Kohler: Vacation in the land of fancy faucets

A few months ago I won a weekend getaway to Kohler, Wisconsin from fellow Chicago mom blogger Kim Moldofsky, whose latest blog, The Reluctant Renovator, chronicles the updates she and her husband are making to their new (old) house.

If Kohler sounds familiar to you, it's probably because your sink, tub or toilet bears the name. But the 140 year old Kohler company has more than an over-the-top design showroom to lure tourists to their small company town outside Sheboygan--they've transformed what used to be housing for the single immigrant men who worked in their factories into a deluxe 5 star hotel, The American Club. To further entice tourism, they've built fancy golf courses, opened a luxury spa and installed upscale shopping and restaurants on the Kohler campus. The buildings are spread out, but a free shuttle will pick you up and drop you off anywhere within minutes.

All hail the wall of toilets

Since the package I'd won was geared toward families, we were put up at the slightly less luxurious but more child-friendly Inn at Woodlake, which serves free breakfast every day and will loan you board games (or even an Xbox). The Inn at Woodlake is also home to the weekend Kamp Kohler kids programming, which we took full advantage of on Saturday.

Since it was an off-season weekend the girls were the only children enrolled, but they had an awesome time with Ginger, racing through the woods on a nature scavenger hunt, swimming at the pool at the nearby Sports Core and putting together some Thanksgiving-themed crafts. They had so much fun they begged to be sent back for the evening "Dinner and a Movie" program, which meant Josh and I had lunch and dinner on our own (Neopolitan pizza at Il Ritrovo and fish and chips at the Duke of Devon Pub) and plenty of time to explore the amazing John Michael Kohler Art Center in Sheboygan, which had a very moving exhibit on memory and memory loss. There was a great multi-room installation that reminded me a bit of the Alzheimer's novel Turn of Mind and a bunch of photographs from The Oxford Project, which I loved so much I bought the book.

Ada checks out the "quiet seat" in a lit-from-below bathroom

But back to our stay in Kohler. The staff everywhere on the resort was cheerful, friendly and eager to please. The beds at the Inn on Woodlake were comfortable and the flat screen was large, but the most memorable part of room was the bathroom, especially the shower, which was from another world--5 adjustable sprayers for a shower I didn't ever want to get out of!

We toured the Kohler Design Center with the girls, which is amazing on multiple levels. I loved seeing the history of their advertisements, we all giggled imagining ourselves rich enough to live in a house with one of their many over-the-top bathroom set-ups and the kids and Josh marveled at all the crazy technology (multi-sprayer showers and Japanese-style programmable toilets with remote controls). Had we been there on a weekday morning, we could have also toured the factory.

No trip to Kohler would be complete without a stop at the fancy Kohler Water Spa, so I sent Josh and the girls off to the Above and Beyond Children's Museum in Sheboygan Sunday morning and indulged myself in a Thai-style "stretch and flex" massage and an hour soaking in a hot tub, baking in a sauna and generally feeling pampered and relaxed.

Would we go back? Definitely. At least in this family, happy family getaways are much happier when there is a kids' club to give mom and dad some alone time. And while the Kohler Resort's stellar reputation proceeded it, we were pleasantly surprised by all that nearby (and fun-to-pronounce) Sheboygan has to offer. I've never been the type to stay exclusively on a resort property, but I didn't know that there would be genuine foodie restaurants and a couple of great museums in a small Wisconsin city just 5 minutes away.

Grand Rapids getaway

"Going anywhere for Memorial Day?"
"We're headed to Grand Rapids for a couple of days."
"Why?"

I must have had this conversation a half-dozen times in the last week. Apparently Grand Rapids, Michigan, isn't exactly known for being a vacation destination. But I'd won a 1-night getaway via a blog contest and I wasn't going to let a free hotel night and a fistful of attraction passes go unused. We initially planned on staying a second night, but both of the girls woke up on the wrong side of the bed Friday morning and were absolute pills on the way to GR, so before we'd checked in, we agreed to make the most of a shorter (and entirely free) stay.

Our first stop was the Grand Rapids Public Museum, which is kind of a like a mini-Smithsonian with a wide-ranging collection that throws together natural science, local history and cases full of curiosities. The girls loved the room of 500 dolls, the exhibit of immigrants to the area and the restored carousel, while I lingered in the most elaborate exhibit: Furniture City (Grand Rapids was built on the furniture industry).

But as interesting as the museum was, for a 6 and 3 year old, nothing beats the thrill of checking into a hotel. The Country Inn and Suites was Z's dream come true: free Otis Spunkmeyer cookies, a library shelf full of books you could borrow, a heated indoor pool (which we had all to ourselves) and an extensive breakfast buffet with a juice dispenser and DIY waffles.

