"Summer Vacation with Kids" - Contest for July 2009

Dear ILites,

Last month contest was all about your culinary skills and photographic skills and this month contest is all about your writing skills.

As the contest name suggests we are looking for you to share about your Summer Vacation, especially with your kids and tiny tots.

How did you engage your kids for two long months??
- Was there any specific sports/ hobby related camps they attended? Write about the camp or sports they enjoyed this vacation.
- Did you visit any theme park with your kids, their friends and/or cousins? It must have etched a deep impression in the kids' minds filled with bumpy roller coaster rides, munching on drinks and pizzas, splashing around in the wave pool.
- Did you take them to visit their Grandparents, or any other relatives place, where they totally enjoyed?

Whatever is your take on the contest, we are looking for an entry highlighting the best moments of Summer Vacation spent with your kids.

The Contest for July 2009 is....

Summer Vacation with Kids Contest

How to Participate in this Contest ?

Follow these simple steps:

• Draft a write up of your summer vacation time with kids
• Post it here in this thread

Contest starts today - July 7th 2009

Contest ends on July 25th 2009

Points to note:

• An ILite can post only 1 entry.
• Entries should be posted only in this thread for it to qualify for the contest.
• Best write up will be selected by the panel of Judges.
• Entries posted in this thread during the contest period - July 7th to July 25th will only be considered for the contest.

Ladies, what are you all waiting for...wear your thinking caps, get pointers from your kids and gear up for the contest.

All the Best!!!

PS: Any questions about participation in the contest, do post it here in this thread and we will respond

Dear ILites,

Topic itself is quite interesting!!!! Summer vacation with kids…..Great……

This vacation is unmemorable vacation for our family. This is because my daughter’s first b’day fall on this vacation i.e. May 14th. We celebrated it in a great way

I myself, my hobby and my daughter had a nice time in Kanyakumari my native place…
Kanyakumari by hearing the name itself symbolizes the tip of Indian map where three rivers arabian sea, bay of bengal, Indian ocean merge together. Vivekananda rock, Thiruvalluvar statue, Kanya Kumari amma Temple, Gandhi samathi, last but not the least the great scene of sunrise and sunset…………

Besides its importance as a Hindu pilgrim center, it is famous for its beautiful views of sunrise and sunset over the waters. Our journey started at morning 5.30 a.m waiting for sun to come out. The sun rise at 5.59 a.m. Really we had a great experience to see the sunrise. Every one of us should see that nice scene in their life. Each one of us will forget our worries on that moment. Really god’s creation is appreciable….and no words for the same

Swami Vivekananda Rock. It is off shore. We have traveled through ferry. It was great experience traveling in the pleasant fresh air in the hot summer with the little sea breeze touching our body. The meditation hall is the best and we have got great pleasure in mediation for sometime.
Next to vivekanda Rock is the great statue of Thiruvalluvar. The statue symbolizes the three major divisions. Virtue, Wealth and Love. Thiruvalluvar, the author who gave us quintessential words of wisdom through his philosophical work ‘Thirukkural’, a treatise in Tamil on the Indian way of life.
we went to kanya kumari Amman temple, she is ruling the whole and sole of kanyakumari. She is the roop of goddess parvati. She is waiting as Kanya to marry with god Shiva. The diamond nose-ring of the deity is famous for its sparkling splendor said to be visible even from the sea.

Our journey continued to the statue of sunami, where they are maintaining silence for the people who have lost their life in sunami .Our proud National leader Mahatma Gandhi memorial was built in kanyakumari where the urn containing the Mahatma’s ashes was kept for public viewing before immersion.. Pure silence is maintained. Really we felt proud to be an Indian. On Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday (October 2), the first rays of the sun fall on the exact place where the ashes of the father of the nation were kept.

