The reason I started this blog was to promote family activities through books and cooking. But in reality it was about finding ways to bond with your children and to create family memories that they would cherish as they got older. Doing it with books and food was just one way I like to do that with my family.

However, there are other activities, like taking trips together. So as I prepare for another weekend of camping hell, I repeat what my husband said to me the other day, “Camping is not about you having a good time. It’s about creating memories for the children.”

And it’s true. Some of the fondest memories I have with my parents and sister are our vacations to the Florida Keys, and the road trips my mom took us on to Virginia and Montreal.

Memories and bonding – could your family use some? Well, maybe it’s time to think about taking a family vacation. Now I know money is tight. However, Beaches Resorts is holding a WonderFALL Celebration during the off-peak season months of September and October. Not only do you get to enjoy everything Beaches offers year-round, but you can SAVE up to 45% off published rates and get two Nights Free on stays of seven nights or more. 

Yes, I know the kids will be back in school. But you can take school work with you. After all, the first month or two of school is a refresher course on all the things the kids forgot over the summer. (This is what my son’s teachers told me. And another reason to get your kids to read, read, read this summer.) You have nothing to lose – only memories to gain.

Beaches Resorts WonderFALL Celebration

Beaches has a great fall line up of special events and family activities like featuring Caribbean Adventures with Sesame Street® including:

• story time with Elmo and baking with Cookie Monster (my favorite chef!)
• dancing with Zoe and exploring with Grover
• making music with Bert and Ernie and Sesame Street stage shows
• character parades and character breakfasts (for a nominal charge – we did this at Disneyland and my children loved it!)
• special parenting workshops hosted by Sesame educators
• Dive In Movies (that’s movies shown at night while you’re in the pool)
• “Baby You’re A Star Photo Contest” where your little one could win the chance to be featured in the next Beaches brochure
• even a celebration for grandparents

Beaches Resorts – the best of everything in a family vacation

At Beaches, there is something for everyone in your family. First, there’s food! There’s unlimited dining from a variety of gourmet and specialty cuisine restaurants including access to “anytime snacks” and beverages, so you don’t have to worry about a grumpy starved toddler three hours before dinner.

To work off all that delicious food, you can play tennis, golf, or work out in the Beaches state-of-the art fitness centers. And since you’re at the beach, they offer snorkeling and scuba diving with all equipment and instruction included. 

No matter what your child’s swim level, they’ll have fun at the Pirate’s Island Water Park. There’s even swim-up bars where parents can relax with an adult beverage or two. 

Beaches also features supervised kids camps for all ages (newborns to tweens and teens), a Crayola Art Camps (Lucie could bring her Doodlebugz Crayola Apron), and an Xbox 360® Game Garage, featuring the latest video games (Nathan is so there, dude.)

I’ve checked out their prices, and they seem extremely reasonable for an all inclusive one week stay. If you have frequent flier miles, this can be a very inexpensive way to have an amazing time. So book a trip at at Beaches and make some memories!

To tell you the truth, the only reason I’m giving these away is that I’m not going to any of these places in the near future. Now if they had sent me the Denver or Chicago books (hello BlogHer 2007) there would be no way I’d give these up. The  books are chock full of money saving tips, ways to beat the crowds, and great things to do as a family. The London and New York books are mini-sized and easy to carry around in a diaper bag, backpack or purse, too.

Here are the rules:

1. If you have a blog, post about my contest on your site. You have from today until August 9 to do so.Then come back here and post the weblink (the link to the actual post) in the comments section below along with your email and blog addresses.
2. If you do not have a blog, no problem! Just leave your name and email address in the comments section below.
3. If there is a book you especially want or don’t want, please let me know when you leave your info in the comments.
4. I will pick the three winners’ names out of a hat and will contact them via email for their names and mailing addresses.
5. The winners will be announced on this blog on Friday, August 11.
6. Please do not enter this contest if you are unwilling to email me your name and mailing address. Of course, I will not release your private info to the public.
7. This contest is open to readers in the continental U.S. and Canada only.
8. This contest is also open to ClubMom bloggers.

