family friendly travel – Page 5

Here’s What We Thought of the Pittsburgh Mills Sky Trail

We received complimentary tickets as part of the Pittsburgh Kids Guide.

There are times that you try something out for the first time and it’s just not what you thought it would be. Then there are other times you try something new out and you wonder when you’ll be able to do it again. Pittsburgh Mills Sky Trail is one of those experiences.

Located in the Pittsburgh Mills Mall, Pittsburgh Mills Sky Trail is a 32-foot tall, 2 level ropes course complete with 30 exciting elements including zig-zag beams, cargo nets, angled rope ladders, crisscross walks and more. Participants choose their own path through the elements and go at their own pace. The ropes course is also equipped with a Sky Rail zip line connection measuring 69′ long. Participants soar down the length of the ropes course on a self guided zipping experience and are able to enjoy it’s thrills over and over. For young adventurers, there’s a specially designed Sky Tykes ropes course for kids ages 2-7.

We went on Halloween, October 31. I really didn’t know what to expect. Would it be super busy? Will it be worth the drive from Johnstown? Will all the kids be able to get the same enjoyment out of it? Valid question considering my 4 kids range from 2 years to 13 years old. When we arrived we found it right next to the food court. It was quite an impressive set up considering it was in a mall.

It says it’s fun for ages 2-102. The staff gave us a friendly greeting. They got all 4 of my kids lined up and fitted with the proper size harnesses. They went over the safety rules with us. The boys were ready to jump into the big kids Sky Trail while my daughter was anxious to try out the Sky Tykes.

My 6 year old was right in the middle where he could have done the big kids Sky Trail or use the Sky Tykes area. He jumped right into the Sky Trail. All 3 of the boys started on the Sky Trail while I took my 2 year old daughter over to the Sky Tykes area. She wanted to climb but she was a little bit nervous. It didn’t stop her though. Most of the time she wanted mommy to hold her hand.

The nice part is the harnesses are fitted to each person. They are hooked up to tethers that slide along the bars. They never detach except manually to go on the zip line but they had another staff member assisting people with that. I’m a nervous Nelly but I had very little concerns with my kids climbing around over my head 12-18 feet in the air. Even if they would lose their footing, they weren’t going anywhere. There were plenty of staff there to help too.

My 6 year old ended up getting cold feet on the big kids trails so he came down and decided to try the Sky Tykes area. After playing on that area for a bit he decided he was ready to go back on the grown up area.

That practice on the Sky Tykes area must have been just what my 6 year old needed because he was almost keeping pace with his big brothers, 11 and 13 years old respectively. Almost, my older boys had no fear what so ever. I kinda wish I would have tried it myself. But I had the opportunity to talk to the assistant manager and other staff and get some great pictures. I can’t say enough about how friendly and helpful the staff were. Everyone had a great time.

This would be a great activity to jump in the car on a runny or cold winter day and get your kids active. Break the boredom and try this place out. Seriously fun for the whole family. Save your self some money too with a coupon from the Pittsburgh Kids Guide! It’s $14 for those 48″ or taller and $7 for those under 48″ tall.

Be sure to stop by Pittsburgh Mills Sky Trail facebook page too tell them Luv Saving Money sent ya!

I’ll leave you with a clip of my 11 year old doing the zip line section of the Sky Trail:

My brave 11 year old trying the zip line section at the Pittburgh Mills Sky Trail #skytrail @pittsburghkidsguide check out more info in my post at LuvSavingMoney.com

A video posted by Angie Beechan (@angwith4) on Oct 31, 2015 at 9:13pm PDT

Visit to Snapology in South Hills Pittsburgh

**I had the opportunity to review Snapology in South Hills Pittsburgh through the US Family Guide PittsburghKidsGuide.com. The visit was my compensation. Any opinions expressed are my own**

As a mom who had never been to any Snapology site before. I did some reading before I went. It’s a good idea to check the hours to see when they’re open. We decided to go on Monday January 20 since the weather wasn’t too bad that day and the kids had off of school. Mondays this particular site is open 10 am until 2 pm. Tuesday 5:30-7:30 pm, well it’s different hours each day. Checking out their website makes it easier to plan your trip.

Snapology has a lot of different opportunities for your children. They host birthday parties, they have cool camps like the LEGO Minecraft camps, combat robot rumble tournament, and lots more. My 10 yr old son is a LEGO fanatic and he told me he would have loved to do the LEGO Minecraft camp as he is also a Minecraft gamer as well.

