Choose Your Summer Adventure: Raising Tacoma Style 2022

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Choose Your Summer Adventure: Raising Tacoma Style 2022

In typical Heather style, I had a summer bucket list going. Then the list kept growing and growing. When I tried to put together a cute one-page summer bucket list, it didn’t fit. Oops!

Yup, I tend to do that. There was a time when I had to share my list with my husband at the beginning of the weekend with all the things I wanted to get done listed (and guys, this was pre-kids). He would go through and cross off things because I always…ALWAYS…made it too long and ambitious. No human being could possibly get it all done and stay sane.

Instead of crossing things off on this mega summer list, I decided to share it all and have you “choose your own summer bucket list adventure!” Pick a few things from each section to design a summer bucket list catered to your family and kids. Some of these you can piece together to make one totally awesome day…in my over ambitious mind. ;) Perfect, right?!

Take a look - share what you want to do! Or ping me for a summer adventure together…I’m game!

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Ultimate Indoor Nerf: Gotcha Arena

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Ultimate Indoor Nerf: Gotcha Arena

I’m going to whisper a word in your ear: nerf. Did your kid hear it? Because I think my kid heard, he is in the other room. I kid…but nerf is like the real-deal big kid thing - they love it. So imagine the thrill of nerf plus a huge arena where the imagination can run free. Yup, that’s Gotcha Arena.

While I enjoy a good game, I thought Gotcha would make the perfect dad and son fun day out. They invited two other dad and son friends, and it was game on. They had a total blast. In fact, they went a few weeks ago, and all the boys (and dads, haha) are still talking about it and want to go back. They had a blast. My son is planning his next birthday there, which is over six months away. Needless to say, this place is a great time. Let me tell you all about it!

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Cruising Through LeMay Car Museum

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Cruising Through LeMay Car Museum

When it comes to the LeMay Car Museum, have you asked yourself these questions…

  • I wonder if my kid is old enough for the LeMay Car Museum?

  • I am not much of a fan of cars. Will I like the LeMay Car Museum?

  • Is it worth a visit to the LeMay Car Museum?

  • What is inside the LeMay Car Museum besides just cars?

I sure did. I don't know why I was so unsure about it. I worried my toddler would want to touch all the cars, and some museum employee would come up to me and say, "excuse me, ma'am, your child is touching everything; you need to leave. We'll escort you out."

Then one blustery day, while my in-laws were visiting, we didn't know what to do with the poor weather, so we just went for it. If we didn't like it, eh, no big deal. And guess what: we all loved it!!

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Dining Out in Tacoma

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Dining Out in Tacoma

You may have followed Sue Kidd on Dine Pierce County like my husband and me. We truly appreciated her dedication to the Tacoma dining scene and especially her support of small businesses. Whenever she reported on a delicious-sounding new restaurant in town, I would giddily text it to my husband, who undoubtedly have just read it as well. While we don’t eat out all that often — we have two young kids with the blandest of bland palettes and refusal to take a bite of anything new, not to mention the closure of restaurants for a good period due to covid — we do consider ourselves moderate foodies and enjoy a good cocktail and dinner out whenever possible.

All that said, I was saddened by the recent news of Sue Kidd’s passing. I did not know her personally, but I felt like I knew her over the years of following her restaurant reviews. However, it was heartening to see the pouring of love from the local restaurants for her online — from “Reserved for Sue” signs with a table setting to pouring her a cocktail in tribute.

My tribute to her is carrying her flag and sharing some of my favorite Tacoma restaurants. Let’s all show our support of our small businesses and restaurants just like Sue! And aren’t we all thankful to have a nice meal and gather at a table with friends and family?! Cheers, my friends!

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The Heart of the North End: Feature in the February Issue

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The Heart of the North End: Feature in the February Issue

Well, I’m blushing. I’m Tacoma North End neighborhood famous. Back at the end of 2021, a Lisa Otto, the main contributing writer for “The Heart of the North End” magazine, approached me about featuring us in the February issue. I figured it would be fun and said, sure! I didn’t realize I would be the feature article on cover of the magazine, but here I am.

If you take a read through, you’ll learn all about my life story - where I grew up, how I met my husband, and what I did prior to being a stay-at-home-mom that is always posting what she does on Instragram. Ha!

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Star Center Treetops: Birthday Party and Play Time

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Star Center Treetops: Birthday Party and Play Time

My older son has a January 2nd birthday. It's a hard one to plan since it's in the thick of the winter rainy season, and then covid came along and made it even harder. Last year we did an outdoor party at Titlow Park, which turned out great….but are you as tired as me of being cold and wet all the time?

Luckily, more indoor spaces are open again, and many are diligent about cleanliness and safety. When it came time to plan the birthday party, I wanted something that my son would find fun and feel safe for parents to bring their kids. All while helping us stay dry in case of terrible January weather.