"Mom is mad"

The following day we packed in two breakfasts (one at the hotel and one at a place reputed to offer "the best breakfast in Western Michigan) and visits to the awe-inspiring Fredrik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park and the so-fun-we-had-to-drag-them-out Grand Rapids Children's Museum before heading out of town. On the way home we stopped for a very late lunch and cherry crisp at a Crane's Pie Pantry, which we've been visiting for their homestyle food and bottomless glasses of apple cider since I was 4 months pregnant with Z. Before we piled into the car, we let the girls run around the apple orchard. And they were perfect angels for the 2+ hour drive home in the pouring rain (although the DVD player running Lilo and Stitch probably had something to do with that).

Want to know more about what we ate? Read Josh's food blog. More pictures can be seen here.

Z took this picture

Seen in New Orleans

What can you do between 9:30am and 3pm on a Monday in New Orleans? My two co-workers and I started with the touristy-but-worth it Jazz Brunch at the Court of Two Sisters in the French Quarter. Highlights included the buttermilk biscuits, blue cheese potato salad, cajun sausage and pecan pie. Sunshine on my back, coffee in my cup and a live jazz trio pretty much sealed the deal.

From there we walked back to Canal Street and hopped on the St. Charles streetcar. We rode it west a couple of miles before hopping off and walking south to Magazine Street, where we moseyed through fashion boutiques, shoe stores and art galleries (there are also a ton of restaurants). I picked up clever t-shirts for the girls from Storyville.

Unable to find an eastbound Magazine Street bus, we hailed a taxi and drove to Cafe Du Monde, famous for its chicory-based cafe au lait and beignets. The service was more brusque that I remember from my trip there 7 years ago, but the powdered sugar-laden beignets were just as delicious.

How about a Jennifer Aniston portrait in oil?

After dusting off off our clothes, we wandered around the French Quarter, taking in the tattooed, meth-head palm readers, the ubiquitous street bands and shoeshine stands, the painters and caricature artists and scam artists and horse-drawn carriage guides all hollering and bargaining and "where you from?"-ing and generally trying to make a buck.

And the local color wasn't all--the tourists were a sight to behold as well. Check out this lady in red, who we determined was getting paid for her "fantasy day" (her words) with a pudgy white guy.

Photoshoot on a college campus

Tulane University made a beautiful backdrop for a photoshoot yesterday. The New Orleans university offers a mix of Gothic and contemporary architecture, enormous trees, stone benches...and even features waterfalls inside the brand-spanking new student union.

We shot images all morning, breaked for a late lunch and then people-watched for a while. We saw a student channeling Alex Keaton in a pink button down shirt tucked into belted khaki shorts who was alternately working at an outdoor table on his laptop and pacing the grass next to the intermural softball players with his cell phone pressed to his ear.

Then there were the two guys giving a third a hard time about a hickey.

"Hey, what happened to your neck? You fall down the stairs or something?"
"Yeah, I ran into a doorknob."
"Uh-huh."
"It felt pretty good when it happened."
"Yeah, I bet it did."

As we walked off campus to our rental car (parked far away thanks to the Rock N Roll marathon that was also yesterday), the strap on one of my Dansko mary janes popped off. This was an especially bad stroke of luck given that the boots I was wearing on the way to New Orleans became non-functional at airport security when the zipper broke. Now completely shoeless, I had my colleagues drop me off in an area I thought might have boutiques.

It didn't, so I hobbled down to the closest shopping center. No Payless or Aerosoles outlet in this mall. No, we're talking Saks 5th Avenue and Gucci. Desperate, I scanned the directory for something in my price range and found Banana Republic. Of the 15 pairs of shoes they had on display, two were on sale and one was in my size.

I am now the proud owner of a pair of adorable black ankle boots with 3 inch heels. Perfect for a day of sightseeing around New Orleans!

Then last night we headed out to dinner with our clients at Luke, a "snout to tail" gastropub much like Publican. Where we learn none of our clients eat oysters, mussels or "heavy food," and one will only eat "vegetarian fare, chicken off the bone, or light, white fish." I thought the waiter was going to kill us.

Today it's just me and two of my co-workers in NOLA. We're going to have brunch at The Court of Two Sisters and do some shopping and sightseeing before our flight home late this afternoon.

My bag is packed and I'm headed to BlogHer

One small roll-aboard carry-on, packed. Sessions, meals, cocktails and parties have been programmed into my Blackberry. My boarding pass is printed. And a cab has been called.