We had a little trouble finding the building itself. I called ahead to confirm hours, address, and get any tips from them as far as if we should bring anything. There wasn’t. She just told us to make sure we wear socks because there was a room with an interactive game on the floor that the kids would take their shoes off in. She also told us that the GPS would tell us we were there when we weren’t quite there. She told us to make sure we turned onto Highland Park Rd. Just for anyone else trying to find it you turn left onto Highland Park Rd. from Washington Rd. You’re turning left into the mall area. There is a small plaza on your left. Stay in the left lane. It’s the tan building with the striped awning that I have in the picture above. I ended up not finding it right away but I called them and the girl was very sweet and stayed on the phone with me until I found it. I don’t know a lot of places that will do that!

Snapology in the South Hills is located on the 2nd floor. Go in the entrance I have pictured above. You can take the steps or the elevator to the 2nd floor. When you get there is’s a very big open room. You can see LEGO…well lots of LEGO stuff as well as other building materials. The kids were anxious to get in there and check everything out. They registered us making sure they took info for each kid so they could make sure everyone left together as well.

Bright colors and obvious stations were placed throughout the big room. There were a couple of other rooms for the classes and camps. There was also the room with the game on the floor I mentioned earlier.

The area closest to the registration desk is a toddler section that has LEGO Duplo tables and bricks on the floor. There were soft cubes for parents to sit on in this area. There were small baskets with more Duplos in them. There were other small activities nestled in other ares. I didn’t do a good job of getting it in this hot but there is a red base on the wall in the back with a trough attached. It had letter bricks in it that the kids could attach to the base and spell words or whatever they like.

This was right next to the toddler section. These large pieces were foam. There was a ball you could use to make a ball maze of sorts with ramps and tunnels. My youngest son tried this out. Actually on my instagram you’ll see my daughter enjoyed playing around with some of these pieces too.

There were things there for each age, skill level, and motor abilities. My oldest boys are 11 and 10 yrs old. They had fun with a number of things throughout.

The race track was pretty cool. It was actually a little bigger than what this picture makes it seem. My boys had fun racing other kids that were at Snapology as well. They also enjoyed the K’nex coaster that’s pictured in the top pic here.

My daughter is 10 months old. I initially wasn’t sure how much there was going to be for her to do safely. We found plenty. This wall in the picture above is metal and has lots of magnets on it. I sat with her on the floor and she enjoyed pulling the magnets off the wall. Some of them moved and spun and she was very interested in those. She also found a big pile of foam LEGO bricks on the floor as well.

She did also find the small regular LEGO bricks on the floor as she explored so yes, you definitely have to keep an eye on the small ones while you’re there. They actually have a sign up that if your child is under 5 you must be present with them. If your children are over 5 they actually have a drop off and pick up service. So let’s say you want to head over to that mall I mentioned you could register your kids, drop them off, go shopping by yourself and come back and pick them up. You wouldn’t even have to feel guilty because your kids would be having a blast there and there is a pick up and drop off process as I mentioned earlier in this post. If I had one of these closer I could see me using that service when I have a dentist appt. or if I wanted to get some Christmas shopping done around the holidays!

There were other things other than LEGO bricks. Like this wall race track, the other race track I mentioned, and the room with the game I pictured below.

This was my youngest son’s favorite feature. The game on the floor is projected and changes every so many minutes. They only allow up to 4 kids in at a time. In the game pictured my son was playing a sort of whack-a-mole game by stepping on the mice as they popped out of the cheese. There are lots of games that cycle through though including a bubble popping game and a game where they stop on animated cockroaches…yuck!

Another instagram pic because this one shows the baby getting into the game too. This particular one was a hockey game and he had to try too kick the puck into the goal.

If you live near the South Hills Pittsburgh, this Snapology site would be a great activity to break up some of the winter cabin fever. Hands on, encourages creativity, mechanical reasoning, gross and fine motor activities, something for every age.

For a limited time, you can use this coupon from the US Family Guide to try out Snapology for yourself Limited offer – receive a FREE hour of play at Snapology http://www.pittsburghkidsguide.com/coupon.php?bid=9405&lid=10202&dealid=439®ionid=58

You can check out my instagram for a few more pics from our visit to Snapology in the South Hills Pittsburgh : instagram.com/angwith4

**Review completed as part of the US Family Guide blogger program.**

We Went to The Crayola Experience in Easton, PA

**I was provided with free tickets for my family from the Crayola Experience in exchange for an honest review. No other compensation has been received**

The Crayola Experience in Easton, PA is a place I’ve been wanting to take my family too for a while now. It’s located here in PA. I think it appeals to everyone in my family from my husband and I too my baby girl. Crayola has been around for a long time. I think we’ve all had some type of Crayola products in our life at one time or another. The fact that Crayola makes you think of colors and imagination, well I couldn’t wait to see what was in store for us at the Crayola Experience. Even if you’ve been before, they added 18 new activities this year so it would be worth another trip.

