoys.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Shopping has been a fallback on those weekends where you
really just don't have much and maybe like the weather's
not that good, and then some kid will pipe up
and be like, can we go to Target and I'll
be like, you know, that doesn't sound too bad, and
then we can all go to Target and a little
kid could pick out a little toy. I can see
what planners are on display, and like just browse the
(17:25):
housewares and see if there's anything cool, and everyone's happy.
My kids can like spend their allowance, and you know,
I could see this working up to the eighteen age
group and down to like a three year old who
would just have fun picking out a lego set. Now,
obviously retail therapy is not everybody's favorite, but I think
you sparingly this can be a really nice way to
get everyone in the family to go on an outing together.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Well. And you can also look at sort of more
interesting retail opportunities, like a farmer's market or something. Right like,
there's often alongside the egg plant and corn or whatever
else they're selling, there's going to be selling like brownies,
and somebody else is going to be selling some weird
jam that some kid's going to get into, or homemade
root beer or whatever. So you know, if you just
(18:09):
give people ten bucks and say go to town, they'd probably
enjoy that. Or some sort of apple fest strawberry fest
agrarian type place with live music and activities like so
a teenager might be willing to listen to a reasonable
band that is there, especially again if there's you know,
ice cream, sodas whatever on offer, and then little kids
(18:31):
can go play on the hay bails and live experiences
in general. I would say a year and a half
ago I did manage to get all of the kids
to go to Disney on ice it. The tricks are cool.
For the older kids, I don't know that they want
to do it again and again. We've taken them to
the Rockets as well. They've enjoyed that. Or you could
(18:54):
like a g rated musical. I mean maybe Sarah doesn't
need the g rated for rated musical, biji rated a
musical something you know, like a Disney show on Broadway.
If there's a touring a Latin or Lion King or
Wicket or whatever that's come to your community, you could
probably take a wide range of young people to that.
(19:17):
A teenager would enjoy just the spectacle of it and
the music, and a little kid is like it's the
Lion King and.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
A sports game too. Speaking of live events, we were
just talking about trying to get into Miami tickets, and
I think, oh, yeah, everyone wants to go for their
own reasons, but it'll be fun.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
Yeah. Well, let's talk a little bit the additional tips
that now I want Sarah to talk about the bring
a friend part.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Bring a friend is we really didn't employ that when
the kids were little, but currently, let's just say sometimes
we have one holdover, and that holdover can be very
much more agreeable if there is somebody their own age
on set outing like all of a sudden, it's like, oh, oh, okay,
well now that thing sounds fun because my friend has
(20:02):
buy in, and now it's cool kind of a thing.
So yeah, I think that can be a great trip,
especially if you have a car big enough to tote,
you know, multiple things. And the beauty of that is
that as you cultivate those relationships, if your kids stay friends,
then now if you actually need somewhere to let's say
the other kids want to do something and the kid
really doesn't want that, then maybe that kid can hang
(20:24):
out with her friends family for a day so I
can kind of pay dividends. We have definitely kind of
organically grown that kind of relationship with our neighbors, which
is the best because it's logistics free to organize an
impromptu sleepover or play date.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Yeah. Yeah, that's always wonderful when that works out. Trying
to get them to come up with ideas, now, this
is hard because especially young kids, they don't like google stuff,
and children may not have the sense of what is around.
But if you can have them at least help you.
Try to create a local list, right, so things that
(21:02):
are within about ninety minutes two hours of your house,
so you could reasonably do them on a weekend. My
guess is that no matter where you are, there is
something within two hours of you. It would be you'd
have to be pretty rustic for that not to be
the case. Then maybe you have beautiful things like nature
that are within two hours of you. So sit down
(21:23):
and make a list, because then that makes it a
little easier as you are planning your weekends or you
know what, we've got a staycation or something to say like, okay,
we should choose from that instead of you know, what
do you want to do? I don't want to do anything.
I'm just sit here on my iPad And that's fine
for a while, but eventually you want to get people
out the door. One more quick thing before we take
another ad break, Sarah, what about teaming up? What is
(21:47):
this technique?
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Yeah, so that strategy is that sometimes everyone may not
want to do something like I don't know. One strategy
is like to have people pair up. For example, a
board game might be a little bit harder for the
youngest kid to do, but if everybody does pairs, then
that kid will feel included and will feel like they
can be on a team. Like That's kind of how
we've gotten certain games to work for our family. Chameleon
(22:12):
is one that's actually really fun for both kids and adults,
but Genevieve is like not totally able to like manage
it herself, so it works really really well if we
divide into teams. And another thing we've done in teams
actually more like with my in laws, is like if
we are doing some kind of make your own food
or that kind of prep project, like Okay, Genevieve, you're
helping me make this, Cameron, you're helping Dad make that,
and like, you know, everyone's kind of got their own team.
(22:34):
You're still doing something all together, but it's divided so
it's more manageable.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
All right, we'll take one more quick ad break and
then we'll talk about trips that are fun for the
whole family. Well, we are back talking things that are
fun for the whole family. First, we've been talking more
(23:00):
about local activities, home based activities. Now, obviously you've probably
in many cases all going to go on vacation together.
So Sarah, what's been fun for you guys?
Speaker 2 (23:10):
So people probably know we're going to say skiing. That's
been the kind of easiest crowd pleaser, and it can
even work when kids are too young to ski because
many ski resorts have nurseries. You just have to do
your homework and choose one that has the amenities that
you need. Is not the most budget friendly vacation, but man,
it is the one that has kind of like it's
(23:31):
been the most family fun enriched one that we've taken,
and so we've done it a few times now and
plan to continue. I also feel like a cruise can
be really great in terms of just having something for
many different age groups. We've done two Disney cruises, and
the first one we did when Genevieve was only like
a year and a half and the kids were like, yeah,
(23:52):
one and a half, five and seven, and it worked great.