Finally we did some window shopping of south cotton sarees, pearl necklace and so on….We returned home with sweet Memories of kanyakumari still now……..
Even now also I am very happy to see the photographs of kanyakumari and just be in that mood………….That was an wonderful unmemorable experience….. Every one of us should visit kanyakumari once in their life

How to reach
By Air: The nearest airport from Kanyakumari is situated at Trivandrum about 80 kms away. It is directly connected with Bangalore, Mumbai, Cochin, Delhi, Goa, and Chennai by regular flights.
By rail:
Kanyakumari is connected to most of the cities by the Indian Railways network, with direct trains to Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi, Jammu, Chennai and many others.
Tirunelvelli, situated around 80 kms away from Kanyakumari is the other nearest railway junction and can be reached by road via Nagarkoil (19 km).


with regards
Ahilaiyer

oh yeah summer summer and 2 long months of vacation. I am recently married and its been just 4 months. we stay in a joint family where there are 5 kids at home. all five of them are more naughty than the other.
It just started vacations and I was totally confused because where I go in the home I could find any of the five kid creating nuisance or messing. As it was new to me, I was slowly getting irritated by these kids. But sometimes, I used to feel sorry them as, they had to pass time some how and they were kids after all.
it went like this for almost couple of weeks. Then my hubby gave me an excellent idea!!!! As I am into all kind of crafts and art, why don't I gather all the kids and teach them something and indulge them in some craft activity!!. It was a brilliant idea though, I called everyone and made them sit in front of me. As all of them are boys, I couldn't teach them with satin, beads etc. I made an attempt of making a kite and flying them. They were so happy that, they made different colors of kites and that day went smoothly without messing up at all.
next day, the youngest among them came to me and threw another brilliant idea, why dont we organise a kite party at home!!!
yeah that was awesome and that could have become a media to know the people in my home more closely!!! I said YES to the idea and coming saturday we had a blasting KITE PARTY. with the kids all elders joined, made their own colorfull kites and flew them!!! it was real fun and Now i am very much comfertable with all the kids and they too.
at last I have to say thanks to my hubby and KITE of course!!

Hello dear all,

The topic is “summer vacation with kids” but let twist the topic a little to share my experience !!

I’m married but no children as of now ! So, let me take this opportunity to narrate summer vacation when I was a kid.

This was when I was in class 8th , in Bangalore. My younger sister Assam was just 3 yrs. old then. She was the cutest kid I had ever seen then and we all loved her. On the whole, she was pet of all of us. By the way, we are 8 siblings and she is the last !

In summer, we always use to crave to go to Lalbagh and have fun running up the small hill there. That year also we had the same plans. We were hoping that mom would take us, so we were at best of our behavior ! Unfortunately, mom was ill and we had to postpone the plan. But, my neighbor (Mangalorean) somehow convinced mom to take us to Lalbagh. After a lot of begging and crying, mom agreed and atlast we fixed the day of adventure.

The most exiting day arrives and we packed our bags. I always to use to carry 2 things with me. My book and my shuttle bat. We were ready with our stuff after lunch at home. Finally, we were a group of 4 sisters, 2 brothers, my neighbor and her only son, total of 8 happy faces !

Evethough it was only 4 kms. from home, the bus drive was amazing. We reach there around 3pm. We had time till 6pm to reach back home as promised to mom.

Everything was fine till we realized Assam was missing ! It was 5pm and we were suppose to leave the place at 5.30 ! As it was my neighbor’s responsibility to get us back safe, she started crying, thinking what to answer my mom ! We all were paranoid and were scattered ! My elder sister made me, my both brothers and neighbor’s son sit near the Glass House (a place in Lalbagh) and warned us not to move from the place till she returned. It was getting dark and still no clue of Assam ! As we were scared, we listened to my elder sister and just dint move from the place. I shared my book with my brothers but could hardly read anything. I could only imagined Assam crying with strangers around or has she been kidnapped. All such creepy thoughts were running in my head.

Meanwhile, my neighbor was all in tears, running around with my elder sister, looking for Assam. We din’t even have a photo of her’s to show people to recognise ! The feeling of revealing the truth to my mom made her turn red with worry (as Manglorean’s have fair complexion). Everyother girl was looking like Assam to us !