There was a parking garage located right across the street with a reasonable rate ($2 per hour). There was also meter parking along the street. Easton itself was a very clean and beautiful town with a variety of restaurants and shops nearby. We stayed at the Comfort Inn on Nazareth Road which was only a couple minute drive from the Crayola Experience.

One of the first things we say in the Crayola Cafe was the world’s largest crayon weighing in at 1500 lbs and 15 ft long.

The Crayola Cafe had light food like sandwiches, salads, soft pretzels, and drinks available. Fairly reasonably priced for a place like this. There were bright colors every where you went.

My son is 4 and one of his favorite parts was the “Doodle in the Dark” section. The room was dimmed and there were all kinds of hands on and active stations in this room.

There were these boards in the “Doodle in the Dark” section which made glow in the dark pictures. There was also a floor the kids could go on that had different activities like games, coloring pages, and music activities. A lot of the kids of all ages had fun with this. In the picture below the game had balloons everywhere and when you stepped on the balloons they popped and you got points.

The other activity in this room included a screen with colored squares on the floor. When you stepped into one of the squares there Crayola man on the screen woke up. When you moved the crayon guy would move like you. So if you waved he would wave and so on. My son could have spent an hour there.

My husband and I both enjoyed the “Art Alive” activity. The room had a bunch of touch screen tablets. You could choose a coloring page, color it on the screen, choose an animation, and when you were done it would appear on a big screen on the wall. My son loved this too.

My diver I colored is on the bottom by the crab. My son’s fish he colored is hard to see because of the color he used. His is the fish colored in the aqua blue next to the orange fish by the crayon diver. There was a large indoor playground too with lots of levels. The parents could sit on benches or there were tables set u where you could color a picture and then turn it into a puzzle for no additional cost. Around the play area there were squares on the floor that were like pavement but soft. They had buckets of Crayola sidewalk chalk on the ground and you could draw on the floor. I took the time to make my mark.

There were 4 floors of activities. There were many projects you could work on and take home with you. The meltdown hand tables with containers of melted crayons that you could grab a card stock car and paint using a stick with melted crayons. When you first enter and buy your tickets you are given tokens to use in the machines like the Marker Maker and “Wrap it Up” which allowed you to choose certain colors of crayons and make a custom label. You could have it say whatever you wanted. I made one for each of my kids with their name on it. You could also choose a symbol to put next to the name. It dispensed a crayon and label. You could walk over to a table and it gave you simple instructions on how to wrap your crayon. I ran into an issue when we put in a token. It dispensed the wrappers but not the crayon. An attendant was available and quickly fixed it and gave us out tokens back. She was very friendly and helped a few people with different things while we were in that area.

We were there for 3 1/2 hours and still didn’t get to try everything they had available. The one thing I would have liked to have seen but didn’t was the crayon making demonstration. There was a lot of activities we did that would just make this post a mile long but I think you get the idea.

To find out more about the Crayola Experience in Easton, PA you can go to their website: http://www.crayolaexperience.com/

You can also find them on these social media sites:

Twitter: @VisitCrayola
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/crayolaexperience

How to Be a Hassle-Free Vacation Mom Guest Post by Kendra Thornton

Packing up the kids for a family vacation is one of the most rewarding experiences of being a mother. A vacation with kids lets you get in sync with your family away from your hectic schedules. To get the most out of your family vacation, it’s crucial to prepare your trip with the same amount of detail and effort that you would expend for a client presentation. Here are tips and hints that will assure a pleasant vacation without any hassles.

Photo Credit: thejbird via Compfight cc

1. Check Out Family-Friendly Resorts

More resorts are starting to offer vacation plans for families with children. In fact, the competition for this demographic is heating up, especially in the UK, and many resorts offers special packages to attract families and children. These holidays will include special amenities for kids like horseback riding and ocean excursions. For example, Arizona and Colorado have a number of ranches that cater to children and families. My family stayed at a tropical resort when we visited the island of Oahu. Finding our family friendly Honolulu resort was not hard with a little research and advice from fellow traveling moms.

2. Fourth of July Trips
With the Fourth of July coming up quickly, many families are all set for a weekend of BBQs and road trips. Fireworks in old colonial cities can be a blast for the entire family. Picnics and parades are great for kids. Washington DC, Charleston, South Carolina and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, are all great destinations. Wherever you go, be certain to plan ahead and find a good spot early. Take along a cooler with refreshments, a basket with sandwiches and snacks and a blanket for a cooler night.

