Wednesday, May 22, 2013

CD review: Kidz Bop Party Hits!

Disclosure: I received a copy of this CD to review- all opinions posted here are mine and mine alone! 

It was a gloomy day in Seattle. The kids were both home from school, thanks to some sort of inservice day.  I was frantically trying to clean the house and pack for an upcoming trip.  Everyone was in a grouchy and slow-moving mood. I decided we needed some music to cheer us up- specifically a new CD that I'd been sent to review: Kidz Bop Party Hits!
1.Party In the U.S.A 2.Get The Party Started 3.Boom Boom Pow 4.Move It Like This 5.Party Rock Anthem 6.Tonight Tonight 7.Party Like A Rock Star 8.Lets Get It Started 9.Moves Like Jagger 10.Who Let The Dogs Out 11.Single Ladies 12.Hey Ya! 13.KIDZ BOP Shuffle

It only took a few songs before the kids were up and dancing in the kitchen, and everyone was suddenly in a much better mood.  I knew more of these songs than I usually do on Kidz Bop albums, so I can tell you that the singing and music is pretty good- not up to the level of the artists who performed the original versions, but good for being sung by kids!   My  kids don't listen to the stations where the originals of these songs are performed, and my kids are preschoolers, so they had no complaints about quality- they just wanted to dance! Many of the songs got repeated a time or two, thanks to requests from Ethan. He definitely had some favorites on this CD.

As with all the Kidz Bop albums, the lyrics from the originals that are not safe for little ears have been replaced by different lyrics, so you don't have to worry about kids hearing bad words or repeating them while singing. All in all, this is a fun, super-upbeat CD that's fun for your kids to dance and sing along to.

You can find out more information about this and other Kidz Bop CDs at the Kidz Bop website.

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Planning a family trip this summer?

Now that people know that I work as a travel writer in addition to writing for this blog, I get asked a lot for travel advice. And my advice is always the same- check Trekaroo! Trekaroo is a great resource for families. It features reviews, articles and lists of family-friendly activities. And these aren't written by some person who has no real connection to family travel, but they are written by real moms and dads for other families.

This past week we've been focusing on camping over at Trekaroo, since that's such a budget-friendly and fun way to travel. I compiled some lists and wanted to share them here as well. Did I miss any of your favorites?  Family-friendly campgrounds in Oregon, Family-friendly campgrounds in Washington State, Family-friendly campgrounds in Idaho. My coworkers came up with a bunch of lists for other places in the country as well. You can see our lists at this link: Great family campgrounds for every type of camping

*I received no compensation for this post- just worked hard on these lists, as did others at Trekaroo, and I wanted to share them!