Okay, can we go back to the suitcase now? I fit 1 handbag, 3 dresses, 1 skirt, 1 shirt and a workout outfit with athletic shoes in there. Plus my MacBook Pro. Plus a duffle bag for swag/NYC clothing purchases. And my toiletries.

I think I deserve to spend the $25 baggage fee I'm saving on cocktails. Come join me for a drink. I'll be the gal wearing the same pair of Dansko gold sandals all weekend.

Road trippin' part 2: what didn't work

What Didn't Work:
1. Expecting children to eat a balanced diet on the road. If a restaurant offers a kids menu, you can pretty much expect your little ones to eat a carb and salt-heavy meal (that is, if they haven't stuffed themselves with car snacks and destroyed their appetite). Think chicken fingers, grilled cheese sandwiches, plain noodles, mac and cheese, hot dogs, pancakes and fries washed down with chocolate milk or apple juice. I knew we were in trouble when, at our last stop of the trip, A announced "I love bacon and french fries!" The good news is that our 2-day road trips were bookends on a week at a vacation rental home. Which meant that breakfasts consisted of fresh fruit and bowls of Grape-Nuts and evenings included carrot sticks, peas and a bowl of apple sauce.

2. Taking turns driving. I enjoy a turn behind the wheel, but it is much less fun when your 2 1/2 year old is screaming bloody murder because she only wants you to pick her toy up off the floor, unwrap her snack, take her trash or play telephone.

3. Listening to the radio. Thank G-d we packed four iPods full of music because commercial radio stinks. Especially in the South, where 3 out of 4 stations are Christian and the other quarter play nothing but car dealership commercials, even when the mountains didn't mess up reception. There was one exception to this rule, and that was an awesome classic country legends station in Louisville (think: "Take This Job and Shove It"). But even it played far too many "Come one down and we'll make you an offer you can't refuse!" commercials.

4. Sleeping in our own beds. My hats are off to any parents of small children who are able to keep the bedtime routines 100% intact while traveling. Josh and I spent exactly 1 night in the same bed during this trip. Instead, we played musical beds, lying down with and even sleeping with our kiddos in separate bedrooms. I'm looking forward to the time when our youngest won't treat a night in the same bed as her big sister as an open invitation to an all-night wrestling match, or a night's sleep that doesn't end with getting kicked awake ... in the face.

Did you read Road trippin' part 1: what worked?

Road trippin' part 1: What worked

What worked:

1. Dividing the 11 hour drive into two roughly equal halves. Six hours buckled into a car seat is plenty for one day.

2. Giving Z my hand-me-down iPod. She was plugged into audio books, Taylor Swift and ABBA the entire time and happily zoned out, looking out the window and listening. Once in a great while she'd take off her kid-sized earphones and read a book, color a picture or provoke her little sister, but mostly she was content to sit quietly.

3. Packing a decent variety of snacks, from the familiar crackers and carrot sticks to the super-special/exotic Pringles, animal crackers and Fruit Roll-Ups.

4. Stopping for good food. Thanks to a little advance planning, a GPS device and Twitter access from my Blackberry, we only stopped once for chain fast food (and we only bought a Happy Meal so we could access the PlayLand guilt-free). Instead, we enjoyed the best bad-for-you food at places like Triple XXX Family Restaurant in West Lafayette, IN and Lynn's Paradise Cafe in Louisville, KY. We even ate semi-healthfully at the Alfalfa Restaurant in Lexington, KY.

5. Driving in the morning. Our kids are much better behaved in the a.m., so leaving after breakfast let us get most of the driving done before prime meltdown time and ensured enough time for a dip at the hotel pool before dinnertime. Speaking of hotels, I can't praise Staybridge Suites in Lousville enough. For $100, we got a 1-bedroom king suite with full kitchen and a very nice bathroom. The staff was helpful, the pool was immaculate and well stocked with towels and new deck chairs and the breakfast featured real foods (as opposed to the thawed, plastic-wrapped Jimmy Dean sausage biscuits and Pop-Tarts disguised as a "continental breakfast" at Ashley Quarters hotel outside Cincinnati [which was a rip-off at $150]). And did I mention the pillows? There were 8 just for the king size bed!

Stay tuned for part 2: what didn't work.

Welcome to Weaverville

We left Oak Park around noon on Thursday, stopped for an hour in Indianapolis, and spent the night in Florence, Kentucky.

This morning we hung out in Lexington, eating a late second breakfast at the Alfalfa Restaurant and exploring the Explorium Children's Museum. We hit the road again around 1pm and let the kids burn off some energy at a McDonald's PlayLand in Knoxville, TN, before finally pulling into the drive of our vacation rental in Weaverville around 6pm. Z was amazingly well behaved the whole way. A, not so much.

