I love bringing my kids outdoors for a much needed nature therapy on weekends. I do bring them to playgrounds and parks on weekday evenings whenever I still have time and energy left after work but I feel that it is never enough. In this modern day, kids need to do more activities outdoors specially on weekends as they are either stuck in school or at home during school days.
There are many benefits of spending time outdoors and doing physical activities like scooting, cycling or just running around. As my fellow nature lover friend put it, through weekend wanderings in nature you get not only nature inspiration and therapy, but also exercise, rejuvenating body and mind. One of my favourite nature quotes is by John Muir:
"Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul."
For my family, spending time outdoors is like hitting three birds in one stone. We get physical exercise, quality bonding time and nature therapy. I enjoy planning our family outings in advance. I even have a list of 5 things we need to create a fun and memorable time outdoors. Your list may differ from mine so please read on:
1) Glass-fired Oven
Since we don't have a family car, I find it really challenging to book a barbecue pit at the beach park and bring all the stuff we need for grilling. My solution? Grill at home and pack it! This
"baby" was my best kitchen purchase to date. So easy to use and it grills vegetables and meat nicely, just the way we like it. All I need is a heat insulated food container and we are good to go for a picnic with pre-grilled food.
2) Picnic mat
A foldable, water and mold resistant picnic mat is a must for every family outing. It is easy to pack and clean and it saves you all the time and trouble from finding a picnic table in the park. Needless to say it feels more like a picnic when you sit on the ground.
3) Scooter
My kids, specially G loves to scoot! Although
electric scooters like the one pictured above sound and look enticing, I still prefer the manual ones because the kids get to scoot and exercise at the same time. Getting free exercise through physical activities on a family outing is a must for us.
4) Foldable bike
Another best purchase I had to date was K's red
foldable bike. I love how convenient it is to transport from one place to another, we can even take the train with it. It also fits perfectly inside the car boot whenever we take a cab to the beach park or botanic gardens for a picnic. K and my husband, M love to cycle. G have yet to learn how to cycle so he prefers to scoot. Myself? I tell you a big secret. *Whispers*
I have yet to learn how to cycle too. Please don't laugh at me okay?
5) Polaroid camera
Confession: I am very lazy to print out our family photos from my DSLR camera and iPhone. I know, I know! Go ahead and lecture me! Haha! As I make a mental note to go to the printing shop soon, I think the real solution to my laziness is a
polaroid camera that comes with an
instax printer. It will save me the trouble to save photos and go to a photo printing shop! Best of all, we can see and adore our precious family photos right away!
There goes my list. How about you, what are your family outing essentials?
Disclaimer: I received a voucher courtesy of Lazada Singapore for the purpose of this review. All opinion stated in this post are my own.
RELATED POSTS:
I love having picnics out with the family. It's more memorable if everyone is present.
ReplyDeleteThe foldable bike interest me, that will save some space in my car if we go camping with my kids.
ReplyDeleteI love family gathering it is so much fun. Not necessarily an extravagant getaway, just enough food fun entertainment and the rest will follow.
ReplyDeleteOne best thing is the camera that would help us keep captured those memories we are making.
ReplyDeleteOnce in a blue moon lang kami mag-picnic ng family. Yes, good to have those items. Though the scoot is not for my family.
ReplyDeleteoh love that portable grill, looks so good, hope you'll have many good memories with that with the fambam Che. I love picnic, because it means I would be out in the ocean all day, haha! but most of the times, I am lazy too and do not want to bring back left-over foods that I would just pack snacks and opt to eat out :(
ReplyDeleteNever forget the camera lol. What is there to tell if there's no pic, weee.
ReplyDeleteI love having picnics out with the family,One of the best things about it is that the camera can help us to capture the good memories.
ReplyDelete