And then we've also gone with the kids a little
bit older, so I can see how that spans lots
of age range. And the beauty of that is like
you can do things apart and then come together, and
then be apart and come together, et cetera. So yeah,
we've really enjoyed cruises for that for that reason.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
Yeah, I'll second the skiing, and I don't ski, just
like I don't really watch movies. I guess I'm a
ton of fun really, but I didn't have to. When
all of us went in late March, we put Henry
in ski school and so he was able to have
instruction and he did really well with that. And then
the older kids skied with my husband and I kind
(24:28):
of hung out, went to the gym, took myself out
for lunch, picked up Henry at three o'clock. You know,
we went in the hot tub, we all went out
for dinner. It was just it's a good trip, right,
It's a good trip for all ages. And with that,
you know, I've only been on one cruise. I'm not
a huge cruise person, but a resort is like a
land based version of the cruise, so you don't have
(24:49):
to be on a boat to get the concept, especially
ones that have a really good kids club. So we
recently went to Olani and Hawaii. They obviously have a
kid's club since it's a Disney property, but many others
do as well. We went to a place called Windjammer
in Saint Lucia, which I will throw out there. It
turned out to have a really quite appealing kids club.
(25:11):
At the time, Alex was four, so Jasper would have
been twelve. I think sometimes Jasper stayed home by himself,
but mostly the four of them would all go to
the kids' club. They all really enjoyed their offerings there,
and they had kind of cool things like horseback riding
or so it was a little bit more intense, like
that was a real draw versus like, no, we're just
(25:33):
sticking and you adhere in color for three hours while
mom and dad go do something. So yeah, that's you know,
and just a resort. The big kids can go swim
or go to the beach or hang out in the
room and little kids do their things. Theme parks, again,
the caveat the group doesn't have to stay together the
whole time. But if you've got a big theme park
(25:53):
that has like kiddie ride sections. Maybe it's not gonna
be a ton of fun for mom and dad, although
mom and dad can switch off, like you go to
the roller coaster while someone take the little kids on
something and then switch off again, and the big kids
can go wander around on their own and go to
whatever ridiculous roller coaster that your teenagers want to wait
in line for.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Yeah, we've had good luck at our last couple of
theme park trips. But and when you have a big
age spread, I think the splitting does make sense.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
Yeah, and with that, our counterpoint on things being fun
for the whole family is even with trips, sometimes you
don't actually have to bring the whole family.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
Yes, that's our punchline to this episode is like you
can try, and there's lots of things you can do,
and also sometimes you can just give up because it
can also be fun to have fun with parts of
the family.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Yeah. Well, in these days, I really rarely require my
older children to do stuff. They can stay home by themselves,
you know. Obviously, I and my oldest child as an adult,
I really can't make him do most of anything. I'm
totally willing to try to bribe people to come along
be like, oh, well, you know, we thought you might
like this, or we'll make sure to stop him entice entice,
(27:03):
But you know, so it may not be worth it
for that, or if you do a big kid focused activity,
might be worth getting child care for younger ones, because well,
you will have to attend to the younger one for
a lot of the time, and especially if they are
not happy, that's going to detract from the experience for everyone.
So we have also traveled that way, so longtime listeners
(27:28):
know that when when we went to Norway in the
summer of twenty eight twenty three, we only took the
four older children and we left Henry with people caring
for him back in Pennsylvania, and he had a perfectly
good time. I don't think he missed out on the
experience of being on a plane for eight hours and
being horribly jet lagged, and then the rest of us
could actually experience the fun of Europe without that. So
(27:52):
throwing that out there as.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
I do, I was thinking about the fact that, like,
when your older kids are totally out of the house
and you just have let's say Alex and Henry, they're
probably going to get to take trips with just you guys.
With you with a focus, And the truth is, it's
like it's kind of fair that you provided that for
the older kids too in a way, because again, if
Henry had been there, it would not have been the
same because like you wouldn't have been very present. So
(28:17):
it's kind of yeah, it's kind of like there is
a little bit of a symmetry there to make sure
that your older kids sometimes get experiences where they are
the focus, which can't always be true if you're chasing
around a taller Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
I mean, I'm traveling with Jasper in some upcoming weeks
on this and we're going to have a very different experience,
I'm sure than if there were younger children. I'm planning
a trip with Sam for next spring break, and again
we can do totally different things than we would possibly
do if there were a six year old with us.
So yeah, it's worth considering that as an option in it,
(28:51):
you know, always our public service announcement with family trips,
the goal is some enjoyable moments because bliss the whole
time isn't possible, just as probably nothing is fun for
the whole family for the entire time either.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
I don't think bliss the whole time is possible for life, yeah,
human nature given day.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
Fallen nature of humanity. Yes, no it is not. But
oh will that's a philosophical matter for a different time.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Yes, so I might even say that's a good thing.
We will appreciate the bliss more if it's not constant, all.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
Right, Q and A.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
So this one is for Laura because I don't have
that much to offer, but she does. I am traveling
across time zones with kids for the first time.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
What are your survival tips, Laura, Well, you've done three
hour time difference. It's not that you've never taken your
children out of your time zone. That's not like advanced though.
That is all we've done.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
We've done three hours, and we have made the three
hours like more than three hours, because what invariably happens
is we go west, but not only to we go west,
but then we end up sleeping till ten am on
the west, so coming back is like a six hour adjustment.
Because we're idiots. Yeah, yeah, but that's all we've done.
We've never done Europe, we've never done Hawaii. So for us,
it's not that hard. Honestly, when they're excited and they're
(30:07):
like on vacation, they want to stay up anyway, so
we naturally fall into that rhythm going west and then
east you're forced.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
Because you're back at school.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
I think it would actually be harder if you didn't
have like a routine to come back to pretty quickly,
because then you might like drag out the kind of
like adjustment phase. But then I guess you could naturally
drag out the adjustment phase and it wouldn't matter. So
I feel like we need more tips on like longer.
