Your Dream Florida Family Vacation

Families just can’t get enough of Florida, the sun city. Beautiful beaches and exciting theme parks are abundant in this part of the world. Family resorts are numerous that offer a variety of packages for you family.

Some of the places you must consider for that wonderful vacation you have in mind is Amelia Island. It has lovely beaches and a historical fort with actors playing period characters. Sea foods are oh-so-heavenly in this island. Kids’ Camps can also be found in Amelia Island plantation that would have activities planned out for the whole family.

Here are some other places the family will definitely enjoy. The Blizzard Beach Waterpark, Sea World, Discovery Cove and Universal Studios are all in this wonderful state. And of course, the world-famous Walt Disney World Resorts are must-sees. Your children will surely have the time of their lives in these places.

The Space Coast and the Kennedy Space Center are must-see places especially for your future-astronaut kids. Ecological tours will also serve to be educational and fun for your kids as you visit saltwater estuaries, wildlife refuges and marshes.

Hotels and resorts can be found at strategic locations that are accessible to most of the popular travel spots in Florida. Finding a home-base while at the area will not pose a problem for your family, there’s a lot to choose from.

If you’re looking for activities for you and your young ones, Club Med along the St. Lucie River may be the right place for you. Your family will enjoy waterskiing, trapeze, golf and wakeboarding. Snorkeling is available in the Florida Keys for your children as young as eight.

For the nature lovers, Sanibel and Captiva Islands are two beautiful spots that include unpolluted beaches with shallow shorelines. Captiva Islands also boasts of a mangrove forest that is a habitat of sea turtles and even hawks. You can go fishing, boating, hiking and parasailing in this beautiful spot.

There are many more beaches and spots resorts in Florida that you may want to visit like Clearwater Beach, Radisson Sand Key, Sheraton Sand Key and the Tradewinds Island Resorts.

Busch Gardens at Tampa Bay offer thrilling roller coaster and water rides with an African twist. Swimming with manatees is one of the highlights when you visit Crystal River Wildlife Refuge.

Since your Florida family vacation will not be complete if you don’t visit Disney World, make sure that you have the following in mind:

It is essential that you pick the best time of year for your visit. Note when is the time when it is not too hot for the kids and there are not too many people so you could truly enjoy all the perks.

Base your visit according to the Extra Magic Hour when one of the theme parks open early. If you cannot make it early, just don’t go there for the day because of the rush. This, therefore, necessitates the need to be early when visiting the theme parks. Don’t forget to consider their closing time as well, as this might affect your schedule for the rest of the day.

It is good to avoid the most heated part of the day. This would be the perfect time to take a rest at your hotel and just go back early in the evening to complete your adventure.

Fastpasses will save you a lot of time to avoid standing at long lines for the most famous rides. Just use these passes for the most popular rides.

Bring snacks and lots of drinks for the entire family to save on cash. Dehydration is a common problem when walking all day and enjoying. If you have to eat in the park, go for the power buffet meals, they may come out cheaper.

Advanced reservations at restaurants may be very helpful and very easy. To get that seat, reserve ahead of time.

Disney World has a transportation system that allows you to take the rides every hour of the day and night that will bring you from one park to another.

Most importantly, dress down. Use cool and comfy clothes and shoes while doing all your visits to the exciting places of Florida State.

Nathalie Fiset
http://www.articlesbase.com/destinations-articles/your-dream-florida-family-vacation-75002.html

A Guide to Holidays in Playa Blanca, Lanzarote

On the south coast of Lanzarote is Playa Blanca, once a small fishing village and now a popular resort. Playa Blanca translates into white beach and is so named for the wonderful beaches it possess. The resort is perfect for couples and families and anyone else who is looking for a relaxing holiday in beautiful surroundings.

Playa Blanca has some of the best beaches in Lanzarote and is near to one of the best beaches in the Canary Islands. The main beach of Playa Blanca is a dream of rippling white sands. The sea deepens from a tropical turquoise to sapphire and the rays of the sun cause it to sparkle in the light. Not far from this beach lies the famous Papagayo beach which is as close to paradise as a beach can get!

Beaches are the main attraction in Playa Blanca however there are plenty of other things to do as well! Water sports are a popular choice because of the clear, warm waters and boat trips from Playa Blanca to Papagayo or nearby Fuerteventura are popular also. Lanzarote has lots of places to visit and trips can be easily arranged!

The Marina Rubicon in Playa Blanca is fast becoming one of the most popular marinas in Lanzarote because of its profusion of shops, restaurants and bars. The Playa Blanca promenade also offers lots of shops, bars and eateries with some of the best fish in the area! For night life Playa Blanca is quite low-key but still gives tourists a lively night. One of the best places to go is the Wax Bar where you can watch sports during the day or the fantastic entertainment acts at night

You will soon find that most of the hotels in Playa Blanca are more modern than the hotels found in other resorts of Lanzarote because the resort is a fairly new one. As far as hotels go, these provide both quality and good value for money. One hotel to check out is the Papagayo Arena Hotel which lies between Playa Blanco and the beaches of Papagayo – the best of both worlds!

