Alex has shown a growing interest in photography over the past couple of months. A couple of weeks ago I took him and my nephew to a local urban park, Veteran’s Oasis Park, to take some pictures at sunset. This is one of the photos he took – I loved the perspective from his spot sitting down on the edge of the lake.

We are taking a family trip to Yellowstone National Park in June and I’m asking you to help me plan my trip. Yes, I want your input for my big trip. I’m reaching out to the public because I’ve quickly discovered that there is just so much to do in and around Yellowstone that we will not be able to pack it into a single trip. So, I want to fill this trip – everyone’s first trip to the park – with the best of the best.

We already have our hotel rooms booked and our airline tickets purchased. We are flying in to Jackson Hole, Wyoming and spending one night there. We are spending the next four nights at hotels within Yellowstone National Park, including a geyserside room at the Old Faithful Inn. After the fourth night in Yellowstone we will drive back to Jackson Hole and stay an additional two nights so that we can explore Grand Teton National Park.

I know that we want to see several different waterfalls including the famed Lower Falls. The Sapphire Pool is also on our list. What other areas of the park would you consider a must-see for a first family trip?

Photo: kylejackson/Flickr

Sunsets in the Arizona desert are simply gorgeous. On Friday night I took my son and my oldest nephew to a local urban park, Veteran’s Oasis Park, to take pictures for the park’s photo contest. Alexander took a break to sit down on the ledge of a bridge overlooking a waterfall (running thanks to a reclaimed water system) and watch the sun as it dipped beneath the horizon. He looked so serene so I grabbed my new Canon EOS 7D and snapped this shot.

A few weeks ago the kids, my dad and I took off for a day trip across Arizona’s Apache Trail. We stopped at the bottom of Fish Creek Hill (the kids were worried about seeing Hacksaw Tom) and wandered around a bit. Alexander decided to get into a little fight with a bush and as you can see from the photo, the bush won.

Alexander handled the scratches like a champ. He didn’t believe that his lip was bleeding and licked them off. I told him that it was still bleeding and and he had me take a photo as proof. Here’s the photo. Although he’s scratched up I really love this photo – the look in his eyes, the blood on his lips and the tear rolling down his cheek. Shortly after I took this picture he and Ava wandered off with Pops to visit a cave overlooking the Fish Creek Bridge. Bushes are just one of the many hazards in the Sonoran Desert but they didn’t stop Alexander from reaching his goal – the cave.

I’m a big fan of HABA products – the kids have had several HABA items over the years and they’ve been sturdy, safe and most importantly well-loved toys. HABA recently had items appear on a watch dog list and now the company is speaking out about the safety of their products.

Here is an excerpt from their response:

I’m writing from a toy manufacturer’s perspective. Our German toy company, HABA, has had three total toys on either PIRG or WATCH’s reports. All three toys passed and exceeded all U.S. and European toy safety standards. HABA has long been a pioneer in using eco-friendly practices at our German facilities, and made the change to child-safe, lead-free and water-based stains long before lead paint became danger that we now know that it is.

Read the entire post: HABA Reacts to Being on Trouble in Toyland and 10 Worst Toys List.

On Saturday the four of us drove up to the Kohl’s Ranch area outside of Payson, Arizona. We toured the Tonto Creek Fish Hatchery, saw a bald eagle, took a leisurely drive on the Control Road, admired the beauty of the Mogollon Rim and woke up on Sunday morning to a fresh dusting of snow. School is back in session today and so we’re back to the grind again but it was great to get out and enjoy some Arizona nature!

This year, make sure your New Year’s fitness resolution includes your kids. Doing so could make working out and losing weight a lot more fun, according to fitness expert Michael Berry.

Berry, director of the Human Performance Laboratory at Wake Forest University, said fitness with the kids must include more than a predictable schedule. You must engage the kids and even make exercise a little unusual to get them excited about working out.

“If you say, we’re going to take the kids out for a walk this evening, most kids are going to say, ‘Wait, we have to leave the video games or television?’” Berry said. “Kids like to play games, they like to be engaged, so exercise needs to be something that is sports-oriented or game-oriented.”