If you have any questions, email me.

(Thanks to Kristie Wells for the beautiful picture of Grace with the newspaper story about Blogher.)

What follows is a very long post about BlogHer ’06. While usually I’d blog this at my personal blog, A Mama’s Rant, I feel an obligation to my editors at ClubMom who gave me the pass to the conference and to my fellow ClubMom bloggers as well. I’ll come back to books and food tomorrow.

BlogHer ’06 was amazing. And I’m still exhausted. That’s what 13 1/2 hours of sleep over 3 days will do to you. (When Arianna Huffington in the closing keynote talk mentioned that sleep deprivation is a huge issue, I had to laugh.)

First, meeting many of the ClubMom bloggers, as Amy has already documented so well, was thrilling. These women are smart, fun, silly, serious, haughty, goofy, lovely, warm, generous and every other adjective you can think of to describe a group of awesome women. There’s great joy in finding such like minded people who 1) know what a blog is, 2) can have deep conversations about blogging, politics, motherhood, and business plans, and 3) can have a lot of fun too, like the me. you. me. discussion and drunken yoga at 3 a.m. (I think it was Jenny of Big Slice, but it was dark out.)

But there’s sadness, too. I have a lot of acquaintances but few deep friendships outside of my family. There’s very few women I’ve met in my life that I truly click with. Several are in the Chicago/Milwaukee area, one in San Diego, and a couple down in Denver. With one exception, many of the women I’ve been hanging with locally don’t "get it" whether it’s about blogging, motherhood, politics, feminism, music, or education. And my girlfriends who do "get it" are far, far away or too busy to get together except for a couple of times per year, if that.

I have so much more in common with the women who attended BlogHer (those at ClubMom and women who blog elsewhere) than I do with people in my neighborhood, and that really pisses me off. Yet, through ClubMom and BlogHer I have access to virtual sisterhood of like minded souls who I hope to keep meeting and working with in the future. Maybe one of you will move to my neighborhood, too. (Yes, Genuine is only a mile away, but he’s a fella and his kids all have cooties. Mrs. Genuine’s cool though.)

Then I want to give a few shout outs as well (and if I leave your name out, please don’t take it personally. Just blame the sleep deprivation and the martinis.)

Tracy at ClubMom. Thanks for the pass and helping me to get to BlogHer in the first place. Many kowtows in your direction.

Erin of Queen of Spain who inspires me by daring to write about the upkeep of her nether regions. She’s funny, a terrific writer, and came to my emotional rescue when the blogtards in my Colorado neighborhood came after me after I dared to write about the local school district and the apathy of parents out here. Erin’s husband – who’s incredibly cool too – gave me excellent advice about vasectomies on the second night of BlogHer (and bought me a drink as well). Unfortunately, Paul ain’t buying it because he’s convinced, due to my fabulous driving skills, that I will kill myself and our children. So he won’t be a pathetic and lonely widower, he needs "his boys" intact to start a new family. Sigh.

Grace of State of Grace and Marathon Mom who truly lives up to her name and inspires us all. Honestly, I want her to adopt me but she’s too young. However, I could always use a big sister.

Denise of Fast Times at Homeschool High. Not only do I love her blog’s book lists and cool homeschooling ideas, but I found out her partner runs Retro Food, one of my favorite food blog sites. It’s cool to meet other people who love vintage kitsch and food.

Arianna Huffington, the Jackie O. of the blogosphere. Not only is she gorgeous, smart and talented, but warm and approachable. An inspiration.

Devra of Parentopia.net and Mommy Guilt – finally we meet! What a warm, wonderful woman and one of the marvelous Jewish female bloggers I met at conference. She makes me long for the Jewish female community of my youth.

The Food Bloggers, as chronicled by Kalyn’s Kitchen and Elise of Simply Recipes. (That’s me in the lower left hand corner of the picture.) Elise gave a wonderful class on Audience Building and I hope to use many of her ideas to clean up my blogs and increase traffic.