Suddenly, we saw a girl, happily eating ice cream and walking with one lady. This girl also looked like Assam but I din’t believe, just for the reason that she was not crying ! But, to our surprise, that was her ! Can you believe that !!! I knew she liked ice creams but never thought she loved it to that extend !!!

It was a relief to have her back. After enquiry, the story goes like this – we were playing, Assam was on herself, sitting and watching people pass by. She was so lost, she joined the lot and reached the Ice cream parlor. Then the trouble started when she realized that she is between strangers ! Some concerned couple took notice of the crying child and bought her an ice cream. To their surprise, she just stopped crying after a lick of Ice Cream. They were happy that she stopped crying and decided to take her around to locate the lost family. That’s when we took notice and ran to her !

All thrill over, we were late by 30 mins. and nobody had the courage to tell mom what happened on that day. After a week or so, my sister narrated the whole story. The after effect is a different story but that was the most thrilling summer vacation I have ever had !!!


Thanks for reading through grlz : - )

Have a nice weekend
Noor Jahan Khan.

summer vaction as kid... It was a dream if i think now..
My grandmoms place by 10th of April we all cousins and nephews gather very much before !4th April everyyear for nearly 15years.My patti was a total blind lady with full of love and caring towards us .nearly 8 grandchildren.she arranges the cook and servants by January for our visit.She chats with different level children according to their level.No worry for anythingjust eating playing .. eating thatt stick ice which was for 25 ps.. those days with vermicilli filled ...

Day time we have tendercoconut waater ,raw mangoes from our grannys farm.She makes MALAR POORI balls( Powder of puffed rice) with ghee and sugar added and feeds by her hand only.Night all of us sit circling her and she feeds us curd rice and pickle.

We used to climb the cotton tree and peel the cotton seed ..then bring home the cotton and beat them well. Every year we filled nearly 3 to 4 pillows for our granny.No one gets a life like the life we had.. no onegets a granny like the one i had.

I love my granny....I miss you granny...

Hi laxmi,
You 've given the topic 'summer vacations with kids'. As i'm single, how can i took part in this contest? Any rules and regulations?
Please let me know.
Thank you in advance.

Hello Iladies,
You have started a very good contest every month! Summer Vacation with Kids is a great topic...but I dont have kids, so what can i write about?? Let me know ...soon.
bye
Palle Lakshmi

“ Summer Vacation” – the word itself spells magic. Any travel ideas thrown in during family lunches/dinners are directed towards the summer vacation itenary. Coming to our family summer vacations this year, it was a mixture of day picnics, long tours,and so on.

As usual, my sister paid a visit from Ahmedabad in March for about 10 days when her kids had a short vacation of 15 days(CBSE) like my son. So me and and brother planned a outing to a farm house within a few hours drive for 2 days. My kids were the oldest among the lot. We were in all 14 members including grandparents. We left our place in the wee hours with a light breakfast packed. We had already started holidaying the previous evening itself. We stopped at a riverside enroute to have breakfast of idlis, puran poli , brownies and coffee( all homemade). Then we left for the farmhouse and it was just gay abandon for the next 48 hours.

This was a picnic sort for my kids. So we planned a proper 5 day outing to a beach resort near Goa in May when my daughter was done with her semesters. This was just the 4 of us. Coming back from the tour,me and my husband got to our routine. My son was busy with his 10th std classes et all.

Our family principle is to learn something every vacation. So my daughter duly enrolled herself in a swimming camp for a month or so. My son got into a calligraphy class to improve on his handwriting in his forthcoming board papers. I should say that did really help him because he gained lots of confidence and his scores too went up . His teachers were also happy.

Once the routine for the next academic session started, all of us were very much content that although they were short tours, we did have a fabulous summer vacation plus some new skills acquired.

jaishamagna

Hello Ahilaiyer,
Thanks for your entry about the trip to Kanyakumari, the most scenic spot in the Southern tip of India.