Children need at least 60 minutes a day of physical activity, including muscle-strengthening exercises, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. With that goal in mind, Berry makes these suggestions for getting fit with the kids:

1. See the lights. Around the holidays, there are plenty of interesting light displays to see in your neighborhood. Or walk to pay a holiday visit nearby friends.
2. Aim for two or three activities a week, which will help you reach your daily adult fitness goal of 30 minutes of moderate activity five times a week.
3. Walk to school. That burst of activity in the morning can change your day.
4. Replace pizza and a movie night with family fitness night at least once a month. Get the kids excited about it.
5. Check out the fitness attractions your city offers. Visit a rock-climbing gym or a trampoline place, for example.
6. Make a fitness wish list with the kids. Write down every physical activity they’d like to do, and let them choose at least twice a month.
7. Play like a kid. A half-hour of tag or kickball is good exercise for you and your children.
8. Use your gaming system to your advantage. Pick a high-energy physical activity that you like (Just Dance for Wii, for instance), and make it a family competition. When the kids get bored, change the game.
9. Take it outside. But a simple walk won’t cut it, Berry said. Go to a park or nature preserve and take a hike.
10. Make dining out or after-dinner treats a physical activity. Walk to the restaurant from your home, if possible.
11. Join a league – kickball, basketball, soccer. They all offer opportunities for you and your kids to have fun getting fit.
12. Check out guidelines and suggestions at the CDC website: http://www.cdc.gov/physicalactivity/everyone/guidelines/children.html.

No matter how you decide to get fit with your kids, make sure you keep it safe, Berry said. Drink plenty of water while exercising, follow the rules of the fitness attractions you visit, and keep children’s strength training to low or moderate resistance (like monkey bars). High resistance can injure bones.

About Wake Forest University: Wake Forest University combines the best traditions of a small liberal arts college with the resources of a large research university. Founded in 1834, the school is located in Winston-Salem, N.C. The University’s graduate school of arts and sciences, divinity school, and nationally ranked schools of law, medicine and business enrich our intellectual environment. Learn more about Wake Forest University at www.wfu.edu.

This news release was issued on behalf of Newswise™. For more information, visit http://www.newswise.com.

The following is a guest post by Priscilla Short, conservationist, mom, blogger and author. Short is the author of the book Thrifty Green, which tells her story of living off the grid for a year. I’m in the middle of reading the book and I can tell you that it is inspirational. Enjoy her post and check back in a few weeks for my review!

I learned a lot from my year of living off the grid, but I learned even more from moving back to the mainstream. These days, on-grid with a husband, a two-year-old, and another baby on the way, I am faced with the same challenges as nearly all moms in America – most notably a severe lack of the free time I took for granted in Taos.

The question I ask myself most is how do I keep my commitment to green living when bombarded by ads for the copious convenience products – bad for the bank account, bad for the environment – that I can easily convince myself I need? More importantly, how can I teach my children the conservation lessons I learned when living off the grid?

I finally realized that the best thing any of us can do for our children is be a good example. Children learn from mimicking their role models, the most important of whom is their parents. Simply by continuing the low-impact-living habits I developed off the grid, I can teach my daughter and her sibling how to cherish the earth.

Sarah already knows to turn off the light when she leaves the room. She also knows to run water from the tap in a thin trickle, not full-blast, when washing her hands. When she is old enough to understand, we will articulate some more guidelines for other things she observes us putting into practice: only run the washing machine and dishwasher when they are full; wear your clothes more than once before declaring them dirty; recycle rather than discard; eat fresh food with a minimum of packaging; don’t go shopping unless you feel a pressing need for something, and stick to your list once you are in the store; play outside more and keep the TV off.

With the exception of the last one, the idea is to use fewer of the earth’s resources as a whole, rather than making a drastic change in any one area of our lives. But the last suggestion offers some important insight for keeping your ecological footprint to a minimum.

