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Vacationing on a Seattle Houseboat Rental with Kids
Seattle mom Leah Adams recently took an exciting and unusual staycation. She slept for two nights on a Seattle houseboat with her husband, daughter (10) and son (8). Leah took advantage of a weekend-only special (the houseboat usually rents by the month) and found that a houseboat serves up a rockin’ (and rollin’) family vacation. Q: What did you enjoy about the Seattle houseboat? I loved the cedar paneling (smelled just like I imagined a houseboat would). The efficiency of being in a small space appealed to me. There’s something so lovely about being totally satisfied in a small space, leaving all the extraneous stuff in our house behind. The Lake Union location, near Fremont, was fantastic. Fremont deserves…
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Hotel Review: Suncadia with kids
I’ve often cast a covetous eye at friends’ photos of Suncadia Resort, a lodge-style, kid-friendly stay just east of the Cascade Mountain range. About 90 minutes from Seattle, this resort offers houses, condos, suite-style rooms and hotel rooms on 6,400 acres of pine-spiked landscape. Obviously, it’s time for a review. We stayed in the Lodge One Bedroom, a 870-square-foot suite-style option in the main 254-room Lodge at Suncadia. The kitchen was marble-trimmed, with real wood cabinetry and stainless steel fridge, dishwasher and range. The high-ceiling living room featured a gas fireplace and stunning views of the Cascade range. The bathroom was so big I could drive my Honda inside. The bedroom…
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Families Travel! Taking the Kids to Vancouver on Amtrak
Canadian-born Seattle resident Connie Wanklin-Iskra, her husband Matt, son Makhno (almost 3) and daughter Naomi (6 months) decided to enjoy a car-free weekend in Vancouver, BC. So, over the long US Memorial Day weekend, they decided to take the Amtrak train‘s route to Vancouver for a two-day trip. “We wanted to stay longer, but felt we might need a day to recover when we returned,†Wanklin-Iskra says. “Which was definitely the case.†They boarded the Amtrak in Edmonds, Washington at 8:07 a.m. and arrived in Vancouver, BC, almost four hours later. The train was $70 round trip for each adult, half-off for Makhno and free for her daughter (and other children under age 2). Once in Vancouver, it was…
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Families Travel! Harrison Hot Springs with Kids
As you probably remember from last week, we interviewed Sarah Reese, a Washington mom to 11 natural, adopted and step-children. This week, she tells us what she loves about BC’s Harrison Hot Springs Resort and Spa, located 90 minutes east of Vancouver, BC and three hours Northeast of Seattle. First Nations peoples discovered the springs thousands of years ago; The springs have been soothing tourists since 1886, after one of the region’s first resort communities was established. Tell me about how your family of 11 stays at Harrison Hot Springs? The older part of the hotel has the lowest prices. They also have family suites that have two rooms and…
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Families Travel! A mom to 15 kids tells you how she travels
Sarah Reese is a 36-year-old Bellingham mom to 15 kids. And she loves family travel. Yes, you read those two sentences correctly. Sarah was a single mom to just one child when she met her husband Robert, who was a single father to four children. Like a Super Brady Bunch, the duo combined their children, then adopted foster kids and Haitian orphans. Eleven children live at home; four are grown and have moved out. She blogs (beautifully and with vulnerability) about her journey and parenting struggles at Mom to 15. Many of Reese’s children have special needs – physical, medical or psychological. Seriously, her blog sucks me in. I admire her ability to parent with such reflection…
