Thank you Cordelia and Samuel

This past summer Tay and I participated in the Little People on the Road Swap hosted by Meg and Mag. Our partners for this swap was Cordelia and Samuel. They are from California but if I'm not mistaken they now live in Spain. It was a fun swap. Tay and I enjoyed putting ours together but she especially enjoyed receiving her treats.

Her package consisted of a photo album with Samuel's summer adventures with his traveling buddy, Owlie, a box of Granola, a Flower Press kit, some Bento items that Cordelia got from one of her favorite stores in Berkeley, and Tay's favorite, a sketch book and color pencils.
Here's Tay with Owlie. At first she was having a hard time saying "Owlie" so she gave it another name which I can't remember what it was right this moment, but eventually calling it "Owlie" again because that was his first name. She carried him around for days.
The photo album that chronicled Samuel's and "Owlie's" adventures. Samuel went to a Science camp, they took a trip to Canada, and spent a good part of the summer with his Grandmom in Berkeley, CA. All before he and Cordelia left for Spain to live for a year.
Tay loves to draw. Imagine her excitement when she saw this in her swap package. She has dubbed this her "special" sketch pad and color pencils. No one but her is allowed to use it, although she has drawn a good many pictures for the refrigerator.

Thank you Cordelia and Samuel for the wonderful gifts. I hope you are both enjoying Spain.

Welcome Harvey and Harry!

Fischer was excited to welcome Harvey the Horse and Harry the Horseshoe to our home yesterday morning. They brought with them a fabulous scrapbook all about their adventures in Oakdale California.

They brought Fisch a hat and a shirt and a bunch of other goodies!

Thanks Manami!!

Bunny Fun!

A couple days ago, our package from Nature Girl arrived! What a fabulous surprise it was! She and her mamma Jill went all out! Bunny came with accessories! (Hmm, someone must have known that little girls like accessories!) Pirate stuff, princess stuff, tutu stuff, she had it all! They also included some great books, a mini bowling set, dice games, and all kinds of little things. Hours and hours of fun, in mom-language.


Thank you for your precious package. Thank you ladies for getting this all together. And thanks Nature Girl!

Your hand written thank you note is on it's way!
Hope you have a fantastic fall season up in beautiful leaf land!

The Dancing Robots

Travel pal spotted at the beach.

Remember in an earlier post my daughter couldn't decide on which traveling pal to take with her to Hawaii. Well, at the last minute, she decided that she wanted to take the little puppy that her big sister gave her.




Meet Lihi. She came in a little purple purse with pearl handles and the word "Royalty" embroidered on the little bag.

Here is Lihi at the airport waiting for our flight. We flew on Hawaiian Airlines, the best way to fly to Hawaii.

Lihi had the chance to visit everyone in Hawaii.
But she especially loved going to the beach. We spent the day with family at the local beach. We BBQ'd chicken, steak, sausage. The boys went fishing, crabbing, or diving. It was a fun day.

This was one of the many days spent at the beach. Tay had a blast with all of her cousins.


Hope everyone is having as much fun as we did.

Traveling with Adventure Bunny

We're having fun with our summer buddy! We created a pink and blue bunny named Adventure Bunny. She has been for a ride on an elephant with Nature Girl and her Grandma. She's also been on a ferry searching for Champ, the Lake Champlain monster. We didn't spot Champ, so we're off to try some new adventures before our bunny takes the final trip to her new home.

Swap Friends Spotted in Michigan

Arial the elephant and Lola the dog had a great time around Independence Day. Arial use to be a pair of socks and Lola was a pair of gloves in her former life. Patterns for both came from this book.

North Carolina Sighting

A big blue bunny has been spotted, lazily enjoying the clouds float by. While everyone else was floating down a river in the heat, she was just enjoying the "lovely air" she told me. She must be preparing for her journey in a box soon.

Get plenty of fresh air now, because travels to a new place are a-coming!

Our traveling buddy is making friends!

Here is our swap friend "Dino". He is feeding bread to critters in the mountains.

Two weeks to go

Hi everyone. Oregon is finally starting to feel like summer. It's been getting hotter and we've had a few thunder storms.

With summer comes vacations, camping trips, softball games, and this year pool parties. We have camping trips in the making but no definite plans, we're in the middle of the softball season, and I'm hoping to plan a pool party for Tay and her little friends. We are, however, leaving in two weeks on vacation back to our little home in the beautiful state of Hawaii.

We're all excited, especially Tay. She will be bringing her travel buddy with her. But we do have a dilemma. Tay can't decide which buddy to take with her. I thought we already had her travel buddy picked out. It was no doubt going to be "Ballerina" but a recent trip to Build A Bear has made it complicated. She is now the proud owner of "Serafina". As you can see, I included a picture of them. I didn't want to ruin the surprise for our swap partner so I just took a picture of their footsies.