And then also what happens when you go east, because
that seems more troublesome.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
Yeah, I mean, I wish there was a good answer
to this, which is, I mean, you just need to
be prepared for some rough nights and you're going to
have to manage your energy with that in mind. As
Sarah was saying, going west is easier because you just
go to bed early and wake up early. And for
the most part, that's not a problem in life, is
to go to bed early and wake up early. And
(30:54):
especially when we went to Hawaii, I mean, the flight
out there was long enough that you're just kind of tired,
Like we had to wake up early in the morning
to get to Newark. Airport, Like, Henry did nap on
the plane, but that allowed him to then stay up
through dinner on the first day there, and I kind
of crashed before everyone so and then I woke up
at four am. But again, you're up at four am.
It's not the end of the world. Versus feeling like
(31:17):
you need to sleep till two pm. That's an entirely
different level of problem. So going east, I will just
report in case anyone is thinking of taking their small
children to Hawaii, that our first night home back from Hawaii,
Henry fell asleep at about five thirty pm in the afternoon.
I didn't discover him for a while. I was like, well,
maybe he'll just stay asleep. He did not stay asleep.
He woke up at midnight. He was awake until five am.
(31:39):
And this was after I did not sleep at all
on the plane on the way home, which was an
overnight flight, because I was taking care of him. So
in this case, we are thrilled that YouTube exists. We
are thrilled that our child is old enough to watch
YouTube without like trying to wander out of the house,
which the alarm was on. So if he had, you know,
I would have woken up and heard that, but I
(32:00):
put him on the computer. I'm like, go to town, child,
here is a yogurt. I am going up to sleep.
If you need me, you can know where I am.
I woke up I think twice in that midnight to
five window and went and checked on him. But for
the most part I did sleep during that. And then
the next day, of course, was challenging because he'd been
up from midnight to five. We had him sleep from
(32:23):
about five to nine and then got them up for
the day. There was some crabbiness, but I don't think
there's a good way around this. There isn't Like the
older children can take melotonin if they're having trouble falling asleep,
and that's something I would recommend, Like if you are
going east to Europe from the US, take melatonin with you.
Take chewa bowles. If you have twelve year olds who
(32:46):
aren't good at swallowing pills or something and they don't
take much. I mean, maybe this is bad medical advice.
I don't know. You can tell me, but the problem
is the first night you'll sleep because you're tired. The
second night you will be up at two am. And
it's very frustrating. To not be able to fall asleep
till about five am or six am or something like that.
So taking half a melatonin in the middle of the
night and you get back to sleep and then you're
better for that.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
Yeah, melatonin, I mean it doesn't have big downsides. Some
people find that it doesn't help them stay asleep and
helps them fall asleep. Yeah, and then the other things.
If you use it too much, there can be like
a tachyphylaxis or resistance that developed.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
But I think travel is a perfect yeah use case, yes, exactly,
So I will throw that out there as an idea.
But I think there's probably a lower limit on when
you're supposed to give it to children. So I have
not given it to like toddlers or anything like that.
And so I don't know that there is a good
answer re fault your physician. Consult your physician, exactly. So, yeah,
(33:41):
travel with kids. I think back to a very early
guest of ours, Henley Vescez, who is a travel entrepreneur,
and we had asked her for tips on traveling, you know,
flying with small children to make it more pleasant. She's like,
I wish there was a good answer to that. I
was like, well, there you go, there isn't. But it's
one of those things where you decide that it will
(34:02):
be worth it for your remembering self. And I'm glad
that we took a family vacation to Hawaii. Yes, I
was a little traumatized by the twenty four hours of
coming home, but that's in the past now and I
will probably never take a five year old to Hawaii again.
So there you go. Now I have done it. Maybe
you'll take your grandchild someday. I'll might take my grandchildren,
but then there will be multiple adults, and you probably
(34:24):
won't be my mean good point. One of my children
will be in charge of that five year old.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
All right, well, love of the.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
Week, I'm going to say bike riding. They're probably solo.
We will see. I may report back on the attempt
to bring seven people bike riding in a later episode.
But I love that I have an SUV and I
just full down the back seats and if I want
to go bike riding solo, I can just shove my
bike in the back, take it wherever, unload it. Very
easy and nice quick workout. And that's something different to
(34:56):
do during spring and summer and fall that I won't
do in the winter and so it'll has a bit
of a treat feel to it.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
It does have a treat feel to it. I will
embrace bike riding as well, just because Genevieve now can
like ride very nicely and quick and it's actually like
pleasant to just ride around the neighborhood with her, Like
we did a fun ride to the pool the other
day and it's like downright pleasant.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
So yay bike riding.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
Ya shout out to Guardian because her bike came from
our wonderful previous sponsor and it's.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
A great bike. Yeah, there we go. All right, Well,
this has been best of both worlds. We've been talking
about things that are fun for the whole family, or
at least for most of the family most of the time.
We will be back next week with more on making
work and life fit together.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the
shoebox dot com or at the Underscore shoe Box on Instagram,
and you.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
Can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This
has been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please join
us next time for more on making work and life
work together.
Hi. I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist,
and speaker.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
And I'm Sarah hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician, writer,
and course creator. We are two working parents who love
our careers and our families.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about
how real women manage work, family, and time for fun.
From figuring out childcare to mapping out long term career goals.
We want you to get the most out of life.
Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura. This
episode is airing in sort of early mid June of
(00:47):
twenty twenty five. We're going to be talking about things
that are fun for the whole family. Maybe not many
things are fun for the whole family, but perhaps some
things are fun for the whole family. So we decided
we were going to give it a try. Sarah, when
this airs, are you guys done with school yet? Are
you into the summer?
Speaker 2 (01:05):
We are, officially, as this comes out into the summer,
into what I would call quintyle three. The kids got
out of school about five days before this episode airs,
and we've already had our yearly celebratory tradition, which is
that they like to go to the melting pot at
the every end of the school year. We've tried to
(01:26):
get them to branch out, but no, this is like, no,
they want cheese, cheese and chocolate.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Cheese and chocolate. Wow, I get it. Many people like
cheese and chocolate.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
And at this point it really does feel like a marker.