We ended up at the Treetops Playground at the Star Center in Tacoma. Let's dive into how it went!

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A Parents Getaway: Whidbey Island

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A Parents Getaway: Whidbey Island

I read a meme today that felt so true to me, "My two favorite things in life are being with my kids and not being with my kids." As parents, we love our kids with all our hearts — spending time with them, going on adventures, and watching them grow. However, sometimes you need time just for yourself and your significant other. It's a different feeling, a different you, when you're with kids and when you're not. What I'm getting at is that sometimes you need a getaway.

And getaway is what my husband I did back in October 2021. We wanted to celebrate our tenth anniversary and my husband's 40th birthday. My in-laws flew into town to watch the kids and gave us one night away. We wanted to stay relatively close since we had limited time, we landed on Whidbey Island.

Let me backtrack for just a second for a quick side story. My husband and I went to Whidbey Island for fun before we had kids. Yup, we did things like that on a whim. As we walked around Langley, we came across the Inn at Langley. We thought it was such a beautiful inn on the water and vowed someday we would return and stay there. And that's precisely what we did in October. We centered the trip around our night at the Inn at Langley and planned the trip out from there.

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The 411 on Tacoma Playgrounds

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The 411 on Tacoma Playgrounds

Playgrounds! Every parent’s go-to when we’re not sure what to do. Nine times out of ten your kids will enjoy it. Not to mention, a fabulous way to get the wiggles out and promote a good nap time or bedtime. But we all know some playgrounds are superior to other playgrounds. Parents have preferences. Kids have preferences. Luckily, there is no shortage of playgrounds in the area, so we always have a somewhere to go.

Someday I hope to have a post about each park on this list with an in-depth look at what’s there and tons of photos. Until then, I thought I’d give the quick 411 on each park (Does anyone really use 411 anymore? Did that just age me?).

If I missed something that you think is important to acknowledge, please write a comment. I will be trying to keep this post current, so I’ll make periodic updates to it and can include anything you guys want added.

Lastly, we live in North Tacoma with a 2-year-old and 5-year-old, so some of these parks we frequent more because they are just closer to home and better for my kids ages. So all that said, let’s dig in.

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Port Angeles Getaway

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Port Angeles Getaway

If you follow me on Instagram, then you know that we went on a little trip to Port Angeles in March with our two boys (ages 2 years old and 5 years old). We had a lovely trip and so I wanted to share our adventures with you. If you’ve been to Port Angeles, please share in the comments any awesome experiences you’ve had there!

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Four Things for Four Leaves: Saint Patricks Day Celebrations

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Four Things for Four Leaves: Saint Patricks Day Celebrations

Four Leaf Clovers…Four Things for St. Patrick’s Day. Gosh, I feel clever. Must be the clever leprechaun in me since I’m a whomping 25% Irish. So you should take all my Irish recommendations very seriously.

I kid.

Secretly, I love that I’m part Irish. My dad went and got duel citizenship, which is pretty cool. So we definitely celebrate on March 17th. I came up with four ways to help you celebrate as well. I could add a fifth idea of wearing green, but I take that as a given. And if these ideas aren’t enough, I have more on a past post I wrote in 2018.

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A Morning Adventure in Vashon

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A Morning Adventure in Vashon

I’m a do-er. I love to do things. With kids it became harder to do things since we have to navigate around naps, bring a car load of things everywhere, and basically get them to leave the house without (too much) whining. Not to mention my obsessive need to keep to a schedule. However, we still manage to get out and do things as a family. Sadly, 2020 had to come bring the coronavirus which crushed all our plans and ability to do much. It’s been a challenging time, in many ways.

Anyway, I get this itch every few months to get out to do something bigger. Last summer we managed to get out to the Washington coast, but by the beginning of October I was itching to do something again. The answer was: Vashon! It’s close to home and yet feels like a big adventure. We went for a full morning and returned in home to catch a late nap for the little guy. It was the perfect day.

Here’s what we did for our Vashon morning adventure (note: we visited October 17, 2020):

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A Morning with Alpacas

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A Morning with Alpacas

Fact: Alpacas are not llamas.

They are similar indeed, but not the same. Differences between the two animals include the face, size, ears, hair, and even personality. But don’t go envisioning Emperor Kuzco when you head to Firwood Farms. Well, okay, to me they looked about the same, but I’m not a llama and alpaca expert.

A main difference between them is their hair actually. Alpacas have a much finer fiber than the llamas hence the loveliness of alpacas made clothes and accessories.

