Mags goes on "treasure hunts" almost daily on tour. She finds beads, money, any little piece of trash that has a slight sparkle. She occasionally finds something really cool like a keychain or a necklace. I swear she has supernatural powers for locating all things shimmery. Oh, also, our amazing nanny, Julia bought a bag of beads before this tour-hoping to up the standards of her normal hunt. When Mags really can't seem to find the real deal on the walks, Julia tosses a few beads down when no one is looking. Mags might have caught on by the end of the tour...we heard her saying, "It's so strange. I keep finding the same kind of beads in Kansas, Minnesota, California..."
Anyway, I have found a few "treasures" on this tour too. I must now plug my favorite finds as a traveling mommy.
1. A friend of mine has a blog called one bored mommy. She gets to try out new kid products and then gives one away to her readers. Great inventions by smart moms are usually the product sources. I won a teething necklace that looks like stone jewelry but is made of teething materia (it's called smart mom jewlery). June and I love it. Have I mentioned that June is the slowest teether in the world, she's been cutting incisors for a month now.
2. SCRAP When we were bored in Portland we went for a walk. Sometimes there is nothing nearby the club, so imagine how excited we were when we found "Scrap" (school and community reuse action project) just a few blocks away. It is an open and inviting, non-profit, warehouse space full of all reusable/recycled materials that people have donated instead of discarded. By the looks of the place it's made for artists-kids and adults, and teachers too. Mags sat down and made a purse for over an hour. The supplies (felt, a zipper, a needle, thread, buttons, a sash, and an "M" patch) came to a total of 85 cents. And June went shopping too.
3. Frozen dinners-bad, right? Not anymore. We were lucky enough to meet some of the folks from who gave us these frozen, all organic, fingerfood, kid dinners and snacks for our bus freezer. I don't think you realize how much bad food we weren't forced to feed our kids on this tour because of this company. Smart mom again...and I think they are getting a national distributor soon.
4. Aromabar I got a massage and the woman who gave the massage owns a product line of all natural therapeutic inhalants. I had a migraine so she gave me one specifically designed for migraines. You just open the jar and smell it for ten minutes.
5. Detachable pockets. Homemade. A nice young woman threw these on stage to us while we played-we actually said, "Thanks but what is this?" and she replied, "Detachable Pockets". (King Missile sometimes pops into my head when I say that...sorry bad joke/reference) It is the perfect addition to Mags' attached pockets because she filled them with rocks and didn't have to have me fill my jacket pockets. Jason wore his for a while too. They just snap on. Etsy site is: loveling.etsy.com It's the fanny pack without the lame factor.
6. Birds in biodomes. (This one was in Montreal). I already mentioned the Please Touch Museum in Philly...I might have to write a touring with kids guidebook one of these days. We scored in so many cities with parks museums, and places like this...
I will probably remember a million more later. But, since this is my 100th blog post, I was thinking that people could add thier own "treasures" to the list. Maybe we can come up with 100.