Originally Posted by shel_28

Hi laxmi,
You 've given the topic 'summer vacations with kids'. As i'm single, how can i took part in this contest? Any rules and regulations?
Please let me know.
Thank you in advance.

Originally Posted by palle1928

Hello Iladies,
You have started a very good contest every month! Summer Vacation with Kids is a great topic...but I dont have kids, so what can i write about?? Let me know ...soon.
bye
Palle Lakshmi

Hello Shel and Palle,
Yes this contest is specifically the vacation involving kids. As a single or married without kids, you could try posting about the summer vacation that you spent with probably your niece/ nephew/ little cousins/ neighborhood kids / friend's kids.

Summer holidays and kids


That was way back in 2000 summer about a dozen kids visiting us. They were all from family near and a little extended. Our house with a huge garden, huge hall and lots of sitting places called thinnai was reason enough for them to skate,swing go gliding up and down and climb trees.
Their parents working was reason enough for the kids to come down to their grandparents place for holidays.
Ramnath, the eldest of the lot, narmada nandhitha and niveditha the triplets, daughters of vasu my brother in law, jingru and dammulu my sister in law’s kids appunu, krithiga and hema cousins, anand and karthik, close relatives. We did have more kids from the neighbourhood and the house looked like a little school. Age group between four and fourteen.

It was menopause time for me so I was down now and then with fatigue and what not. The kids were told by their parents not to worry me much…!!?? With demands etc..

Summer is pretty hot at our place and keeping kids indoors was just about impossible we had to find ways and means to keep them indoors atleast in the afternoon.

I did plan ahead with some carboard cut into A 4 size, pencils, sharpners, scales, colour pencils, erasers and ofcourse some files and covers to keep finished works. Day one and they all wrote down their names on pencil, covers, files.

Cooking three times a day would be just about impossible so some days my brother in law got breakfast from local canteen, or we made fruit salad. Lunch was usually with mixed vegetable curry, a sambar, rasam (as little krithiga and dammulu had only rasam rice) and ofcourse thick curd for which there was a rush every day. Dinner was usually vegetable rice, idli sambar or dosa.

We had put up a temporary shed and jingru was curious …what is it for he asked. I said oh that’s something we will display all the artworks you people do at the end of the month. Who will come seeing it? they asked. We could invite your parents, uncles aunts and also neighbours and friends. I said. will anyone buy our art they wanted to know. I said that depends on how good it is. Now that got them really interested in doing something that could get appreciation and perhaps even pocket money…!! With their interest my worry increased…now I had to think up of different things kids can do and with the means that we had at home…!!

Morning after breakfast they bathed and dressed up…thanks to the excitement of doing something to display …or getting them to have bath would be like moving mountains..!!

I had a small box and wrote out different things that they can do and put it out krithiga will pick out one note and say what they had to do that day. …!! This was fun but sometimes they decided to take one more paper and change the craft for that day.

See the different things we decided to do.........

Collage: they cut out different colour paper from newspapers and magazines, cut them to tiny pieces and stuck to the cardboard as imagination went to make collage of trees, flowers, vase, waterways etc.

Drawing a plan for the house: this was very much fun as each one sketched their own house or an imaginary one to build. This was pretty creative as some had whorl like staircase, some had trees entwined on balcony, some had lovely kitchens.
Clay : where do I go for clay for nine plus kids? I made some thick atta flour and gave it to them. They had the floor all properly laid out with papers and snakes, snail, animals.ganesha. Some licked the flour….next time should I flavour it with some fruit juice? I wondered.
Vegetable carving: they made octopus with bananas, cockroaches with brinjals, men on boat with ladies finger caps and boat with gourd. Lotus with onions, and papaya lanterns.
A little guidance and there was quite a few things on display.
Origami: simple folding of paper into boats, caps, houses.a surprise rain that summer and we had quite a few handy paper boats for floating.
Puppets: cutting out small animals from cardboard and colouring them with eyes etc. they had a roaring time with rubber bands fixed to their fingers or hands and telling stories.
Story writing: they said they were not so creative to write. So I said I will give you a topic and you have to write atleast a para. I said what if a tree just found out it could speak to humans. Wow they did have a whole lot of imagination. Wish I had them treasured so I could print a book of them now.. one wrote you shouldn’t be cutting down trees as they can talk now and guide people their way. Another said a tree would like to shift to new place, yet another said they wouldn’t mind cutting some branches to make beds for kids and hence find a place in their rooms…!!