Mecca Ibrahim (a.k.a. Annie Mole of Going Underground) who was lovely (and not just because of her English accent) and so much fun to talk to and drink/eat with. Brilliant!

Jim Turner of Genuine and Amy Gahran of Contentious. Go Coloradans!

Joan Blades of MomsRising.com – The documentary was cool, I just wish more people attended. Can’t wait for the nation wide houseparties to view the final cut.

Finally, the Great Classes and Discussions that inspired me to take my blogging further: Audience Building and Monetizing Your Blog. Mommy Blogging is a Radical Act. Writing Naked. Ten Types of Web Writing. Thanks to all the presenters and participants.

First there’s these recipes from Fix-it And Enjoy-it Cookbook: All-purpose, Welcome-home Recipes. I adore the sweet potato fries sold at a local Cajun restaurant. If it wasn’t for the fries I don’t think we’d eat there as much, so I’m thrilled to find a recipe to make them at home.

Yam Fries
Kathy Keener Shantz, Lancaster, PA

Makes 6 servings
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Baking Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

1. 2 Tbsp. olive oil
2. 1 tsp. salt
3. 1 tsp. pepper
4. 1 tsp. curry
5. ½ tsp. hot sauce
6. 4 medium-sized yams, sliced like French fries

Directions:

1. In a large mixing bowl, combine oil, salt, pepper, curry, and hot sauce.
2. Stir in sliced yams.
3. When thoroughly coated, spread on lightly greased baking sheet.
4. Bake at 375° for 20 minutes, or until tender.

(Photo courtesy of b. decot.)

Yam fries would be a great side for barbeque or steaks on the grill. And speaking of grills, have you ever tried to make peach melba on one? Check this decadent recipe out! (Don’t know about you, but my local Safeway has peaches on sale right now. We always have oodles of raspberries in the fridge, too.)

Grilled Peach Melba
Stacy Schmucker Stoltzfus, Enola, PA

Makes 4 servings
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Grilling Time: 5-10 minutes

Ingredients:

1. 4 large, unpeeled peaches or nectarines
2. 2 tsp. sugar
3. 2 cups red raspberries, fresh or frozen
4. sugar, optional
5. vanilla ice cream

Directions:

1. Halve and pit peaches or nectarines.
2. Press fresh or thawed raspberries through sieve. Save juice and discard seeds. Sweeten to taste with sugar, if needed.
3. Grill unpeeled peaches cut-side down for approximately 2 minutes. Turn peaches over. With cut-side up, fill each cavity with ½ tsp. sugar, and continue grilling until grill marks appear on skins.
4. Serve immediately with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and drizzle with the raspberry sauce.

(Grilled Peach Melba picture courtesy of Everyday Food on PBS.)

The July 26 Denver Post Food section had some terrific articles. I was intrigued by a story on a group of tweenagers and teens learning to cook. Not exactly a basic cooking class, the kids are challenged, writes staff writer Cynthia J. Pasquale in Add teens and stir:

This is not your french toast-on-a-stick kind of class. The students, who must be age 12-16, skip the fruit smoothies and egg-salad sandwiches and are catapulted to chicken cordon bleu in puff pastry and mac and cheese in béchamel sauce. Another day, the group rolls out dough for ravioli and tortellini. The third class celebrates Asian cuisine, and the group splits up to make dim sum, spring rolls and kung pao beef. A variety of pastry techniques – apple pie, cream puffs – are conquered on the fourth day, and the class ends with the delightful chaos of an Iron Chef competition, where students take a bounty of ingredients and create meals without recipes.

"Kids are capable of doing more than we think they are," says Pam Hueseman, a senior recreation specialist and facility manager at Expo. "Our classes are more skill-oriented, not just making tacos."

Click here to see some of the recipes the teens are using in their cooking class – pretty advanced stuff.

The Post also reviewed Fairy Tale Feasts: A Literary Cookbook for Young Readers And Eaters (on the print version of the paper). For ages 4 to 8, if any children’s cookbook was created for this blog, this book is it. When I put it on my Amazon.com wish list, I found this literary children’s cookbook as well – The Fairy Tale Cookbook: Fun Recipes for Families to Create and Eat Together. I just want to know why I hadn’t come across these books before!

