RockStarMom Recommends :: Free Family Friendly Attractions in Las Vegas

10 Tuesday Jun 2014

Posted by Stefanie Van Aken (RSMLVTravel) in Featured, Fun

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Enjoy the excitement of Las Vegas on the Las Vegas Strip without busting your travel budget. As a local mom of four under the age of 10, I am often asked about exploring the Strip with my kids. We are down there quite a bit, too, and they ask to do the same stuff over and over again. Here is a list of free family friendly attractions in Las Vegas.

1. Blue Man Group Procession This energetic and intellectually stimulating show is right on the mark for family entertainment in Las Vegas. If you are undecided on whether or not to splurge for the tickets, take advantage of the Blue Man Group Procession that happens daily throughout the casino floor of the Monte Carlo. All ages welcome, and encouraged – and so is audience participation! The procession takes place at 6:15pm, except for when the show is dark.

2. City Center Fine Art Collection Art Tour Download the App (it’s free!) by the same name: City Center Fine Art Collection Art Tour, and begin a self-guided tour of the 20 different public art pieces throughout City Center and Aria Las Vegas. The tour will guide you through both indoor and outdoor areas, so don’t forget your sunglasses and hats. The app itself is remarkable in the sense that it gives detailed description of each work of art, materials used, the meaning behind it, and why it was selected for the City Center Fine Art Collection. The app will also locate the the pieces on a GPS map.Ride the Aria Express

3. Bellagio Conservatory and Botanical Garden and Chihuly Fiori di Como No matter how many times you see it or the slight differences in display each quarter, it is hard to ignore the beauty of the Bellagio Conservatory and Botanical Garden. Did you know that between 10:30 – 11:30am daily inside the Conservatory, Mr. and Mrs. Green Thumb are available to provide tips and answer questions about gardening? In case you are like me, and were born without a green thumb, step over to the lobby where world reknown Italian artist, Dale Chihuly, created the magnificent Fiori di Como piece with over 2,000 hand-blown glass flowers.

4. Downtown Container Park The latest and greatest project occurring in Las Vegas is the revitalization of the Downtown area. And, the center of it all, Downtown Container Park. A public space created with the vision of community colliding and collaborating, the park is made up entirely of old shipping containers. Inside those containers is a unique business ran by locals. The center of the park contains the Tree House, a gigantic play space for kids of all ages. Slightly beyond that is the common grassy area where life-sized legos, building blocks and huge bouncy balls inspire creativity. Parents can lounge on the couches or bring a blanket and enjoy the sounds of local musicians who play daily on the main stage.

5. Take a Ride on the Aria Express For some reason, this is one of my children’s favorite things to do. Could be the neon lights, or the scenic views of City Center below. Either way, it keeps them occupied for about 15 minutes. Grab the tram at any stop inside the Monte Carlo, Bellagio or at City Center. It is also a great way to get around without having to fight the crowds on the ground.

6. Visit the World’s Largest Chocolate Fountain Located at the Bellagio between the tram stop and the Bellagio Conservatory is the French bakery, Jean-Philippe. In no way is that free, but it is free to window shop. The inside walls of the bakery are lined with impressively decorated cakes, many of recognizable character themes your kids will love to see. Look above the center work station to view the latest creation representing the season, all made of chocolate, and all made by hand. Over to the right is the World’s Largest Chocolate Fountain a la Willy Wonka, churning and mixing over 2100 lbs of milk, white and dark chocolate all day long.

Instagram Travel Thursday :: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

28 Wednesday May 2014

Posted by Stefanie Van Aken (RSMLVTravel) in Featured, Fun, International, Travel Inspiration

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Family Travel, Instagram Travel Thursday, international travel

Follow me on Instagram @RockStarMomLV

Vancouver, British Columbia is a metropolitan city only 2 hours and 43 minutes by plane from Las Vegas, right across the friendly US/Canada border. My husband and I took our two older children to experience Vancouver and Whistler for the first time. It was my daughter’s first experience traveling outside the US border, and I highly recommend a simple across the border trip as a first time going international with children. There are direct flights from Las Vegas to Vancouver, which also made the experience that much easier for us. We chose to fly WestJet, which has a daily direct departing at 1:45pm and arriving in Vancouver at 4:25. WestJet is one of our preferred airlines when flying into Canada. Friendly staff, televisions with satellite, and food carts offering a selection of actually healthy and tasty treats. I, personally, had the hummus and pita chips both ways, but I’ve heard the chicken soup is pretty yummy when available. Customs was easy peasy and as soon as we had our passports stamped, we were on our way into this metropolis of the north west.