So I guess that's what we do at the end
of the school year.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
What about you. Yeah, my kids actually go to the
seventeenth the Tuesday. They have a half day on Tuesday
the seventeenth, so that's and I know at least some
of them still have events on the sixteenth, so he
can't really bail out on that. That said, my senior
Jasper has been done for weeks. They had their finals
(02:02):
the last week of April. Beginning of May. He's been
doing his senior project, which will also be done by
this point, but he's been working in a first grade
class and it's been kind of fun to have him
sort of manage that on his own, because he gets
up and goes to work and comes home from it
and the students call him mister Conway. So I love that.
(02:27):
I love that. That's amazing.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
I feel like that's a significant senior project, like he's
really going on.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
I think he could have done something a lot easier,
but he's doing this, and I'm glad because it's good
experience and working with a manager like the teacher is.
You know, he has to be there at time she
tells him and sort of they communicate back and forth
on what he needs to do. And yeah, I've been
glad to see it happen. We will have also just
had two graduations on the same day. Jasper's high school
(02:55):
graduation and Henry's preschool graduation are in fact on the
same day. Not at the same time, thankfully, but definitely
on the same day. So that will be fun for
feeling simultaneously old and young.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
I wonder if you're gonna cry more at one or
the other.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
I oh, no, we'll see, We'll see, but I will
report back. Wow. Yes.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Side note, This whole thing of seniors ending weeks before
the end of the year was not a thing when
I was a senior, and I really would have loved that,
So props to both public and private schools. It seems
like embracing this tradition of just letting them finish because
they're mentally done anyway.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
They're mentally done anyway for sure, and yeah, showing up
would not really be all that fun at this point.
But this episode so fun for the whole family. Was
inspired by a listener who pointed out that this can
obviously get challenging as there is a wider age spread
of children, and we agree. We had some trouble making
(03:57):
this list. We're like, ooh, fun episode, and then we're like, hm,
we are always sensitive to what can be a full
episode and what will not have enough material. So maybe
this one was right on the line, right Sarah.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Yes, but we're hoping, I mean, we're going to be
real about this and actually acknowledge that this is really
not easy. I think the thing that the wider the
age spread, and probably the more kids and personalities you
have in the mix, the harder it is. If you
have a set of twins, this is like you're like,
I don't need this episode at all, And if you
(04:28):
have like Laura's family, you're like, I actually have very
few solutions, but we're going to give you the best
that we can come up with, but also acknowledge some
of the challenges to maybe make you feel better when
you are not easily able to put together an entire
weekend of family fund on the regular.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Yeah. So Sarah, your age spread right now?
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Yes, so ours is seven to thirteen, about six years.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Yeah, and mine is eighteen to five, so a bit
of a spread. I also don't deman and that the
older kids usually do things. There are very few things
that are required for the whole family. There are a
few things, but not too many. But we'll start with
the category of sort of lower key activities like TV
(05:13):
and media. Sarah, are you guys well between seven and thirteen,
it feels like you should be able to come up
with a few things. Yes, and no.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
You know, the things that interest the older kids are
not always appropriate for Genevieve. Now, our family is pretty
darn permissive about what we consider appropriate for anyone. I
might get in trouble for this, but like, we watched
Dirty Dancing the other day and it was awesome and
everyone kind of liked it. We did fast forward certain parts,
but it was just like too awkward. I'm like, no,
(05:45):
I cannot so, yeah, like you find these rare movies,
but Cameron has his own he likes action, and Annabel
is like completely turned off by anything in that realm,
So it's actually fairly challenging, but we really work hard
because it is fun when we can all sit there
together and we will spend a solid fifteen twenty minutes
(06:06):
trying to pick stuff out, watching previews in the hopes
to get something to work, and usually we can find
something recent hits. In addition to Dirty Dancing, which may
or may not be appropriate for.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Your values, Wicked Stick It.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Which is like a gymnastics movie, so that kind of
got all three kids because like the stunting kind of
side of things, and then certain reality stuff with baking
and cooking in particular, like Kids Baking Challenge or old
episodes of Chopped Junior. I also feel like if a
movie is somewhat new ish and they have like heard
of it from the theaters somehow, it just has more appeel.
I mean that probably is where Wicked came from. But
(06:44):
like also Disney movies, anything that was fairly recent rerun
and then dumped onto Disney Plus or Netflix, they're like, ooh, exciting,
and so we usually try to embrace those things.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Yeah, so movies are not fun for me if we're
trying to find things that are fun for the whole family.
I'm not really a movie person, but my husband takes them,
and I will say that four out of five children
went to the Minecraft movie with him, and the other
one went with friends. So in theory that could have
been fun for the whole spread of family members. I
don't know. I guess if I had gone, I would
(07:16):
have been like on my phone with headphones in the
back or something. I'm not really sure how that would
have played out to fund for the whole family. Are
adults included in that? Do your kids play video games together?