Finally, the news section of the Denver Post did a terrific cover story on a Denver Boys & Girls Club reading program, Digital nook brings kids into books. Over 600 Denver children are using computer-based Accelerated Reader literacy program. They choose books based on their reading abilities and take a multiple-choice test on what they’ve read. If they answer all questions correctly, they receive 100 points to build their own "virtual reading rooms." The points can be used to clutter the rooms with various objects. It’s an interesting way to get at-risk kids reading, and I hope other communities pick up the program.

My husband Paul is attending a chemistry conference in New Hampshire soon and is flirting with the idea of going up to Maine. So now I have Maine on the brain. Luckily I had a copy of The United States Cookbook : Fabulous Foods and Fascinating Facts From All 50 States by Joan D’Amico. For ages 9-12, the book is a mixture of kid friendly recipes, food trivia, and facts about US state history.

Did you know that Maine is the country’s number one supplier of blueberries and lobster? That at one time lobster wasn’t considered a delicacy but a "junk fish"? And that this month there’s a Clam Festival in Yarmouth, where they serve at least 5,000 gallons of fried clams, 13,500 Lime Rickey’s, 6,000 lobster rolls, 2,200 pancake breakfasts and 1,500 shore dinners? Geez, when’s the next flight out?

But you don’t have to go to Maine to enjoy great seafood. In fact, we had a wonderful clams and mussels steamed in wine, and a shrimp and lobster boil at Paul’s 40th birthday a couple of weeks ago. The amazing thing was that the meal was cooked up while we were RV camping up in the mountains. Here are some photos:

The clams and mussels

The boil

The final product (I forgot the onions)

Happy campers (Nathan, Lucie, Sadie and Jenny)

The kids were so hyper after the meal (they mostly ate the corn, potatoes and a few shrimp) it took awhile to get them to go to sleep. Luckily I had brought along some Little Bear books to read. However, I wish I brought this book instead, Grace for an Island Meal. One morning in Maine, a little girl and her family travel to a small island. They gather wild berries and mussels for the evening meal. Family and friends come together to eat, giving thanks for the simple pleasures in a day outside.

We were in the Colorado mountains, and not in Maine, but families and friends coming together to enjoy a fantastic seafood meal and each other’s company rang true.

The clams were steamed in wine in a large pot over an open flame in the fire bit. The shrimp and lobster boil was done on a propane burner.

Shrimp & Lobster Boil With Corn and Potatoes
(Adapted from Martha Stewart Living, July 2006)

Serves 5 adults and 4 picky children who don’t eat seafood
Prep time: 10 minutes
Total time: 45 minutes

Ingredients:

1. 4 lemons, halved
2. 6 bay leaves
3. 1/2 cup plus 2 Tablespoon Old Bay seasoning
4. 2 lage garlic heads, halved horizontally
5. 6 medium onions, peeled and quartered
6. 2 dried chile
7. Coarse salt
8. 16 springs fresh thyme, tied together with kitchen twine
9. 2 pounds of new red potatoes, unpeeled, halved if large
10. 8 ears fresh corn, shucked and broken in half
11. 2 pounds uncooked tail on shrimp (frozen is o.k.)
12. 1 lobster tail each for the adults (frozen is o.k.)
13. Butter, hot sauce and French bread for serving

Directions:

1. Fill a large stockpot with 4 quarts of water. Squeeze lemons into water and add rinds.
2. Add bay leaves, seasoning, garlic, onions, chile, 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt, and thyme.
3. Bring to boil. Reduce heat, and simmer 10 minutes.
4. Add potatoes adn simmer 12 minutes.
5. Add corn and simmer 5 minutes.
6. Add shrimp and lobster, cover, adn simmer until opaque, 3 to 5 minutes.
7. Pour off liquid and serve out of the pot.
8. Serve with melted butter and/or hot sauce.
9. Squeeze and spread the cooked garlic on French bread.
10. Serve the corn and potatoes with butter and salt and pepper.