We're here with my mom and stepdad and my sister and her family. Z's excited to show off all her newly-aquired swimming skills in the pool and A's delighted have her same-aged cousin to play with. Josh and I are looking forward to some grandparental babysitting, which will more that make up for the fact that we always end up sleeping separately when on vacation (we're each bunking with a different kid).

Our American Girl Slumber Party

This is Z, early Saturday afternoon on the El platform by our house. We were heading into the city for a mother-daughter overnight at the Embassy Suites on State Street. Which, by the way, I last stayed at in the mid 1980s when my parents took me and my sister to Chicago to visit their old college haunts.

I'd been given a free one night stay complete with their exclusive American Girl Place package via my association with Kristen Chase (aka the Mominatrix). I checked in at the front desk, and a manager then stepped out from around the corner with a clipboard and helped Z "check in" her doll. She was tickled pink. We dropped off our suitcase in our 2-room suite on the eighth floor and walked to the retail-as-entertainment emporium that is the American Girl Place. Holy mother of consumerism, this place is like Disneyland without the rides. So many lovely things upon which to spend money. And all so alluringly displayed.

I'd had a chat with Z beforehand about how many nice things we'd see and how much she might want to buy the things displayed there. I also emphasized that we'd buy her yard sale American Girl doll a new outfit, get her ears pierced (I had a coupon for a complimentary ear piercing from the hotel) and get her ratty hand-me-down hair fixed up. I needed her to understand we wouldn't be buying extra outfits, furniture, accessories, food or anything else.

We headed straight upstairs and reserved a spot for "Hannah" at the doll hair salon. Then we spent 40 minutes wandering through the 2-level store, checking out the period dolls in their museum-like historical dioramas and selecting just the right outfit for Hannah to wear.

When we returned to the salon, Hannah was strapped into a tiny salon chair and we learned the proper technique for styling her hair (wet it well and use a wire brush).

$15 later, Hannah was pierced and styled and we changed her into her new pink dress (with matching shoes and a necklace). We didn't buy cupcakes, an American Girl magazine with Z's picture on the cover, miniature American Girl dolls, any one of the hundreds of American Girl books or hobby-accessories. (If you're into dancing, ice skating, horseback riding or gardening, your doll can be too!) But we did linger in the book department and read the first chapter of "Meet Felicity," a book about a girl who lives in Philadelphia in the 1800s.

Two lovelies

To my surprise and immense relief, Z didn't whine or ask for anything beyond her allotted goodies. She even remarked a few times how lucky she was and how beautiful her doll looked. She is, however, very much looking forward to her birthday and plans to ask for a second American Girl doll. Julie, specifically.

We left the store and headed back to the hotel, where Z was overjoyed to find the American Girl package "turn-down service" in full effect. A custom fold-out American Girl doll bed was set up (complete with a wrapped chocolate on the pillow) on her fold-out couch and the TV was tuned to the Disney Channel. Minutes later a staff member stopped by with two gift bags full of junk food and the manager called to let us know that--due to their On-Demand service being down--we wouldn't be able to order the movie included in the package. Instead, he offered us a $20 AMC gift card!

We headed downstairs to the lobby and joined the crowd in line for the Manager's Reception, and I got myself a glass of wine and a handful of snack mix. Then, after a half an hour of TV and Cheetos (two rare treats for Z), we walked back outside for dinner. We had "the best dinner ever" at Nordstrom Cafe and we walked across the mall to the Crocs store, where I replaced Z's worn-out Crocs with a ballet slip-on style that were on sale for $19. We also picked up a Belle Jibbitz for A.

Since Z was still gung-ho to shop, we headed into Ann Taylor Loft. There she declared me to look absolutely beautiful in everything I tried on. The $10 lilac T-shirt was a go. The saggy-ass boyfriend-style cropped white jeans. Um, no.

Our Enchanted-style shopping spree complete, we headed back to the hotel for baths and bed. And little tech-savvy chica that she is, Z figured out how to take my picture while I was in the tub and email it to Josh. Fortunately his is one of the only email addresses loaded into my Blackberry.

Happy heart, happy belly: My weekend in Portland

My 48 hours in Portland were not wasted. We largely left Franny's children at home with Dave as we shopped, walked and ate our way across the city, sharing food from restaurants, diners, food carts, hole in the wall doughnut shops and the Farmers' Market.

I ate...