It's a hard decision because both buddies are an important part of Tay's life. I already told Tay that only one friend can come with us to Hawaii but I have a funny feeling that she'll try to sneak one in her bag. Oh well...

How's everyone coming along with their swaps?

Scamp and Her "Box" Buddy

Right after Scamp and I signed up for the swap, we picked out her new traveling buddy for our trip that would be sent to our New York partners. Big Mistake for a mommy of a 2 year old!

Here she is with her "Box" who was set to accompany us on our vacation this next week.

But, Scamp quickly became attached to this little scraggly raccoon and carried him in her shirt for a few hours as her new baby. How could I send him away?

So, we picked up a new "Box" (Box #2), identical to his brother minus the chocolate milk stains Box #1 sustained a couple of weeks ago, who will also be traveling with us. Box #2 (who may acquire a new name along the way) is hiding in the back of our car until the trip on Sunday. Boxes 1 and 2 will both pose in many a picture in the Smoky Mountains, then Scamp and I will make our scrapbook and send it and Box #2 to our partners. Problem solved (I hope)!

Contest - Entertaining the kids

We don't do a lot of traveling in the car. The longest drive that we've done thus far is 3 hours. It's not long but still long enough for a 6 year old to get antsy. So this is what I pack into her backpack: lots of snacks, books, a writing tablet, her pencil box with crayons, markers, and pencils, her Nintendo DS, and last but not least or iPod. Sounds like a lot of stuff but if you knew my daughter you'd know that all of this was necessary. She has a short attention span and need many things to keep her occupied.

On her iPod, we have the music that she likes to listen to, TV shows that she loves such as Suite Life of Zack & Cody, Hannah Montana, and Raven, her favorite movies, and audio books. Right now I just have the Harry Potter series but will be uploading Junie B. Jones and maybe even Spiderwick Chronicles.

Before we had the iPod, we had a portable DVD player. We lugged that thing around with at least 5 different movies every time. When the DVD player broke, we started using my laptop. Thank goodness for the iPod, it's smaller and takes up less space.

When we travel to Hawaii, we pretty much take the same things. It's a 5 hour flight so keeping her entertained is a little more difficult. On the flight, she prefers to write and color so I make sure there are lots of paper and coloring books. She has her own carry on bag with all of her ammo.

I realize that not everyone has a Nintendo DS or iPod but there are other options out there to keep the children entertained. There are lots of games that come in travel versions. Playing cards are also an option that will keep the kids busy. Keeping the children occupied and entertained on long road trips or air travel will not only benefit them but also the parents.

Hello from Idaho...

Hi! My name is Genny and I am 9 years old!
I live in Idaho with my mom, dad and sometimes people who are like my older brother and sisters. It's pretty fun having teens around!
I am a home schooler and I love art, and music!
This July we are going to Missouri to visit family, (my mom says, "unless gas prices get really high!" ) and to the Ocean. We also go camping a lot! I can't wait to work on the scrapbook!
Hopefully I can make a new friend or penpal! That would be cool!
Thanks for reading this! My mom said I might get to guest post on her blog because I am wording out what she types so good!

Hello from Northern Michigan

Hi! I'm S and I am 3 and 1/2. K, my little sister is only 2. Our family lives on an island in Northern Michigan. (Because only about 500 people live on our island, my mama tries not to use our names or faces on-line.) Our island gets a lot of tourists because there are lots of historic things to look at here. K and I would love to send you pictures of our Butterfly House and the old Fort. My mama is a teacher so we get to take our trips in the summer. This year we are going to visit our Grandma and Grandpie in Southern Indiana. While we are in Indiana we will go to Wonder Lab and to Holiday World. Both places are a lot of fun. We can't wait to get to know our new swap partner friends!

Aloha from Oregon!

So this is us. Christel and Tay. And we're excited for this swap. Summer is always an exciting time for us. We love the warm weather and all that it has to offer. So let's get this started and have some fun.

Hi From North Carolina!

Hi fellow swappers! I'm Angi from North Carolina. I have three wonderful kids - youngest who is a precious 6yr. old boy, middle who is a sweet 11 yr. old girl, and smartie-pants who is a 13 yr. old teen. We participated in the Spring Swap and had a great time. The kids were very into it and loved "meeting" our swap family. Last week middle child asked if we were ever going to do it again and ironically enough - the next day I got the announcement of the Summer Swap. They are looking forward to it!

Teasers and Preview

We thought some of you might like a preview of the next swap. So we are going to give you a few hints.
Name: Little People on the road Summer Swap
Timeline: Over the summer
And you don't have to leave your hometown to participate, but you could.
Promise: Each family will have a new friend by the end!
So stay tuned. We are really excited to get underway!
Look for your invite later this week!
That's it for now, Meg and Mag

New Season, New Swap

Mag and I have been gearing up for the next swap. With June quick approaching we are ready to get things going. So stay tuned. Melissa picked the theme this time and it is great. We will post here when the sign up open and send out an email too! Hope the excitement begins to build!! Meg