Category: Recommended Trips

An Exotic Vacation In Florida’s Backyard

It’s that time of year again when we all want to rush to the beach with our families and enjoy the beautiful summer weather. For many, finding a safe or uncrowded beach can be difficult and expensive. Like most families, we struggle to afford a nice family
vacations, so when we do, we aim to go big with the most memorable experiences that are offered.

Enter Discovery Cove …..this beautiful and exotic park (more like a retreat) is not only affordable but right in the beautiful backyard of Orlando. With its tropical foliage, exotic birds, and dolphin lagoons this park is exactly what your family needs. Better yet, it is also friendly for all ages and the activities offered to satisfy many people’s bucket lists. The best part about this particular park is it is all-inclusive so no more having to pack extensive beach bags full of snacks, drinks, and sunscreen for your family. We decided to make Discovery Cove the center of our vacation as it offered something that was on everyone on our family’s bucket list, swimming with dolphins! While you can swim with dolphins at locations all over the world, Discovery Cove offers this experience a safe and fun environment at a reasonable price. As if swimming with a dolphin wasn’t enough, Discovery Cove also is an all-inclusive park making your visit so easy Mand ensuring no one in your party gets bored.

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Paint Fight and Splatter…Not in My House!

Growing up in a small town as a child, I have warm memories of playing outside in dirt piles, jumping in mud puddles, drawing creations with sidewalk chalk, and finger painting on easels. All of these activities include two vital things……FUN and a MESS! As an adult, when my daughter does these exact activities I shudder at the mess that I am inevitably going to have to clean up. I vowed when I had my own children I would be the “fun” mom and wouldn’t care about all the messes made by my children’s adventures. The first few years I did well and delivered on that promise, we made all sorts of messy projects playing with paint, play-doh and of course slime! We even had an indoor silly string fight once!  As the years went on and my daughter wanted to play with varieties of confetti and crazy science experiences I started suggesting she do them outdoors or look for cleaner and “boring” activities.

We have all been guilty of putting off a fun project or family night after a long day of work. Some days it is a challenge just to get the kid’s homework done, make dinner, and give them a bath. In our home because of our constant hectic schedules, we started making Sundays our family adventure day. Sunday is reserved for activities that will be fun and go outside of the norm. I usually spend the night before looking for fun activities that will nourish my child’s sense of adventure and bring us all closer together. As I was giving up I stumbled upon the perfect activity for my family and better yet required no cleanup for me! Are Paint Rooms for the whole Family?

Ahh…the kids are finally back to school or are now settling into their remote learning routines. Maybe you now have the hang of juggling parenting while working from home or have figured out your work schedule to align best with your hectic family schedule. No matter what your unique family situation is, one thing is always constant in all our lives. When are we able to fit in quality time as a family and keep everyone engaged?

In this modern age, it is so hard to connect with your kids as many are frequently browsing through apps on their phones, or in many cases, they can be seen watching TV while also playing on their phones. Many of us are guilty of doing this to wind down or it’s become a habit in the fast-paced world we live in. It can be exhausting when you feel like your kids would rather have teeth pulled than spend time as a family or give you more than a one-word answer about their day.  

Families with the ability to have dinner together each night may implement a no technology at the table rule so that you can touch base with your kids and hubby to reconnect. While I definitely recommend reconnecting over dinner each night realistically not every family has this option.

 The truth is that in the time of needing to have constant stimulation, we need to make our valuable time with our family FUN! You may be asking how are we going to do that with different ages of kids and their varied interests. Sure, there are the basic things people think of such as going to the movies, amusement parks, days of shopping, etc but the truth is that notably many of us don’t have the budget for these activities weekly or monthly. No worries! Try a weekly or monthly family game night that will keep everyone involved.

It’s not exactly how it sounds. No crimes were committed but while on vacation we were able to visit and tour one of the most famous historic prisons in North America. We went to Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, PA.

This was a great and unique experience for one of our family adventures. It’s educational with just a touch of spookiness at a self-guided pace so that you can take as little or as long as you would like. While we were hesitant about adding this adventure to our vacation we are glad we did. This turned out to be one of our favorite and most talked about post-trip places we have visited. We have even considered going back to see the more spooky side during a nighttime Halloween event, Terror Behind the Wall. We can’t wait to visit the Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia again soon.

Every year thousands of families scrimp and save in hopes that they may get to take their family on one good vacation.

A vacation is so great that it is scrapbook-worthy and the kids will look back at it fondly even as adults. For us, an annual vacation is not possible. So when we do splurge we like to make it epic! let’s make it a budget-friendly vacation while we are at it.