Fascinating facts: we had a whole lot of tamil magazine siruvar mani in which there are umpteen facts like the largest lake, the tallest tree etc. so each one wrote down from those magazines on different headings like science, history animals etc.

Dosa parade: each one made dosa two at a time…..they made stars, moon and what not and topped them with carrots, beetroot and leaves. We had bunny like dosas only they split in the middle when we tried taking it out of the tawa.

Snakes and ladder: each one drew a set of squares and numbered them with colour pencils and drew some ladder and snakes. Some snakes were so long they wriggled all over the squares. Some had lovely names for the numbers. Like swimming pool, take rest at this place, eat snacks at this place etc.

Money : they made fake money of different denominations and wondered if their signature will be just as good as the original, how do we get the water color they wondered….will drawing on one side do? Are there denominations higher than one thousand? Will anybody exchange their `money’ for goodies?
Brush painting: this was indeed fun with lots of watercolour and brushes…some used their own tooth brush and we had to buy new ones the next day. Simple leaves, cut out cardboard were all used for this art.
String painting: two cardboards were used for this and a thick string, dip it in colour(water colour paint slightly diluted in trays. Made whorls on one cardboard placed the other cardboard on it and pulled the string. It made wonderful modern art.
Potato eat up: I cooked up some potatoes and added salt, lemon juice and some chillie powder. They each had a nice plate and made different images like cat face and ponds wells etc.
Fancy dress: this they had to get done on their own imagination. Having a printing press at home was an advantage as they could get cardboard, scissors, cotton for beard or grey hair etc. jingru was at his best as it was that time of madhu cheenu in tv serials and he was up with a beard and looked like a sadhu with saffron lungi etc. they were each one bold enough to talk a few lines on their dress and makeup…!!
Speech: they picked up topics of their choice and made tiny speeches of their own. A torch was held in their hand…( as mike..!!)they imitated their parents admonishing them...!!

Making piggy bank: each one was given a box and some colour paper to stick around. Make a slit and use as piggy bank. The wishes or what they will do once it gets filled up with money from parents and elders were written on it. Some wrote they wanted cycles others they wanted to buy a saree for mom. Still others a house…!!!

Dance: only the girls did this and the boys made real fun of them …there were cries and near about spankings but it was fun. Boys went away for cricketing in spite of the scorching sun.

Masks: they cut out masks from cardboard of elephants and cats. Some had slits for eyes in the exact place some were far away and so there were more than two slits for eyes. Some of them really planned with scales and tried taking the exact distance between their eyes nose etc..

Reading and writing: they read storybooks of their choice and told their own stories too.

The holiday was not altogether fun. There were fights and fists…it looked like a local panchayat to settle disputes between them. The falls were dealt with wet packs and other health probs with herbal juices and kashayams. Tender coconuts and fruit juices were drinks in the morning and evening. Sometimes they enjoyed a treat at the local canteen, where they ordered their own food and paid from a set amount given to them.

mangoes in full fruiting season did give a helping belly full as all kids had a go at it right from the trees or cut or juiced and made merry.

They did come for hols every year after that too and yet that year was when they enjoyed the greatest. Their parents were all in awe of the work and art each one displayed. They were given pocket money even when their work was either not finished or not up to the mark. A great summer vacation to remember.

sathya