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Well, not super often, but they know that's a loophole
when like, we're almost always going to say yes to
like video game time, so they're smart and if they're
like oh, parents are clearly like over us being on
our devices. Sometimes someone will pipe up and be like
can we all play like Mario Kart together? And we're
like sure, So I would say yeah sometimes, And I
think it's lovely when they all do it together, especially
(07:53):
if it's like the kind of multiplayer game where they
can all be fairly engaged. Obviously, Genevieve is not going
to play at the same level as the two older kids,
and honestly, Cameron probably can blow everyone else away with
most games.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Just because he plays more video games.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
But yeah, when they can do it, we embrace it,
and we do look for opportunities to, like for a
holiday gift, perhaps purchase a game that they might all
enjoy doing.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Yeah, sometimes the kids have done Mario Kart together, are
various Roadblocks games together, not frequently, some combination of them
will sometimes play Fortnite together. But yeah, there's always the
different levels of skill. So you know, maybe people closer
in age could do that outdoor fun. How about outdoor fun, Sarah.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Yeah, I feel like the more open ended the better
for multiple age groups. Like when they were younger, of course,
going to the butterfly garden or something very specific worked
really well, But now it's more about finding an open
space where people can do their own thing a little
bit more. The beach is kind of timeless. I mean,
I enjoy the beach. I don't enjoy so in the ocean.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
We all know that.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
But I still enjoy going to the beach. And one
thing that can really change the vibe and make things
more enticing for older kids is the offer of bringing
a friend.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
So I think we're going to talk about that a
little bit more later in the episode.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Okay, fine, well that's its own half. But I do
feel like just like open ended places playgrounds less so,
but like beach or just a big natural area where
everyone can kind of do their own thing.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
A hike if there's a lot of snacks at snacks,
snacks are fun for the whole family. Family bike rides,
I will throw it out there. I don't know, we
may try doing this by the time this will have
aired over one of the weekends before this. You know,
especially if you have very young kids, they can go
in a burly or the sort of five year old
(09:46):
range can be in a tag along. It is kind
of a pain to get organized in our family. It
requires two cars. The bike rack like seven bikes. It's
really kind of a whole production. On the other hand,
it is something that everyone that can. You can also
do a more interesting hike. We found this one at
Hawk Mountain, which is about an hour north of us.
(10:07):
That is called the River of Rocks, and it just
tons and tons of rocks that you can climb over.
I feel like a hike needs to have some interesting
component to keep the kids into it, and like teenagers
might be into I don't know if you have to
like hold on to rails, crawling on a rock. But
of course then if you have little kids, they probably
(10:27):
have to be at a backpack for it. But it
can work if there's something that keeps everyone engaged. And
I would say say ice skating is again there's a
stop on the youngest probably has to be about five
for this to be doable, but a wide range of
people can enjoy, say an outdoor ice skating rink in winter,
(10:47):
so that's worth a shut. We're going to take a
quick ad break and then we'll be back with more
on fun for the whole family. Well, we are back
talking fun for the whole family. Things that seem to
(11:10):
make everyone at least mildly amused, if not having full
on blissful fun. Sarah, what about food? Food categories that
are fun for the whole family.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
I already mentioned snacks, but yeah, food's a big draw.
I mean, we all enjoy food, and especially if it's
something like fun food. So if we want to really
not have any complaints about doing something together, we will
suggest let's all go to get ice cream together, and
then all of a sudden everyone wants to join in
the family fun Starbucks for us also works in that way,
(11:41):
and my kids actually kind of enjoy like restaurant meals,
some of them mostly because they're like I can get
a lemonade, and then others because they're interested in more
different cuisines and stuff. So people can enjoy that at
their own level. I will, of course note, if you're
listening to this and you have like an eighteen month
old and a three year old and to throw something
at the audio device that you're listening to, I get it.
(12:04):
There is definitely like a minimum age at which restaurant
and eating based excursions. Although your toddlers can still enjoy
ice cream, but that sit down restaurant experience is not
fun until you reach some sort of minimum age. In
my experience, that's around like five ish.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Yeah, And I will admit that we allow the younger
kids to have devices for a restaurant meal because honestly,
then it makes it more pleasant to linger over it
for the others, and our older kids will talk with us.
And so given that the younger two at home would
have probably jumped up and gone somewhere else within a
few minutes, that kind of recreates that option, making it
(12:44):
more pleasant for a restaurant meal. So just throwing that
out there as an idea we don't. We tend not
to go out as like a regular thing just because
there are so many of us, but when we do
it on vacation, that's actually one of the things people
like the most. I will say that any sort of
active food at home can be fun for the whole family,
like fun do s'mores, make your own, pizza, make your own,
(13:09):
I don't know, tacos, make your own? What do you do?
Do you do anything else other than those? We haven't
done a lot of make your own, but I see, yes,
that would be one. Yeah, oh yeah, sure, definitely in
the community. Now, I will say that some institutions, even
if you kind of think of them as being for
younger kids, may in fact have elements that are fun
(13:30):
for older people too. Like a good science museum, so
we have gone to whatever the flagship exhibit will be at,
Like the Franklin Institute, they have rotated, like every four
months or so, they bring in something new, and so
we might go to that and then it's new, so
we can go see it and then go wander around.
And sometimes the older kids are fun to you know,
(13:51):
look at something that they haven't seen before, or you know,
visit something that they have in the past. And of
course little kids have lots of different entry points at
things too. When we were on vacation two years ago
and went to the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry,
I know for sure that everyone had something they enjoyed there.
So you know, if you've got any resource like that
a good aquarium, the little kids might enjoy seeing the fishies,
(14:14):
but the big kids are kind of like ooh, sharks,
you know, especially if it's the one where you can
like walk over the shark tank or something that can
be a bit more of a teen draw, especially if
they get Starbucks afterwards, or even the zoo like longtime
blog readers may recall that I was supposed to take
my older two sons to Scotland over Labor Day weekend
(14:36):
last year, and thanks to some United awfulness at Newark,
did not make it over to Europe. But when we
were trying to figure out what else we were going
to do with the weekend, we wound up at the
Bronx Zoo, which they had wanted to go to, like
that was something they both agreed on and they had
a really good time, Like you know, we're like looking
(14:56):
at lions and giraffes and snakes whatever else. And I
know for sure little kids would love a zoo, so
if again, a very good zoo could also be fun,
especially if you get them ice cream or.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
And let's point out that's not even boring for adults,
you know, like adults are having their own good time.
They're outside in nice weather, maybe taking a walk, seeing
cool animals. That truly can be fun at every level.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Yeah, some zoos even specifically have stuff that you know,
like they might have a beer garden. You never know.