Tomato soup, grilled cheese and a butterscotch milkshake at Blueplate

Everything bagel with scallion cream cheese from Kettleman's

Marionberry scone and cookies from the Farmers' Market

A glazed doughnut and Stumptown coffee from Voodoo Doughnut

Assorted Japanese bar snacks and udon noodle soup at Biwa

Spinach, sundried tomato and feta pizza from Oasis Cafe

Lettuce with green goddess dressing and a soft boiled egg followed by a very rare cheeseburger at The Country Cat

Egg, sausage patty and cheese biscuit sandwich from Pine State Biscuits

And a coconut and wicked chocolate ice cream cone from Cool Moon Ice Cream (and since we're not completely heartless, we took the kids there)

I bought...

Dansko sandals from Clogs N More, a pair of earrings and an earring organizer from vendors at the Saturday market, a miniature box of Alma Chocolates, 2 pounds of Stumptown coffee, a folk songs book from Powell's Books for Home & Garden and a half dozen secondhand cloth napkins from SCRAP, a shop that rescues potential landfill and resells it as crafting supplies.

And because we eventually did get shopped out, we also visited...

The Oregon History Museum and the Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden, where we had fun taking pictures.

You can see more here.

West Chester, PA: The highlights

We flew Southwest to West Chester Saturday morning, arriving in time for lunch (with milkshakes!) at Ruby's Diner, conveniently located in the upscale strip mall 1 mile from my in-laws' house. [And can I mention here that they bought coordinating hot pink car seats for the kids so that we didn't have to lug them along? Such a luxury!]

While A napped, my MIL took me and Z to the local mall ("It's in Delaware, a different state!" Z exclaimed) for new shoes. Although the old-school children's shoe boat Shirley wanted to take us to was shuttered for good, we found a ghetto fabulous Kids Foot Locker selling Converse sneakers, which was what we wanted anyway. Z picked out these cool kicks and Shirley wisely bought A a matching pair.

On Sunday Josh and I left the girls with their grandparents and caught a matinee of Hot Tub Time Machine, which is as dumb as it sounds, but I still enjoyed it. [Incidentally, my favorite joke was from one of the previews, when a send up of McGyver confesses to leaving an "upper decker" in the captain's quarters. An upper-decker being a shit in the toilet tank, not the bowl. Yes, I have the world's most juvenile sense of humor. Tears are spilling down my cheeks as I type this.]

Ahem. After the movie, we took Z and A off Shirley and Joel's hands for a little while, driving to a nearby playground. (You can't walk to anything from their place.) It was cool, damp and windy, but the kids had a blast anyway.

On Monday Shirley had a ton of cooking to do for the seder, so Josh and I drove the girls into the city (the long, long way thanks to screwy GPS directions) to meet his high school friend Erica and 2 of her 3 kids at the amazing Please Touch museum. Thank you to all my Twitter followers who recommended it, it was as great as you promised. So appealing to kids, in fact, that we lost our wandering 2 year old twice. (Both times I found her within 5 minutes, hanging out with a uniformed employee.)

Finally, late Monday afternoon, people started arriving for the Passover seder. Josh's aunt and uncle, his dad's cousin and her husband and his cousin and her family were all in attendance, but the only cousins who counted to Z and A were the two other kids, 6 year old Daniel and 4 year old Jessica. Aside from A, who missed her nap, the kids were fairly well behaved. A and Z wouldn't eat matzo, parsley or maror, but they did dig into the matzo ball soup with gusto.

Dinner conversation was a little too politically charged for my taste (although it might have been made more pleasant had we be drinking something other than sweet Manischewitz). I always forget that my father-in-law, his brother and his brother's wife are really right of center, so I found myself defending health care reform and mocking birthers and tea party haters to people who responded with "I don't personally know anyone who doesn't have health insurance" and "If Obama's birth certificate is authentic, why was there any question about it's authenticity?" Yeah, and there are anti-Semites who deny the Holocaust too, but we don't give them their own cable news channel.

Top 10 memories from Akumal

We got back from our 8 day trip to Akumal late Tuesday night thanks to a Mexicana airline screwup (they changed our flight from 2:45 to 5:35pm without bothering to inform us). With two overtired, junk food-fueled kiddos for traveling companions, our trip back most definitely does not make this top 10 list.

10. Getting a mani-pedi at the open air "Budha Spa," which would more accurately titled the Massage Hut. Frosted pink was probably the least offensive of the 5 polishes offered me, but that doesn't mean I like it. Z and A, however, thought the color was beautiful. My nails look okay, but the hand and leg massages plus 1 hour and 45 minutes of silence? Blissful.