Television panders to our desire to buy things we don’t need. Unnecessary purchases not only deplete our bank balances, but they also have an environmental price tag. That’s because everything comes from the earth: every single item in Toys R’ Us and Baby Gap began its life as part of the planet. Every time you make a purchase, you are consuming the raw materials that were extracted from the earth (sometimes at great environmental cost, such as habitat destruction) plus the energy it took to manufacture the item and transport it to the store where you bought it.

But when you turn the TV off, you cease to be influenced by the ads. You also remove yourself from the pressure to keep up with the fictional Joneses who inhabit your favorite shows. And when you send your kids outside to play instead (and possibly join them), you help instill in them a love for the natural world in all its wonder. There is no finer gift you can give them than that.

I admit, green smoothies grossed me out when I first heard of them. I was pleasantly surprised that a “light” green smoothie actually tasted good and they quickly became a part of our usual health-eating routine. I was on YouTube and saw this kids approved green smoothie recipe and I wanted to share it with you. Disregard the beeping smoke detector in the background hehe.

The ingredients for this smoothie include:

• spinach
• apples
• bananas
• lime
• orange juice

We haven’t tried it yet but it is on our list. I’ve actually never used an apple in a smoothie so this will be a first for us. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Recommended Reading:

• Green Smoothie Revolution: The Radical Leap Towards Natural Health
• Green for Life
• The Everything Green Smoothies Book: Includes The Green Go-Getter, Cleansing Cranberry, Pomegranate Preventer, Green Tea Metabolism booster, Cantaloupe Quencherand hundreds more! (Everything Series)

My oldest is a picky eater and my youngest is far more adventurous so I love it when one or both of them are willing to try something new, something I’ve never even tried. Several months ago we took them out to a “fancy” restaurant and my husband ordered the Chilean Seabass that was the chef’s special for the night. Both kids loved it.

Well Friday was my husband’s 35th birthday and so the kids knew we were going back to the restaurant. All week my daughter had been talking about how she was going to have the Chilean Seabass again. Her face lit up when the waitress mentioned the chef’s specials and the seabass was once again on the menu. She ordered it and quickly devoured it (sharing a few bites with her brother, father and myself).

However, I started to wonder if there were any sustainability issues with Chilean Seabass and sure enough it has an avoid rating for a few reasons, including high mercury content. Here is some information from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood WATCH page on Chilean Seabass:

“Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing has depleted some populations of Chilean seabass. In addition, some Chilean seabass is caught using unmodified bottom longlines, which hook and drown thousands of seabirds each year, most notably endangered albatross.

Portions of the Chilean seabass fishery – the South Georgia toothfish longline fishery and the Ross Sea toothfish longline fishery – are certified as sustainable to the standard of the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC). These certified fisheries are not specifically evaluated in the Seafood Watch report and are not covered under the general “Avoid” recommendation.”

With that, I was off to the MSC website’s “Where to Buy” section. I didn’t see the restaurant listed so I started digging further. The restaurant we visited was Fleming’s Steakhouse, which is part of OSI Restaurant Partners, LLC. The same company owns Outback Steakhouse, Bonefish Grill, Roy’s and Carraba’s Italian Grill.

I spent quite some time searching and wasn’t able to find anything about whether the source of the Chilean Seabass was from one of the acceptable fisheries. I did find the following information on the Bonefish Grill website about OSI’s commitment to sustainable seafood:

How does Bonefish Grill ensure that they are using environmentally safe seafood?
We have always supported and will continue to support controlled fishing regulations or laws that promote the sustainability of all fish species. It is in our best interest to do so as this directly affects the future viability of our company. We also utilize cutting-edge Aquaculture to help take the pressure off of commercial fishing. We are very “green” when it comes to sustainability issues. For more information on sustainability and overfishing, please click here. Key species of concern include Sea Bass (.pdf) and Grouper.”

The links go to external sites, however, and don’t give me any information about the source of my daughter’s seabass. So now I think I will contact the company’s corporate office directly and see if I can find a direct answer. Until then, no more seabass for Ava.

Photo: kphua/Flickr