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[Guest Post] WAHMs: It’s Tough With Toddlers, But These Tips Will Help

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[Guest Post] WAHMs: It’s Tough With Toddlers, But These Tips Will Help

Was it around this time last year that we started to hear the little whispers about something called the coronavirus? Wow, I had no idea at the time it would evolve into a worldwide pandemic. So many things have happened and changed…like the use of the acronym WAHM (Work-At-Home-Moms). I would have scratched my head wondering what that acronym was last year.

I fall into the SAHM (Stay-At-Home-Mom) category, but I feel for all you WAHMs. I don’t know how you do it. Today, I have a guest writer, Janice Russell, to give some tips on working from home as a toddler mom.

Here’s a bit about Janice:

Janice Russell believes the only way to survive parenthood is to find the humor in it. She wants every frazzled parent out there to remember that for every kid stuck in a toilet, there’s another one out there somewhere who’s just graced their parents’ walls with some Sharpie artwork! She created Parenting Disasters so that parents would have a go-to resource whenever they needed a laugh, but also to show parents they aren’t alone.

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A Sledding Day with Kids

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A Sledding Day with Kids

My son was convinced that it would snow on Christmas. He kept going on about it even after I explained many times that it was likely not going to snow since we didn’t live in an area where it snowed often. Luckily he was too preoccupied with gifts on Christmas to worry about it not snowing. But, the desire for snow still persisted.

With my younger son having just turned two, I figured this year could be the year we went out for a snow and sledding adventure. So we geared up to head to the mountains this winter.

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A Covid Restricted Birthday Party

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A Covid Restricted Birthday Party

While we aren’t in complete lockdown like we were in spring 2020, we are still very limited in what we can and cannot do for birthdays. My heart goes out to all the kids that had to cancel big birthday plans or skip a party because of the lockdown. As a parent, it is tough to see your kids disappointed and you also want to celebrate their birthdays and shower them with joy (eh hem, it was a big day for you when they were born, too!). We are all doing what we can to create fun and joy for our little ones.

My son has been talking about his birthday ever the day after his last birthday at Odyssey 1. The whole year he was saying his birthday would be after the coronavirus. Gosh, I wish that had been true! His birthday was on January 2nd, and we ended having to account for covid restrictions in our plans.

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2020 Christmas Bucket List

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2020 Christmas Bucket List

Yup, it’s the holiday season and while it’s not exactly the same as past years, there is still plenty to be jolly about and to do to bring in the holiday spirits. We’ve been busy as a family doing all the holiday things. If you’re looking for ideas, here’s my Christmas bucket list. We may not do everything, but it’s nice to have on hand when you’re wanting to do something holiday to-do!

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LOL: Lots of Links - Volume 6 - Thanksgiving 2020

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LOL: Lots of Links - Volume 6 - Thanksgiving 2020

It’s been a while since I shared a lot of links. I have a continuous list going and just never seem to get to it. Then I realized I had a bunch of Thanksgiving ideas saved up and that maybe you’d like to see them. So this LOL is all about Thanksgiving, plus a bonus Christmas one at the end. Happy Turkey Day!

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Rally Yourself for Restaurant Rally Week

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Rally Yourself for Restaurant Rally Week

I’m chiming in here quickly to share something local that’s going on, Pierce County Restaurant Rally. Come on, let’s support our local restaurants and participate. (Oh and if you like to talk about food and find the latest happenings, check out Sue Kidd on Dine Pierce County - she also has some recommendations and highlights for this rally)

What is it (be brief about it):

It’s to help local restaurants during these crazy covid times. We still want restaurants folks, so we gotta support them! Here’s the deal, as a customer you get 30% dine-in or take-out before tax…sorry alcohol is excluded. In return, the restaurant will be compensated for 50% of gross sales. Read more of the details on the Restaurant Rally website .

When is it happening?

  • Sunday, November 8th to Thursday, November 12th

  • Sunday, November 15th to Thursday, November 19th

  • Sorry, no Friday and Saturdays (ha, of course, that’s when we eat out/take-out)

What restaurants?

The list is huge, so I went through it and picked out some of my favorites. See my list below.

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[Guest Post] Brr, It's Cold: Indoor Activities for House-Bound Kids

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[Guest Post] Brr, It's Cold: Indoor Activities for House-Bound Kids

Well, we’ve already seen some rainy days here this October, and we all know that this is just the beginning. Eeek, the rainy season is upon us and many of our normal energy release places are still closed. I know rain doesn’t mean outside is out-of-the-question, but there will be a lot more time spent indoors. To help with some indoor ideas, Carrie from The Spencers Adventures is here as a guest to share some ideas!

Here’s a bit about Carrie:

Carrie Spencer created The Spencers Adventures to share her family’s homesteading adventures. On the site, she shares tips on living self-sufficiently, fruit and vegetable gardening, parenting, conservation, and more. Their goal to live as self-sufficiently and environmentally-consciously as possible.

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