9. Lunch on the beach at the Lol-Ha Snack Bar. I was fully expecting our day without my mom and Rick (who were on a bus tour to Chichen-Itza) would be stressful, but our kids were delightful from breakfast to bedtime, playing with us, each other, and the twin 6 year olds from Salt Lake City who moved into the condo next door. While our two angels devoured their hot dogs, Josh and I had the best shrimp and fish tacos.

8. Every meal we ate at the Super Chomak Loncheria. This counter outside the overpriced grocery store serves the best Mexican food you can buy wearing just a swimsuit and a towel.

7. Lunch in Playa del Carmen. Josh and I left the girls with their doting grandparents and headed north to Playa for a couple hours of shopping and eating. We started with dessert, Mayan drinking chocolate and a brownie at Ah Cacao, before having a healthy lunch of fresh-squeezed juice and fish sandwiches at 100% Natural. We read each other tacky tee shirt slogans ("I'm not a gynecologist, but I'll take a look" and "Take me drunk, I'm home" come to mind) and wondered how so many shops can sell the exact same tourist crap. While I comparison shopped for silver earrings, Josh got offered the chance to buy some "nose candy" by a street entrepreneur.

6. Snorkeling in Yal-ku lagoon. This really is as close as you'll ever get to swimming in a tropical fish tank. Josh and I took turns checking out the brightly colored fish with our rented snorkel and keeping the girls (who were wearing water wings) from getting pulled out to sea by an unusually strong current. Although we didn't go on the same day, the Italian restaurant (and small hotel) Que Onda is right next door to Yal-ku. If you're ever in Akumal, it's worth stopping there for their house made linguine, which is served with a variety of different sauces in a charming courtyard garden. We were lucky the restaurant has a gravel floor as A peed on it while wearing a sundress and no one was the wiser.

5. Reading The Book Thief, which was on loan from a co-worker. Oh. My. G-d. I couldn't put it down. Really, one of the best books I've ever read. If I had to choose between bringing this book and touring the ruins of Tulum for the third time (see wind-whipped family photo above), I'd choose reading. Hands down.

4. Discovering how much fun our kids can have with limited toys. We bought a few canisters of Play-Doh, some markers, a few sand toys and a bottle of bubble juice at the Super Walmart in Playa. That, plus the two Happy Meal My Little Pony toys we'd brought with us kept our girls (and Z's new friends Hannah and Emma) happily diverted for days. Of course, all you have to do is give A a plastic grocery sack and she'll "pack" it with random household items and play airport until she decides she'd rather play doctor instead. (Incidentally, her opening line for doctor is always "You so brave."

3. Watching Z and A play kissy-fish, a game of their own invention, which involves the two of them swimming into each other and kissing each other repeatedly on the mouth.

2. Dinner alone with Josh. On our second night in Akumal, we let my mom and Rick babysit and we walked down the beach to La Lunita, a romantic little restaurant we remembered being really good. It must have been an off night in the kitchen, as I was served a Sangria that was as sour as limeade and a poblano pepper stuffed with a giant wad of mozzarella and dried oregano that tasted like nothing so much as Domino's pizza cheese and catnip. We figured they couldn't mess up dessert, but someone had the bright idea to top a lime and cheese frozen pie (kind of Key Lime pie-y) with peanut butter drizzle. It was weird, but any oceanfront dinner date with free babysitting is going to score high in my book.

1. Hidden Worlds. Our one big touristy splurge was Ultimate Adventure packages to the cenote/eco-adventure park Hidden Worlds, where we got to ride the first-ever skycycle over the jungle (more challenging with a child between your legs), fly down a zip line and rappel into a ceynote, and snorkel/float through underground freshwater caverns where we saw stalactites and stalagmites, bats, spiders and a baby scorpion. There were probably fewer than 30 tourists in the entire park, which is huge, so we enjoyed lots of one-on-one attention from the guides.

Thanks, Mom for renting the condo, making coffee every morning and encouraging us to eat every last scrap of food in the refrigerator. Thanks Rick for being a doting grandfather (and jungle gym) to my children. Thank you Josh for putting the girls to bed as often as you did and for brushing the sand off your feet before climbing into our bed. And thank you to my kids for exclaiming "I'm having so much fun!" as often as you did.

I'm leaving on a jet plane

Posting is going to be light. We're leaving for Mexico early tomorrow morning. We're heading back to Akumal with my mom and stepdad. Akumal is a small town south of Cancun, on the ocean between Playa Del Carmen and Tulum. We went there in early 2006 and 2007, and last time we visited, I was 3 months pregnant with A.

This time there's nothing between me and an ice cold margarita. Or a zip line, for that matter.