I mean, there could be all sorts of things that
are adult friendly at a zoo or an arcade. Maybe
mom and dad don't love the idea of an arcade,
although go karts can be kind of fun, but big
(15:44):
kids can like stuff like that, and the little kids
might enjoy doing ski ball or something else. And I
would say something like Dave and Busters, like if your
kids are old enough that you can let them wander around,
they do have bars, so you can sit there and
have a beer with your partner while your children wander
around playing video games, and that could be fun for
the whole family as well.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
We are as. This is airing in New Hampshire and
one of the top destinations for every member of the
family except maybe me, is this giant place that has
all video games from like different eras. I can't tell
you how excited my husband is to play the video games.
So once again, this will be the whole family. And
I might just bring a book because that will be
(16:26):
really fun for me to kick back and relax while
everybody else is so occupied with their video games.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Yeah, you could do that. On the Jersey Shore in
Asbury Park, there's a place called the silver Ball Museum,
which is a basically a giant arcade of pinball machines,
and that is another big hit for almost everyone. They
have stools so little people can also play the pinball
machines and you just pay a certain amount and they
(16:54):
go there for two hours. And yeah, that is something
that can be fun for the whole family as well. Shopping, Sarah,
that's something your family enjoys.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Shopping has been a fallback on those weekends where you
really just don't have much and maybe like the weather's
not that good, and then some kid will pipe up
and be like, can we go to Target and I'll
be like, you know, that doesn't sound too bad, and
then we can all go to Target and a little
kid could pick out a little toy. I can see
what planners are on display, and like just browse the
(17:25):
housewares and see if there's anything cool, and everyone's happy.
My kids can like spend their allowance, and you know,
I could see this working up to the eighteen age
group and down to like a three year old who
would just have fun picking out a lego set. Now,
obviously retail therapy is not everybody's favorite, but I think
you sparingly this can be a really nice way to
get everyone in the family to go on an outing together.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Well. And you can also look at sort of more
interesting retail opportunities, like a farmer's market or something. Right like,
there's often alongside the egg plant and corn or whatever
else they're selling, there's going to be selling like brownies,
and somebody else is going to be selling some weird
jam that some kid's going to get into, or homemade
root beer or whatever. So you know, if you just
(18:09):
give people ten bucks and say go to town, they'd probably
enjoy that. Or some sort of apple fest strawberry fest
agrarian type place with live music and activities like so
a teenager might be willing to listen to a reasonable
band that is there, especially again if there's you know,
ice cream, sodas whatever on offer, and then little kids
(18:31):
can go play on the hay bails and live experiences
in general. I would say a year and a half
ago I did manage to get all of the kids
to go to Disney on ice it. The tricks are cool.
For the older kids, I don't know that they want
to do it again and again. We've taken them to
the Rockets as well. They've enjoyed that. Or you could
(18:54):
like a g rated musical. I mean maybe Sarah doesn't
need the g rated for rated musical, biji rated a
musical something you know, like a Disney show on Broadway.
If there's a touring a Latin or Lion King or
Wicket or whatever that's come to your community, you could
probably take a wide range of young people to that.
(19:17):
A teenager would enjoy just the spectacle of it and
the music, and a little kid is like it's the
Lion King and.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
A sports game too. Speaking of live events, we were
just talking about trying to get into Miami tickets, and
I think, oh, yeah, everyone wants to go for their
own reasons, but it'll be fun.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
Yeah. Well, let's talk a little bit the additional tips
that now I want Sarah to talk about the bring
a friend part.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Bring a friend is we really didn't employ that when
the kids were little, but currently, let's just say sometimes
we have one holdover, and that holdover can be very
much more agreeable if there is somebody their own age
on set outing like all of a sudden, it's like, oh, oh, okay,
well now that thing sounds fun because my friend has
(20:02):
buy in, and now it's cool kind of a thing.
So yeah, I think that can be a great trip,
especially if you have a car big enough to tote,
you know, multiple things. And the beauty of that is
that as you cultivate those relationships, if your kids stay friends,
then now if you actually need somewhere to let's say
the other kids want to do something and the kid
really doesn't want that, then maybe that kid can hang
(20:24):
out with her friends family for a day so I
can kind of pay dividends. We have definitely kind of
organically grown that kind of relationship with our neighbors, which
is the best because it's logistics free to organize an
impromptu sleepover or play date.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Yeah. Yeah, that's always wonderful when that works out. Trying
to get them to come up with ideas, now, this
is hard because especially young kids, they don't like google stuff,
and children may not have the sense of what is around.
But if you can have them at least help you.
Try to create a local list, right, so things that
(21:02):
are within about ninety minutes two hours of your house,
so you could reasonably do them on a weekend. My
guess is that no matter where you are, there is
something within two hours of you. It would be you'd
have to be pretty rustic for that not to be
the case. Then maybe you have beautiful things like nature
that are within two hours of you. So sit down
(21:23):
and make a list, because then that makes it a
little easier as you are planning your weekends or you
know what, we've got a staycation or something to say like, okay,
we should choose from that instead of you know, what
do you want to do? I don't want to do anything.
I'm just sit here on my iPad And that's fine
for a while, but eventually you want to get people
out the door. One more quick thing before we take
another ad break, Sarah, what about teaming up? What is
(21:47):
this technique?
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Yeah, so that strategy is that sometimes everyone may not
want to do something like I don't know. One strategy
is like to have people pair up. For example, a
board game might be a little bit harder for the
youngest kid to do, but if everybody does pairs, then
that kid will feel included and will feel like they
can be on a team. Like That's kind of how
we've gotten certain games to work for our family. Chameleon
(22:12):
is one that's actually really fun for both kids and adults,
but Genevieve is like not totally able to like manage
it herself, so it works really really well if we
divide into teams. And another thing we've done in teams
actually more like with my in laws, is like if
we are doing some kind of make your own food
or that kind of prep project, like Okay, Genevieve, you're
helping me make this, Cameron, you're helping Dad make that,
and like, you know, everyone's kind of got their own team.
