The Sewing Mom

I left Dallas almost 2 weeks ago on a road trip that would take us to Eastern Kentucky and then back down to the Knoxville, TN area for a combination business/pleasure trip. My daughter and I, along with our dog, met up with both of my sisters, their husbands and a couple of my nieces and nephews to enjoy a few days in The Great Smoky Mountains and we had a blast together. Even our dog acclimated to being on the road and enjoyed everyone’s attention.

Just before heading back to Dallas and home, I received a call that there had been a death in the family and I needed to divert our route to Atlanta for the funeral. This is certainly not my idea of a great vacation, but I am trying to make the best of things. The funeral was yesterday and we have all of today to find things to do in Atlanta. There are some really cool things to do too! I’m thinking it would be awesome to do the Segway Day Tour of Atlanta. Of course, my daughter thinks that would be pretty cool too! We’d be able to see the CNN Center, World of Coke, Georgia Aquarium, and Centennial Olympic Park, all while riding a Segway! Now, the Segway Ghosts and Legends Tour of Atlanta would probably capture my husband’s attention. He loves anything paranormal.

I think there is so much interesting history here in Atlanta. As much as I loved taking New York City tours, I love the old south. It’s much more laid back and relaxed. The traffic around here is pretty heavy, but I think that once we get downtown and get ourselves onto a Segway, it will be a ton of fun. I’ve been utilizing Trusted Tours & Attractions online travel guides to get information on things to do. It’s been extremely helpful.

I also receive the Trusted Tours & Attractions Newsletter which helps a great deal. If I hadn’t all ready signed up for the newsletter, I would head right over to the newsletter sign up page, because, if you sign up now, you might win a $150 iTunes gift card.

Anyway, I hope to be back home in a few days. In the mean time, I plan to have fun in Atlanta!

Tags: Atlanta, road trip, Segway, Trusted Tours & Attractions

Spring Break has officially begun! My daughter has no school for the next 10 days! Do we have any plans? Nope, not a single thing planned on our calendar! As busy as we’ve been lately, maybe that’s a good thing, but it might be nice to go somewhere, even if it’s just for a couple of days.

I called my best friend today, I’ve know her for about 30 years. We got to talking about a spring break we spent together after we were out of college and working in California. We decided to take a few days and look for things to do in Las Vegas that were relatively inexpensive. We were both working, but we were pretty new in the work force and didn’t have a lot of money.

I managed to find us a good deal through a travel agent (this was long before the internet) and we were set. We drove (it’s about 3-4 hours from L.A.) and had a nice room at a great hotel just off the strip. To save money and have plenty to use for playing blackjack, we decided to walk everywhere we went. I recall that the first place we headed to that first night, was to McDonald’s for a good, quick, cheap dinner.

When we came out of McD’s, we headed towards the strip, only to find we were blocked by a 4 foot high chain link fence. Now, we had a choice. We could walk all the way to the end of the fence and go around it, or, we could climb over it. We opted to climb over. It was warm, we were in shorts and sneakers, young and somewhat athletic. This appeared to be the best choice. That is, until the back of my shorts got stuck on the top of the chain link fence as I was going over it… I was stuck there, hanging like a duck in a carnival shoot out!

My friend began laughing so hard that she couldn’t help me (yes, she had all ready made the jump and was now on the other side of the fence). People were walking past me as I tried to be non-chalant, after all, it’s not unusual to see someone hanging by their shorts on a fence, is it?

Eventually, she did manage to help me get down and we had to go BACK to McD’s with some safety pins to pin together the big rip in my shorts. I didn’t want to waste any more time by going all the way back to our hotel to change clothes!

It was definitely a fun, memorable trip, but I think maybe now that we’re both married, with families, we’ll look at family vacation ideas that we can all enjoy. Perhaps we could even plan our next big trip to see the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

I’ve all ready done this, but if you sign up for the Trusted Tours & Attractions Trusted Travels eNewsletter by March 31, you can also enter to win an IPod Nano.

Tags: Trusted Tours & Attractions

My daughter’s 12th birthday is only 3 weeks away and we’re having a very hard time coming up with what we want to do for her. Last year things were so chaotic with our impending relocation and other things going on, her birthday was all but forgotten. I had promised her a party before we moved, sort of a last get together with all of her friends, but it never happened and I have felt bad about that ever since.

I’ve been talking with her for the last week or so about things she might like to do for her birthday. We’ve all ready decided that we would celebrate it the weekend before her actual birthday because the weekend after we will be busy with Destination Imagination, the Regional Tournament. Other than that, we can’t seem to come up with a good plan. The biggest problem is that she is really missing her friends back in Illinois. She has made a few friends here in Texas, but she’s only known them a few months, whereas, most of her friends in Illinois, she has known since preschool or kindergarten. It’s really tearing at my heartstrings.