Jet lag is a bitch

We put the kids to bed pretty much on schedule last night and hoped for the best. I was still wired when I headed to bed around 11pm, so I wasn't altogether shocked to see Z wide awake in her bed 20 minutes after she'd gotten up to pee.

She complained she couldn't sleep, so understanding mom that I am, I let her drag her comforter and pillow to our bedroom floor. And that's when the fun really started. A, who'd been moaning for Mommy off and on for about an hour, escalated her demands to a full-throttle holler. So I brought her to bed.

Fifteen minutes later Z was standing next the bed, tears running down her cheeks. She wanted to snuggle Mommy too. Since A seemed mostly content and our bed really isn't build for 4, I led Z back to her room and promised to lie down with her there.

Minutes later A was crying for Mommy and Z's telling me she "doesn't want A to lose her voice." So the two of us headed back to my room. Two small children in mom and dad's bed in the middle of the night -- two small children whose brains think it is the middle of the day even though it is the middle of the night... it was a party that had Dad running out before midnight and them keeping me up until after 2.

I've got my fingers crossed that an early morning plus melatonin at bedtime will mean a more rested me as I head back to work tomrorow.

Our neverending Friday

My last flat white of the trip

Friday morning in Sydney we awoke--as usual--around 6am. I fed the kids a light breakfast, showered and finished packing. I hit Big W (the Australian Walmart) for new coloring books and snacks for the plane while Josh kept an eye on the kiddos at the mall playland (big box and grocery stores are frequently located inside malls in Oz) and then we met up with Eleanor, Simon and Sam for breakfast at Bill's, the first place we'd gone to in Australia when we last visited in 2004, and the chef/cafe behind a couple of our favorite cookbooks.

From left: Josh, A, me, Z, Eleanor, Sam and Simon

After sharing plates of scrambled eggs, ricotta hotcakes with honeycomb butter and corn fritters, we headed over to Centennial Park (the Sydney equivalent of NYC's Central Park) with Eleanor and Sam (Eliza was at daycare) for a final hour under the intense southern hemisphere sun. I hadn't brought a hat or sunscreen, and my skin was starting to turn pink in 15 minutes. The stay-at-home moms were out in force and far more prepared for the heat and UV rays--they'd all set up picnic blankets in the shade and were laying out hats, suncream, umbrellas and water bottles.

Fair Z knows how to avoid a sunburn

At 12:30 we returned to Eleanor's and changed into our air travel clothes. It was 32 degrees celsius as we arrived at the Sydney airport--driven, as it turned out, by the most incompetent cab driver in the world. We should have known something was up when her words, after we'd belted in our kids, were "So you know the way, right?" We--the out-of-towners--had to guide her to the airport as she braked and signaled randomly through intersections, causing the usually polite Australian drivers to lay on their horns. As we approached the airport, she asked, 5 times, which airline we were taking. Each time we said "United" and she replied with "Okay, American."

We boarded our plane at 2:40 and took off, on time, at 3:30pm Sydney time. After 13 hours in the air, we arrived in LA at 9:30am. Nothing like flying over the international date line to get you to move backwards through time. LAX was a nightmare of standing in line after line with cranky kids, but our four hour 12:30 flight to Chicago was a (relative) piece of cake. We got home at 7:30pm, completing the world's longest Friday when we collapsed in our own bed at 10pm.

20+ hours of travel with two kids is really not much worse than 10 hours of travel with young kids, but the lack of sleep and constant catering to their whims is a real brain draining. I woke up this morning to the realization that, after paying our cabbie last night, I left my wallet in the taxi. Which means that, in addition to leaving Z's Leapster 2 (and all of its games) on a Jetstar flight from Byron Bay to Sydney, I lost my drivers license, ATM card, one credit card and $250 in cash coming home.

Oh well, I'm still calling the trip a success. More Australia posts to come. Soon. And more pictures can be seen here.

Sydney Wildlife World and the best lunch ever

Unlike yesterday, this morning's tourist adventure was successful. Eleanor took advantage of her weekly babysitter to drive us to Darling Harbour, where we took in the snakes, spiders, kangaroos and koalas at a completely not crowded Sydney Wildlife World. We then walked to Chinatown, where we ate an amazing lunch at Mamak. It's the first time I've ever had Malaysian food, and I sure hope it isn't my last. Roti bread, chicken kababs, lamb curry and a plate with coconut rice, peanuts, fried sardines, a boiled egg and hot sauce.

After lunch, A prompted fell asleep in the stroller and we walked to Queen Victoria Center, an upscale shopping spot where Josh and Z had cupcakes. We wandered around the downtown area until A awoke and then we began our adventure in getting home. Turns out not every bus stops at every stop and during the week you have to buy your pass in advance. So we had an unscheduled coffee and runaround break in Hyde Park before getting home to Eleanor's flat around 2:30. 