We stayed at the fabulous Fairmont Pacific Rim. Beautifully designed to appeal to the modern eye, yet with a hint of comfortable sophistication, the silvery colors set in a natural ambiance creates an air of approachable luxury. Location is perfect- situated downtown, across from Canada Place, around the corner from Stanley Park, and within walking distance of trendy Robson and Burrard Streets. Food, amazing. And, very family friendly. Next to the Four Seasons hotel group, this is now one of our favorite hotel groups to vacation with.

There are plenty of sites to see in Vancouver. We started our first day with a trip to the Vancouver Aquarium and a drive through Stanley Park. Having been to several aquariums throughout the US, I was confident I would not be overly impressed with this one. And, I am eating my words. I was. So were my kids. They loved it. Educational on every level- visually and through docents and detailed signage- we all walked away feeling we learned a little more, not only about marine life, but how to be apart of an efficient and effective eco-system. At my kids’ school, they have a biosphere, which teaches them the importance of the rain forests and how to help preserve their nature and the support the elements it creates. At the Vancouver Aquarium there is a whole section dedicated to the animals of the rainforest and educational information. Much of which my kids were familiar with or already knew (my son is a docent at his school’s biosphere). I also loved how “hands-on” the Vancouver Aquarium is with moving exhibits and opportunities to touch and feel.

Later, a drive through Stanley Park brought us to the famous Hollow Tree where, in 1888, it was a popular tourist attraction- often known as the first tourist attraction in Vancouver. People would stand inside the now, over 700 year old Western Red Cedar to have their photo taken. Though you can stand in front of it, there is an act to preserve the tree, and is guarded from actually standing inside. We passed familiar spots like the children’s farm, and petting zoo and parts of the sea wall. We even stopped for lunch at Prospect Point Cafe with locally brewed beers, salads, soups, and a kid’s menu to boot. We sat overlooking the Lion’s Gate Bridge and NorthShore Mountains, offering us a most spectacular view at lunch time.

One attraction we were the most excited to see was the Torch from the Winter Olympics 2012. Lucky for us, the Torch is located right across the street from the Fairmont Pacific Rim in Canada Place. After having just watched the olympics together this winter in Sochi, it was really neat to show the kids an Olympic Torch in real life. Not to mention, Canada Place overlooks Coal Harbour where, given it is the right season, is a great place to spot whales and other marine life.

Shopping and great meals is also a serious must have for us on our trips. We enjoyed some pretty spectacular restaurants like Coast on Alberni Street. The freshest oysters I’ve ever had, and a lobster poutine dish that I am still craving today. The restaurants at the hotel were pretty spectacular as well. We enjoyed giovanne cafe + wine bar immensely, especially for their hand crafted espresso drinks. And, right next door is Bella Gelateria, winner of the 2014 North American Gelato World Championship. Ah-mazing! My kids opted for a single scoop on a cone. But me? I’ll take the dark hot chocolate with a scoop of nutella flavored gelato, please.

There is still so much more to do and see that the 48-hours we had there was just not enough. We headed up to Whistler to get in some snowboarding, skiing and tubing for a few days, which was another fantastic time in itself. Definitely cannot wait to get up there again with the kids to explore the city some more.

Instagram Travel Thursday :: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada is linking up with the Instagram Travel Thursday community today. Visit other interesting and desirable places through the eyes of fabulous travel story tellers on Instagram using #IGTravelThursday. This series is sponsored by Skimbaco Lifestyle. Follow me on Instagram @RockStarMomLV.

An InLinkz Link-up

Bing in the Classroom

27 Tuesday May 2014

Posted by Stefanie Van Aken (RSMLVTravel) in Archive It

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family, Tech

Today’s post is sponsored by Bing in the Classroom. I have been compensated to share this information with RockStarMomLV.com readers.

There is a super easy new way to help support your local schools by earning rewards for tablets. Do you know about this? Well, consider yourself now educated.

As parents, we all know the importance of technology in the classroom. It is amazing at how quickly this once trend has become a necessary staple in our children’s education. Their future is based on their knowledge of computers and technology. Like most in my generation, email was very new and very cool in 1993. When I travelled abroad, it was the quickest, cheapest and best way to stay in communication with my friends and family back in the U.S. Problem then? Not everyone had an email address, so snail mail was still very much apart of my communication. When I came home from France that winter, the internet was beginning to take hold as the quickest way to gather info, if you could hold out long enough for your dial-up to connect. I was the only person in my house full of roommates with a laptop computer. And, it was in color! That was pretty amazing as well. Otherwise, it was hours spent in the computer lab trying to get papers typed, hours in the library digging for the one book I needed out of thousands. All of that occurring by 1997.