My husband and I were talking about trying to have one of her friends come down for a visit, but the school districts don’t have their spring breaks at the same time so that would be very difficult to plan. I’m still toying with the idea and am now thinking of vacation ideas that would possibly incorporate a trip for all three of us. While my husband and I could find romantic things to do in Chicago, my daughter could visit her friends in the suburbs.

Downtown Chicago is a beautiful city. We stayed there when we were house hunting and loved it. A room with a view overlooking Navy Pier and Lake Michigan can be so romantic. There are really a lot of wonderful things to do in Chicago, museums, theater and terrific restaurants. Let’s not even talk about all the wonderful shopping on the Mag Mile! It would be a lot of fun to do all of these things with my husband. It’s been many years since we’ve had the opportunity to do anything, just the two of us.

I’ve signed up for the newsletter at Trusted Tours & Attractions to help me find great deals for planning our trip if that’s what we decide to do. Plus, by signing up, I can win a free digital camera! I think we could all use a getaway, romantic for the adults, fun and friendly for our daughter. I’m looking forward to it!

Tags: Chicago, Trusted Tours & Attractions

We lived in a suburb of Chicago for over 7 years before moving to Texas. We definitely enjoyed going downtown and loved taking guests downtown whenever we could. While we always enjoyed going to the museums, particularly the Field Museum, we also like doing the more touristy things. One of our most memorable Chicago tours took place while some of my husbands buddies were in town on business.

We met his friends at Navy Pier and decided to take a boat tour of the Lake Michigan. It was a beautiful April day, as long as we remained on land. We were dressed in light weight jackets and pants, but when we got out of the harbor, on a speed boat, we were all freezing! We wound up huddling together to stay warm and every one of us was wishing the boat ride would come to an end. I think at warmer times of the year, this would be a perfect thing to do, but for us, it was the longest, coldest boat ride we’d ever experienced.

After the boat tour, we headed to the giant ferris wheel at Navy Pier. I’m afraid of heights and tend to become dizzy, so I opted to keep my feet on the ground and watched. I don’t know the dimensions of that ferris wheel, but it’s certainly one of the tallest ones I’ve ever seen. My daughter, who was about 4 at the time, completely enjoyed herself and wanted to do it again.

Following the ride, we headed over to one of the tallest buildings in the world, the Sears Tower. Like I said, I’m afraid of heights, but I did go all the way up to the observation deck and got a wonderful view of Chicagoland, the lake, and the shorelines of Michigan and Wisconsin. It’s really quite a view, well worth the ride up the elevator.

While getting around Chicago is pretty easy, I think if I didn’t really know where I was, it would be worth going on sightseeing tours to see the city. Consider signing up for Trusted Tours & Attractions newsletter for more sight seeing information. Sign up now and be entered to win a handheld GPS.

Tags: Chicago, sightseeing tours, Trusted Tours & Attractions

I received an email last week from some friends of ours back in Illinois letting me know they had made plans to go to Mexico in March, asking if we’d like to join them. Are you kidding me? I’d love to go! Unfortunately, the week they are going is the week just before the big regional Destination Imagination tournament. Since my daughter is a member of the team and I’m the Team Manager, I don’t think it would be a good idea to be gone that week. Oh well, another time.

The idea of going on vacation has now been implanted in my head and I’ve found myself checking out many different places. One place in particular that I’d love to go back to is Niagra Falls, Canada. It’s been almost nine years since we were there, but it seems like yesterday. It is one of the most beautiful sights I’ve ever seen. We met my mom and both of my sister and their families up there and it was an awesome trip. My daughter was just 2 years old and I remember going out on the Maid of the Mist boat tour in all our rain gear. My husband was so worried that our daughter would fall overboard. He had a hard time relaxing until we were back on dry land, but I know he was still able to enjoy the gorgeous scenery. There is just nothing like seeing and hearing the power of the Falls.

I went in the tunnels with my niece and nephews and it was amazing coming out behind the waterfall. The sound was deafening but thrilling at the same time. It’s amazing the work that was done to get behind the water. There are so many other things to do there, including another one of our favorites, the Butterfly Conservatory.

While looking for ideas of where to go for a vacation, I’m signing up for the Trusted Tours & Attractions sightseeing tours newsletter. Not only will I be getting the latest tour information, but I will also get a chance to win a handheld GPS. I love winning prizes and this is one I can certainly put to good use!

Tags: sightseeing tours, Trusted Tours & Attractions