I grew up going to the New England Aquarium, both with my family and on school field trips, and was excited to return this past month with my own children. In the heart of Boston, the aquarium opened in 1969 and has over one million visitors each year. There are over 20,000 sea creatures who live at the aquarium and visitors are able to explore four floors of exhibits in addition to outdoor plaza exhibits and the Simons Theater.
Our recent visit to Sioux Falls, the largest city (population wise) in South Dakota, was suppose to be a quick overnight, with dinner by the famous falls. But the more we researched, the list of places we “had” to visit grew longer and the more we crowdsourced, the list of places where we “needed” to dine for a meal or special treat grew larger. We ended up spending almost three full days of fun in the southeastern part of South Dakota and having so much fun!
We loved Sioux Falls for all the public parks, green spaces, and walking and biking trails; the rich history and preserved historic homes and buildings open to the public; the daily calendar of events tailored to families at the zoo and science center and butterfly garden and aquarium; and the kind, friendly people who ALWAYS stopped to let the pedestrian tourists cross the street (such a pedestrian friendly city- motorists actually do stop!) and who always had a tip about getting around road work, a recommendation for the best ice cream flavor, and a personal story of hometown pride.
One of the good things to come out of the COVID 19 pandemic for our family was the desire to spend more time outdoors. While our family has always enjoyed outdoor spots like the beach, the zoo, and various parks, we’ve never really been “hikers.” Until 2020, we also didn’t have many opportunities to explore our state parks. Connecticut has 142 state parks and state forests, covering 255,000 acres of public space and thousands of trails for both amateur and veteran hikers. We’ve been fortunate to have time this past year to “hit the trails”; read about some of our favorite spots in Fairfield County, western Connecticut, and the Mystic area. This week, we’re sharing seven great spots in Central Connecticut. Note: this is not a comprehensive list- there are so many more spots that are on our “to do” list- but it is a good start:
2020 may have not been the year everyone was expecting, but we were fortunate enough to still have a lot of fun and explore a lot of very cool places. While we stuck closer to home, mainly the Tri State area and New England, we racked up 12,000 miles on our Equinox (and that’s with only driving 200 miles in 3.5 months!) and visited a lot of spots that have been on our bucket list for a while. (Read more about our just-summer bucket list here).
One of the good things to come out of the COVID 19 pandemic for our family is the desire to spend more time outdoors. While we have always enjoyed outdoor spots like the beach, the zoo, and various parks, we’ve never really been “hikers.” Until 2020, we also didn’t have many opportunities to explore many Connecticut state parks. Connecticut has 110 state parks and hundreds of hiking trails. Check out this overview on Visit Connecticut.com, with links to alphabetized lists of parks and information. We’ve been fortunate to have time this past year to “hit the trails.” We’ll be sharing many of them in the coming weeks, including tips for hiking with kids in general, but this week we’re starting with six spots in the northwestern part of Connecticut that we like:
“The gift of time” is one of my favorite phrases; I truly believe that the one of the greatest gifts we can give someone is to spend time with them. This past year, we may have spent more time at home than on the road “adventuring”, but even at home, the gift of time was well spent reconnecting in ways that didn’t involve screens! This year, for our annual gift guide (check out our previous Holiday Gifts Guides from 2019, 2018, 2017), we are using the theme of the gift of time for the focus of our gift giving family and friends.