Biking with kids
We’ve found a new passion around Chez Polka Dot: mountain biking! Well, it’s more like trail riding so far, but tell that to my butt, which is amazingly sore. Feels like I climbed a mountain and back down. I’ve been wanting to do this forEVER, but finally got the push I needed to go ahead [...]
Trip to Toronto? Or just eat your cookies.
The big dilemma here at PDS the last day or so has been whether we shift our travel plans this summer. First, it was going to be just a camping trip to upstate New York. Now things have shifted to possibly ditching that plan and going with a city tour of Toronto, with a very [...]
Camping and crabbing at Carolina Beach
Back from another camping expedition! Real quickie, though. We were down in Carolina Beach where the kids had a crabbing class — wading knee-deep into a salt marh, tossing bait fish out, and luring blue crabs back through the shallow waters (released them all, naturally, along with the shrimp, minnows, and snails who were also [...]
Colonial Williamsburg
You know what would be really cool? If I’d just gotten back from Colonial Williamsburg and had lots of photos and activities and stuff to share with you. As it turns out… I haven’t gone to Colonial Williamsburg yet this year. It’s been on my to do list, though, does that count? However, you may [...]
Camping rocks!
So you know we’re big into camping here at Chez Polka Dot. We were blessed to adopt a camper, but tent camping works for us, too. (Much as I would like to say there’s no difference between the two, there kinda is: Air conditioning/heat, a fridge instead of a cooler, beds off the ground…) The [...]
Pre-vacation dinner
No, we’re not going on vacation any time soon. (Boo!) But over on a travel board I sporadically read, the buzz is about pre-vacation dinners for the family. You know, like the kids aren’t excited enough to be going to the Grand Canyon, Atlantis, or Disney World so you pump ‘em up just that extra [...]
Outer Banks, North Carolina
We recently took a little trip over to the Outer Banks (OBX) for a couple days. I’d planned on making another music video about this trip, like our Charleston vid, and we even finally settled on a song and captured lots of pix and vid…but my free trial version of the cool movie making software [...]
Family Travel: 4 Ways to Stray From the Beaten Path
So, I was talking with my sister the other day — emailing actually, because we’re so 21st century and talking is très Old School — and I asked if she’d seen our Charleston vid. She said it looked fun, then added (paraphrasing), “But really, aren’t all trips fun? Or else, what’s the point?” All trips [...]
Food in Charleston: Shrimp and Grits
Look at a map of the United States. See North Carolina? We’re on the coast, right? You’d think that meant I’d be able to find decent seafood. Sadly, no. I can’t find a decent seafood meal to save my life. Granted, Chez Polka Dot is smack-dab in the middle of the state, so maybe the [...]