The afternoon was relaxing. We drove about 5 minutes to a salt water pool cut out of rocks and fed by the ocean where I swam with the girls. Then we had a barbecue in the back yard with Eleanor's downstairs neighbors--her husband's twin sister and her family. Their kids are 5 and 3 and Finnbar, the 5 year old, hit it off beautifully with Z. 

After a dinner of salmon, corn, coleslaw, asparagus and watermelon, Eleanor and I beat a quick retreat to a movie theatre, were we saw The Boys are Back, a quintessentially Aussie film about loss that doubled as a travel film making me long to see the coast of South Australia in person.

3 hours and $200 later, we saw some fish and ate a sandwich

Even with lying about Z's age to save some money, our admissions passes to the insanely crowded Sydney Aquarium cost $90 (we'd added on tickets to Wildlife World, which is next door, but I accidentally handed those tickets to the attendant and now, ripped, they probably won't get us in the door). Parking was another $50 for 2 hours. Hunger induced whining and menstrual cramps were free. 

After about 90 minutes we left the Aquarium and bought a couple of bags of pretzels ($5) and a milk ($1.70) to keep the kids occupied on the drive to Chinatown. Miracle of miracles, Josh found the Malaysian restaurant recommended to him by Simon the night before, but as he turned right to find a parking spot, he inadvertently took us onto the crosstown tunnel. 

By the time we saw daylight again, we were halfway to Maroubra, where Eleanor lives. We weren't sure if she'd restocked the fridge, so we opted to buy sandwiches at a coffee shop on the beach ($34)

First, however, the kids needed a double-dump roadside potty break. Our Potette has been getting a lot of use on this trip.

Top 3 things about Australia I'd like to bring to the US

1. Dual flush toilets. They only use more water when nature requires it. Why is this not the norm everywhere?

2. "Flat white" coffee. Drip coffee is a rarity in Australia. Flat white is an espresso with hot milk--similar to a no-foam latte, but less milky. Incidentally, I haven't seen a Starbucks yet.

3. Roundabouts. They're so much more fun than stop signs.

And here's what I return to the US without missing...

1. High prices. My sister can easily spend $300 a week on groceries for her small family and I found myself forking over $8.70 Australian (about $7.90) for 80 baby wipes. Everything here is expensive. Except, perhaps, wine.

2. Tattoos on everyone. Especially tattoos of angel wings on women's backs. It was more uncommon to find someone at the beach without a tattoo than inked.

3. Can't think of a third thing right now. I guess its Australia 3, US 2.

And while it is neither here nor there, I think it is interesting that no one asks us for ID when flying domestically in Australia. We also didn't have to remove our shoes or get rid of our liquids when going through security.

Australia: Day 5

In case you think I've dropped off the face of the earth, I haven't. I've just been completely unplugged from phones and the Internet for the past 3 days. And aside from a little anxiety at first, I'm not really minding it.

I'm typing this from Byron Bay, at the very easternmost point in Australia. We're sharing a beach house with my sister, her family, and her mother-in-law. We're swimming in the ocean, building sand castles, napping in the breezes and eating really, really well. (My sister married into a family of foodies.)

Z's shaken her sickness. It appears that despite her double vaccinations against the flu and H1N1, she caught one of the two viruses (the latter, most likely).

I think I'll try handgliding before the week is out and we return to Sydney. Then get ready for a more in-depth update and PHOTOS.

Australia: Day 2

Day two began for me around 4am. Apparently the jetlag you get from traveling halfway around the world is about the same as that you get from flying from Chicago to LA.

The girls awoke around 5:30 and I promptly dosed Z with some ibuprofen as she had become feverish the evening before. We waited until it was after 6am to head upstairs to Eleanor's flat for breakfast and all eight of us drove to Bondi Beach to see the Sydney Sculpture By the Sea. Z, who was feeling really under the weather, hung out in a stroller and snapped a few pictures with her new camera before falling asleep. After checking out the art and hitting a playground, we drove to Eleanor and Simon's old neighborhood for the Glebe Street Festival. 

The street fest wasn't all that different from a Chicago summer street fest, but their most common festival foods aren't corn dogs, brats and elephant ears--they're Turkish flatbreads stuffed with spinach, feta and spiced ground lamb. Z wouldn't eat--not even pasta with olive oil and parmesan--so we considered taking her to a medical clinic. The threat of a doctor seemed to snap her out of her feverish stupor, and she was playful for the rest of the day--even with a post-medicine temperature about 100 degrees.