~by Brenda

Saturday is a special day at our house. My kids call it “the day Dad stays home from work to play” day.

We try to get out every Saturday for a family activity.

Sometimes we go hiking. These pictures were taken while hiking in Yosemite, CA last summer.

My kids are always looking for bugs and animals to catch while on the trail. One time, my daughter caught a lizard.

Another favorite place to go on a Saturday is the beach. Here is my husband doing his best Indiana Jones whip crack with a piece of kelp he found on the beach.

What a find!

Babies love the beach.

We always seem to amuse the locals.

Sometimes, we go to museums. In these pictures we were visiting the California Academy of Sciences. It is a very kid-friendly museum. I cannot recommend taking a young family to a King Tut exhibit or a fine art museum. When we tried to expose our children to culture and art, my four year old daughter kept exclaiming loudly, “This is soooooo boring.” while rolling her eyes. So, we stick to museums that are geared to the 8 and under crowd now. Maybe we’ll try the fine art museums again in a few years.

Other Saturdays, we stay home and craft. My husband is a great crafter. He made stained glass hearts and flowers for all of his girls on Valentines Day. My daughters love to paint.

We love mini trips together as a family. We pack picnic lunches or find local foods to try. We try to keep a flexible agenda in case we find something cool along the way that looks even better than what we had planned. We always keep a sturdy stroller, sweatshirts and diapers in the car because we never know where the fun will take us!

Family trips can be a lot of work for parents, but my husband and I always find we smile more on Saturdays than any other day of the week.

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