Now? Now kids are learning how to code and manipulate the internet at 5 years old. Some might be learning even earlier. My 10 year old asks for his own Facebook page on the daily, and both he and my 8 year old daughter are constantly searching YouTube and the web for their favorite characters, stories, movies and toys. If your kids are like mine, when they are perusing the web for things like minecraft, secrets to the Disney Infinity games or American Girl Dolls, if something interesting or remotely related pops-up, they click on it without a thought. Not even considering the fact they may be inviting a virus, malware, crawlers or something else even more inappropriate into their personal space on their computer. I have already had a computer expert come out and fix these little mishaps at least three times since they received computers for Christmas a year ago. At home it is one thing to be able to monitor your child’s searches. At school it is a whole other ballgame. Imagine knowing during their computer time at school there is a search engine that keeps them from feeling curious about the pop-ups or other links they would be exposed to on one of their searches? Bing in the Classroom does that. Show support for #adfreesearch!

What is Bing in the Classroom? Launched by Microsoft, Bing in the Classroom is an ad-free tailored version of the Bing.com search engine to be used in the classroom. It is now available for all eligible K-12 grade schools in the United States. The Bing in the Classroom program also provides daily lesson plans to teachers on the home page.

We created Bing in the Classroom because we believe students deserve a search environment tailored for learning. Classrooms should be ad-free, and that should be as true online as it is offline.

Matt Wallaert, creator of Bing in the Classroom

What else makes the Bing in the Classroom program so cool? By utilizing Bing.com, yourself, on your own computer, you can earn Bing Rewards which helps earn your child’s school earn Microsoft Surface tablets. It is super easy to do, just follow these easy steps:

1. Create a Microsoft account, if you don’t already have one. You can also sign up through your Facebook page.

2. Visit your Bing Rewards everyday, and click on the different options to earn points. For example: Inviting Friends to Try Bing.com, Browsing the Web, or Making Bing.com your homepage.

3. Redeem + Donate your rewards to your school of choice to support their efforts of earning Microsoft Surface Tablets. Here’s how:

Make your donation go further by encouraging fellow parents and family members to donate their own Bing Rewards credits to get additional Surface devices for your school. When your school has 30,000 credits, we’ll ship a Surface bundle to your school within 2 months. If about 60 parents participate in Bing Rewards for a month, they can earn enough credits for a Surface. About 125 parents participating for a year can earn enough credits for Surface devices for an entire classroom. See your school’s page and credit balance.

Earn a Surface tablet for your school with Bing Rewards!

According to procon.org in regards to the topic Tablets vs. Textbooks, the pros seem to be more substantial than the cons when it comes to having tablets vs textbooks in the schools. Here a few examples of how:

Tablets help students learn more material faster. Technology-based instruction can reduce the time students take to reach a learning objective by 30-80%, according to the US Department of Education and studies by the National Training and Simulation Association. [6]
Tablets can hold hundreds of textbooks on one device, plus homework, quizzes, and other files, eliminating the need for physical storage of books and classroom materials. The average tablet contains anywhere from 8 to 64 gigabytes (GB) of storage space. On the Amazon Kindle Fire, for instance, 1,000 books take up one GB of space. [8]
E-textbooks on tablets cost on average 50-60% less than print textbooks. According to a 2012 report from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), K-12 school districts spend more than $8 billion per year on textbooks. [6] E-textbooks can save schools between $250-$1,000 per student per year. [9] Tablet prices also continue to drop, making them increasingly affordable. Tablets cost on average $489 in 2011, $386 in 2012, and are projected to cost $263 in 2015. [10][11]
On a tablet, e-textbooks can be updated instantly to get new editions or information. Schools will not have to constantly purchase new hardware, software, or new physical copies of textbooks. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said that “too many students are using books that are 7-10 years old with outdated material.” Tablets are especially beneficial for subjects that constantly change, such as biology or computer science. [6]

Considering how simple it is, why not start earning Bing Rewards today, and participate in a unique opportunity to work as a community to support your local schools in achieving the goals of a technologically advanced education system.

This post was created in partnership with Bing. Thank you for sponsoring today’s post. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Stefanie Van Aken

~ RSMLVTravel- Luxury Travel Design

Category Archives: Archive It

RockStarMom Recommends :: Free Family Friendly Attractions in Las Vegas

Instagram Travel Thursday :: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Bing in the Classroom