David Crouch
http://www.articlesbase.com/destinations-articles/a-guide-to-holidays-in-playa-blanca-lanzarote-430837.html

Coping With Stress During the Season to Be Jolly

Real-life holidays may not be anything like the Hollywood “Brady Bunch” holidays. While radios and store Muzak blare Ho-ho-ho and Fa-la-la, we sometimes find ourselves feeling the contrast between what we WANT in their lives and what we HAVE. We may be grieving for people who are not with uswho may be gone because of military duty, illness, divorce or death. We may grieve for losses due to financial setbacks, depression, rifts in relationships, or relationships we want but don’t have. The contrast between what “SHOULD” be and what IS can sometimes be unbearable. When we find ourselves with this kind of stress during the holidays, it’s time to E-E-E-K our way through the holidays.

E-E-E-K stands for Experience it, Explore it, learn to Embrace it, and Kreate something with it to heal our lives. These are mind-body-spirit skills that will enable us to heal ourselves. We often try to numb the pain, not understanding that only when we feel it, can we heal it. Sometimes we try to numb ourselves because we feel overwhelmed by it all. Still other times, we numb ourselves because we don’t know what else to do. E-E-E-K-ing our way through painful holidays is a practical and effective way to transform the pain into gain.

Let me explain. For many years, I have shared an analogy with my counseling clients that has helped many to understand and cope with their emotions. Maybe it can help you, too. Emotions are much like ocean waves. Let me ask you a question: What happens when you fight an ocean wave? Yes, you get knocked off balance faster than if you had gone with the wave. The same thing happens with emotions: when we resist or fight them or try to pretend that we don’t have them, they grow stronger and they knock us on our keister! It’s the old principle of “What you resist, persists.” When we flow with the wave, it passes through us and back out to sea. When we flow with our emotions, they pass through us and out of us.

Many of us are taught to resist our emotions from the time we’re babies or toddlers: “Don’t be angry,” “Don’t be sad,” and so on. Or we’re afraid to feel our emotions because of what we might do with them. We confuse feeling them with acting on themsometimes because we have been on the receiving end of someone else acting out their (out-of-control) emotions.

When we feel-and-release our emotions, we don’t need to dump them on those around us. This is a bit like catch-and-release fishing. We first catch the fish, then we look at it to decide what to do with it. If we decide that we don’t want to keep it, we take it off the hook and let it go into the water. With our emotions, we allow ourselves to experience them, decide if we want to keep them, if not, we let them flow through us, just like an ocean wave flows through usin to shore, and then back out to sea.

Next, we Explore them. What? Spend more time and energy paying attention to what we already don’t want to have in our lives? Yes; it’s the emotions that are the most difficult to catch-and-release that need thisso we can release them.

When we realize that an emotional wave has not released, and has not moved out to sea, then it can be helpful to ask ourselves some questions: What events or circumstances are they connected to? Are these in the present or the past, or some of both? Does the size of the emotional wave match the size or significance of the event? If not, what else is this wave about? Many times, it is this process of connecting the waves to corresponding events that allows us to release them. When it does not, it often guides us to what else we need to do in order to release them.

Many times, the next thing we need to do is to Embrace what is happening, what has happened, or embrace ourselves in spite of what has happened. Look for the good that has come as a result of the difficult or painful events. This is age-old advice. But how do we do this? Nature shows us the way. For some of my childhood, my family lived in a northern Wisconsin farm house. We rented the house; someone else rented the barn and the fields. I watched as the cows were fed and milked. I watched as shovels full of stinky, brown muck came out of the barn, and were piled up in the barn yard. These piles were shoveled over and over and eventually shoveled into wagons my mother called Sunshine Wagons. Then the tractor was hooked up and took their stinky loads and spread them on the fields.

When the manure was cured by turning it over and over, exposing every particle to the sunshine and the fresh air, over time, it transformed into fertilizer. This is what we do in our own lives. We recycle the manure life has dumped in our lives by turning it over and over, exposing it to the light and fresh air. When it becomes fertilizer, we load it into Sunshine Wagons to spread it onto the fields of our hopes and dreams, fertilizing them with Nature’s Best Nourishment: pain turned into gain.

That is, we Kreate something beautiful and beneficial out of what we have, no matter what it is that we have. This heals us. There’s a Chinese proverb that says, “Tell me, and I’ll listen. Show me, and I’ll remember; Involve me, and I’ll understand”. Making something tangible can be a wonderful way to be involved in this process and therefore to understand it. It is also a great way for those of us who “learn by doing” to learn this process of transformation.

We can start by finding something that represents the difficult or painful event or circumstance. It can be a stick or a pine cone from outdoors. It can be a scrap of fabric, a piece of metal or wood. It can be any object you have around the house, or find. It could be a photo or memento.

Once we have chosen our item, we work with it, take something away from it, add other things to it, decorate it, even tear it up and reform it into something else. There is no right or wrong way to approach this. Do what occurs to us. Follow our instincts.

This is one kind of Creative Handwork. We listen with our Inner Ears; follow our Hearts; listen to and obey the directions of the Still, Small Voice. We do this as we start with one thing and ‘kreate’ something else with it. It is through this process of Creative Handwork , that we are healed deep within. And as we transform this object, the pain inside us is also transformed into gain.

Finally, we contemplate what we have made. This sets us free. We look at it with the eye of an artist. We notice its colors, shapes, and textures. We see the shades of light. We turn it this way and that; look at it from every angle. We listen to it with our hearts. We receive the silent messages that come to us. It is as we do all of this that the pain is released and we are set free.

This is how by E-E-E-King our way through the holidays, we find that we truly can have Joy, Peace, and a Happy New Year.

Sharon Barnes
http://www.articlesbase.com/stress-management-articles/coping-with-stress-during-the-season-to-be-jolly-75604.html