(22:34):
You're still doing something all together, but it's divided so
it's more manageable.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
All right, we'll take one more quick ad break and
then we'll talk about trips that are fun for the
whole family. Well, we are back talking things that are
fun for the whole family. First, we've been talking more
(23:00):
about local activities, home based activities. Now, obviously you've probably
in many cases all going to go on vacation together.
So Sarah, what's been fun for you guys?
Speaker 2 (23:10):
So people probably know we're going to say skiing. That's
been the kind of easiest crowd pleaser, and it can
even work when kids are too young to ski because
many ski resorts have nurseries. You just have to do
your homework and choose one that has the amenities that
you need. Is not the most budget friendly vacation, but man,
it is the one that has kind of like it's
(23:31):
been the most family fun enriched one that we've taken,
and so we've done it a few times now and
plan to continue. I also feel like a cruise can
be really great in terms of just having something for
many different age groups. We've done two Disney cruises, and
the first one we did when Genevieve was only like
a year and a half and the kids were like, yeah,
(23:52):
one and a half, five and seven, and it worked great.
And then we've also gone with the kids a little
bit older, so I can see how that spans lots
of age range. And the beauty of that is like
you can do things apart and then come together, and
then be apart and come together, et cetera. So yeah,
we've really enjoyed cruises for that for that reason.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
Yeah, I'll second the skiing, and I don't ski, just
like I don't really watch movies. I guess I'm a
ton of fun really, but I didn't have to. When
all of us went in late March, we put Henry
in ski school and so he was able to have
instruction and he did really well with that. And then
the older kids skied with my husband and I kind
(24:28):
of hung out, went to the gym, took myself out
for lunch, picked up Henry at three o'clock. You know,
we went in the hot tub, we all went out
for dinner. It was just it's a good trip, right,
It's a good trip for all ages. And with that,
you know, I've only been on one cruise. I'm not
a huge cruise person, but a resort is like a
land based version of the cruise, so you don't have
(24:49):
to be on a boat to get the concept, especially
ones that have a really good kids club. So we
recently went to Olani and Hawaii. They obviously have a
kid's club since it's a Disney property, but many others
do as well. We went to a place called Windjammer
in Saint Lucia, which I will throw out there. It
turned out to have a really quite appealing kids club.
(25:11):
At the time, Alex was four, so Jasper would have
been twelve. I think sometimes Jasper stayed home by himself,
but mostly the four of them would all go to
the kids' club. They all really enjoyed their offerings there,
and they had kind of cool things like horseback riding
or so it was a little bit more intense, like
that was a real draw versus like, no, we're just
(25:33):
sticking and you adhere in color for three hours while
mom and dad go do something. So yeah, that's you know,
and just a resort. The big kids can go swim
or go to the beach or hang out in the
room and little kids do their things. Theme parks, again,
the caveat the group doesn't have to stay together the
whole time. But if you've got a big theme park
(25:53):
that has like kiddie ride sections. Maybe it's not gonna
be a ton of fun for mom and dad, although
mom and dad can switch off, like you go to
the roller coaster while someone take the little kids on
something and then switch off again, and the big kids
can go wander around on their own and go to
whatever ridiculous roller coaster that your teenagers want to wait
in line for.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Yeah, we've had good luck at our last couple of
theme park trips. But and when you have a big
age spread, I think the splitting does make sense.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
Yeah, and with that, our counterpoint on things being fun
for the whole family is even with trips, sometimes you
don't actually have to bring the whole family.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
Yes, that's our punchline to this episode is like you
can try, and there's lots of things you can do,
and also sometimes you can just give up because it
can also be fun to have fun with parts of
the family.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Yeah. Well, in these days, I really rarely require my
older children to do stuff. They can stay home by themselves,
you know. Obviously, I and my oldest child as an adult,
I really can't make him do most of anything. I'm
totally willing to try to bribe people to come along
be like, oh, well, you know, we thought you might
like this, or we'll make sure to stop him entice entice,
(27:03):
But you know, so it may not be worth it
for that, or if you do a big kid focused activity,
might be worth getting child care for younger ones, because well,
you will have to attend to the younger one for
a lot of the time, and especially if they are
not happy, that's going to detract from the experience for everyone.
So we have also traveled that way, so longtime listeners
(27:28):
know that when when we went to Norway in the
summer of twenty eight twenty three, we only took the
four older children and we left Henry with people caring
for him back in Pennsylvania, and he had a perfectly
good time. I don't think he missed out on the
experience of being on a plane for eight hours and
being horribly jet lagged, and then the rest of us
could actually experience the fun of Europe without that. So
(27:52):
throwing that out there as.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
I do, I was thinking about the fact that, like,
when your older kids are totally out of the house
and you just have let's say Alex and Henry, they're
probably going to get to take trips with just you guys.
With you with a focus, And the truth is, it's
like it's kind of fair that you provided that for
the older kids too in a way, because again, if
Henry had been there, it would not have been the
same because like you wouldn't have been very present. So
(28:17):
it's kind of yeah, it's kind of like there is
a little bit of a symmetry there to make sure
that your older kids sometimes get experiences where they are
the focus, which can't always be true if you're chasing
around a taller Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
I mean, I'm traveling with Jasper in some upcoming weeks
on this and we're going to have a very different experience,
I'm sure than if there were younger children. I'm planning
a trip with Sam for next spring break, and again
we can do totally different things than we would possibly
do if there were a six year old with us.
So yeah, it's worth considering that as an option in it,
(28:51):
you know, always our public service announcement with family trips,
the goal is some enjoyable moments because bliss the whole
time isn't possible, just as probably nothing is fun for
the whole family for the entire time either.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
I don't think bliss the whole time is possible for life, yeah,
human nature given day.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
Fallen nature of humanity. Yes, no it is not. But
oh will that's a philosophical matter for a different time.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Yes, so I might even say that's a good thing.
We will appreciate the bliss more if it's not constant, all.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
Right, Q and A.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
So this one is for Laura because I don't have
that much to offer, but she does. I am traveling
across time zones with kids for the first time.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
What are your survival tips, Laura, Well, you've done three
hour time difference. It's not that you've never taken your
children out of your time zone. That's not like advanced though.