3. Adult Time
Don’t neglect yourself. It’s your vacation, too. Set aside time to read a book uninterrupted or to visit the spa. Your husband can watch the children for an hour while you relax or take a walk on the beach. The next day, your husband can get away for a few hours of golf or fishing. Don’t forget to set aside time for the two of you after the kids are tucked away. A candlelight dinner on your room’s balcony can be the perfect end to a wonderful day.

4. Prep for the Plane

Boarding an airplane will go more smoothly by printing out your boarding passes a day ahead of your flight. This will allow you to go straight to security and avoid the airline desks. Slip on shoes and limited jewelry will also speed up your wait. When you’re packing your carryon, make sure your bag of liquids is on top and that it is easy to reassemble. Luckily, TSA states that baby food and formula is allowed through security in excess of 3oz.

Photo Credit: Frans Persoon via Compfight cc5. Feeding the Crew

I love traveling with my family because it exposes my children to places and cultures they aren’t privy to in Illinois. Foods can be a wonderful way to introduce your children to new destination. But keep in mind that new foods can cause allergic reactions particularly in the smallest children. Try to stick to foods with ingredients your child is used to eating. Squeeze packs can be wonderful for travel, by air and car and can be an excellent snack for picky eaters.

LEGO Kidsfest 2012 in Pittsburgh

If you ever get the opportunity to go to a LEGO Kidsfest, I highly recommend it. My family and I were so excited to see that LEGO Kidsfest was coming to Pittsburgh again this year. As a member of the USFamilyGuide.com blogger program, my boys and I had the opportunity to go and review this year’s LEGO Kidsfest. We had gone the last time they were in Pittsburgh so it was neat to see what was different and what favorites were still there.

We went on Friday, Nov 30, 2012. Yep opening day session from 4:00 – 8:30. Last year we had gone to the 2nd Saturday session. Not sure if it was because it was a Friday this year or if they really streamlined things this year but we got right in, no waiting in line. Granted we got there about 10 minutes after 4 too but we were practically able to walk right in. The staff that checked out tickets was very professional and polite. Every staff member we encountered was very enthusiastic and helpful.

One of the first things I noticed walking in was a yellow tent at the entrance with a sign that said “Lost parents tent” which I thought was kinda cute. If you and your child get separated, it’s a meeting place and they can make an announcement to reunite you. They also had the LEGO club tent. My 8 yr old is a LEGO club member. He had remembered his post card and got a free prize for bringing it in. There was a lot of related vendors there too with cool things to show the kids.

Just about anywhere you walk in the Kidsfest you’ll see the giant LEGO models built by LEGO’s master builders. The boys got their pictures taken by a few of their favorites, but there was so many.

Another thing you’ll find placed throughout the LEGO Kidsfest is the monochrome builds. The kids were invited to make their own monochrome creations and put them on display.

There is something for everyone at LEGO Kidsfest from the littlest to the biggest LEGO fans. If you get tired you can sit and watch LEGO shows at the theater which was new this year. They added lost of tables and chairs by the eateries so there was plenty of room to relax and enjoy and quick meal before you run off and discover more LEGO fun.

There was a LEGO Duplo area for the little ones. My youngest liked this part. They had little building tables set up as well as a big Duplo pile for them to build and crawl through. Certain times during the Kidsfest there was also story time and activities geared towards the littlest fans.

They had a few LEGO models that the little ones could climb in and touch.

I had each of my older boys write up their own short paragraph on LEGO Kidsfest. Here is my 8 year old’s version (his words)

“We went to LEGO Kidsfest on Friday. My mom was given some tickets and I’m a LEGO club member. My favorite thing that I did was play the Wii U. My favorite thing I saw was the giant LEGO statues. That was half the stuff I did there”

Now for my 10 year old’s version

“Where I live it’s a long drive to Pittsburgh, but it was worth it when I got to LEGO Kidsfest. It is great. My favorite part was the building competition. I came in 3rd out of 5. Buy tickets next time.”

My boys participated in a bridge building competition. They were put in a group of 6 total. They had to try to make a bridge that would hold the most weight against other teams. It was a good team work experience. Even though they didn’t win that competition. They still had fun.

There were so many other things too like the LEGO racer area where kids could build their own racers then race them down ramps. They had the map of the US where kids could build a piece to add to the map. There was a LEGO mural they could contribute to, and so much more. We actually didn’t have time to do everything but thanks to the handy map they gave us when we went in, we were able to plan and make sure they got to do the major things on their list.

In my opinion Friday seemed to be a lot less busy than the Saturday we went last year. But regardless we had fun both times.

Check out LEGOKidsfest.com to see an upcoming schedule for 2013. Also don’t forget to check out USFamilyGuide.com for your guide to fun things in your area and discounts!

***I received free tickets to review LEGO Kidsfest as part of the US Family Guide blogger program. No other compensation has been received.***