That is all we've done.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
We've done three hours, and we have made the three
hours like more than three hours, because what invariably happens
is we go west, but not only to we go west,
but then we end up sleeping till ten am on
the west, so coming back is like a six hour adjustment.
Because we're idiots. Yeah, yeah, but that's all we've done.
We've never done Europe, we've never done Hawaii. So for us,
it's not that hard. Honestly, when they're excited and they're
(30:07):
like on vacation, they want to stay up anyway, so
we naturally fall into that rhythm going west and then
east you're forced.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
Because you're back at school.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
I think it would actually be harder if you didn't
have like a routine to come back to pretty quickly,
because then you might like drag out the kind of
like adjustment phase. But then I guess you could naturally
drag out the adjustment phase and it wouldn't matter. So
I feel like we need more tips on like longer.
And then also what happens when you go east, because
that seems more troublesome.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
Yeah, I mean, I wish there was a good answer
to this, which is, I mean, you just need to
be prepared for some rough nights and you're going to
have to manage your energy with that in mind. As
Sarah was saying, going west is easier because you just
go to bed early and wake up early. And for
the most part, that's not a problem in life, is
to go to bed early and wake up early. And
(30:54):
especially when we went to Hawaii, I mean, the flight
out there was long enough that you're just kind of tired,
Like we had to wake up early in the morning
to get to Newark. Airport, Like, Henry did nap on
the plane, but that allowed him to then stay up
through dinner on the first day there, and I kind
of crashed before everyone so and then I woke up
at four am. But again, you're up at four am.
It's not the end of the world. Versus feeling like
(31:17):
you need to sleep till two pm. That's an entirely
different level of problem. So going east, I will just
report in case anyone is thinking of taking their small
children to Hawaii, that our first night home back from Hawaii,
Henry fell asleep at about five thirty pm in the afternoon.
I didn't discover him for a while. I was like, well,
maybe he'll just stay asleep. He did not stay asleep.
He woke up at midnight. He was awake until five am.
(31:39):
And this was after I did not sleep at all
on the plane on the way home, which was an
overnight flight, because I was taking care of him. So
in this case, we are thrilled that YouTube exists. We
are thrilled that our child is old enough to watch
YouTube without like trying to wander out of the house,
which the alarm was on. So if he had, you know,
I would have woken up and heard that, but I
(32:00):
put him on the computer. I'm like, go to town, child,
here is a yogurt. I am going up to sleep.
If you need me, you can know where I am.
I woke up I think twice in that midnight to
five window and went and checked on him. But for
the most part I did sleep during that. And then
the next day, of course, was challenging because he'd been
up from midnight to five. We had him sleep from
(32:23):
about five to nine and then got them up for
the day. There was some crabbiness, but I don't think
there's a good way around this. There isn't Like the
older children can take melotonin if they're having trouble falling asleep,
and that's something I would recommend, Like if you are
going east to Europe from the US, take melatonin with you.
Take chewa bowles. If you have twelve year olds who
(32:46):
aren't good at swallowing pills or something and they don't
take much. I mean, maybe this is bad medical advice.
I don't know. You can tell me, but the problem
is the first night you'll sleep because you're tired. The
second night you will be up at two am. And
it's very frustrating. To not be able to fall asleep
till about five am or six am or something like that.
So taking half a melatonin in the middle of the
night and you get back to sleep and then you're
better for that.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
Yeah, melatonin, I mean it doesn't have big downsides. Some
people find that it doesn't help them stay asleep and
helps them fall asleep. Yeah, and then the other things.
If you use it too much, there can be like
a tachyphylaxis or resistance that developed.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
But I think travel is a perfect yeah use case, yes, exactly,
So I will throw that out there as an idea.
But I think there's probably a lower limit on when
you're supposed to give it to children. So I have
not given it to like toddlers or anything like that.
And so I don't know that there is a good
answer re fault your physician. Consult your physician, exactly. So, yeah,
(33:41):
travel with kids. I think back to a very early
guest of ours, Henley Vescez, who is a travel entrepreneur,
and we had asked her for tips on traveling, you know,
flying with small children to make it more pleasant. She's like,
I wish there was a good answer to that. I
was like, well, there you go, there isn't. But it's
one of those things where you decide that it will
(34:02):
be worth it for your remembering self. And I'm glad
that we took a family vacation to Hawaii. Yes, I
was a little traumatized by the twenty four hours of
coming home, but that's in the past now and I
will probably never take a five year old to Hawaii again.
So there you go. Now I have done it. Maybe
you'll take your grandchild someday. I'll might take my grandchildren,
but then there will be multiple adults, and you probably
(34:24):
won't be my mean good point. One of my children
will be in charge of that five year old.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
All right, well, love of the.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
Week, I'm going to say bike riding. They're probably solo.
We will see. I may report back on the attempt
to bring seven people bike riding in a later episode.
But I love that I have an SUV and I
just full down the back seats and if I want
to go bike riding solo, I can just shove my
bike in the back, take it wherever, unload it. Very
easy and nice quick workout. And that's something different to
(34:56):
do during spring and summer and fall that I won't
do in the winter and so it'll has a bit
of a treat feel to it.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
It does have a treat feel to it. I will
embrace bike riding as well, just because Genevieve now can
like ride very nicely and quick and it's actually like
pleasant to just ride around the neighborhood with her, Like
we did a fun ride to the pool the other
day and it's like downright pleasant.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
So yay bike riding.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
Ya shout out to Guardian because her bike came from
our wonderful previous sponsor and it's.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
A great bike. Yeah, there we go. All right, Well,
this has been best of both worlds. We've been talking
about things that are fun for the whole family, or
at least for most of the family most of the time.
We will be back next week with more on making
work and life fit together.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the
shoebox dot com or at the Underscore shoe Box on Instagram,
and you.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
Can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This
has been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please join
us next time for more on making work and life
work together.
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