Girl Talk At The Four Seasons Silicon Valley

I’ve been doing hotel sleepover getaways since I was pregnant with my second child. It started at The Four Seasons in Westlake Village who has a “Let It Snow” package they do in December that includes a night in after their annual winter event that includes s’mores, ice skating, and a visit to see Santa.

Usually our sleepovers are all about a day of swimming, ordering dessert for room service, and falling asleep coloring in bed. This is the first time we traveled alone together so it was fun to pick a place I’ve never been and see a place for the first time though her eyes.

I’ve been in Los Angeles ten years now, but whenever my husband and I think about going to San Fran, it’s usually cold and after moving from the east coast.....that usually makes it a hard pass. Usually we go to San Diego after her birthday for “Kids Free October,” but this was the perfect time of year to head up here and explore by foot. We took the day slow with time to stop for good food (no we didn’t try the ice cream with chocolate covered crickets in my stories!) and playground breaks.

I remember when my husband and I did our first weekend away as parents at Bacara in Santa Barbara, I met a couple with two kids in high school. At this point, Alaia was just a few months old and I was getting ready to “retire in the room for the night” before fussy time hit while they were getting ready to start their night and go grab a table downstairs for dinner. It felt like I was a world away before I could see the world at nighttime again, but in our brief meeting, I loved seeing how close their kids seemed to their mom even though they were teenagers. I remember the dad saying their one tip was to take the kids off on their own sometimes to make time together alone with each parent. I never would have thought of that before (probably because of the massive mom guilt I feel when I do things with one child and not the other).

He said the special bonding that happens (when there’s no competition from the other sibling) created great memories for both of us. And after some of our time together away as she’s gotten older, I am glad I listened to that bit of advice. Even just the small ice cream dates or movie nights with her or her brother seem to strengthen our bonds. While we were cuddling in bed yesterday, Alaia said “I miss my brother today, but think I know why you wanted to go on a trip with just me. I’m important to you, aren’t I?”

Talk about melting my heart.

Moving forward I think what I want to do is make a travel scrap book for the two of them. I still have one of mine from high school. I’ll take something from the day like a ticket stub to tape to the page and at the end of the night, write out three things that stood out from that day that we did together. As a child, traveling with my family is some of my best memories growing up and probably part of the reason that the first thing I did when I graduated and moved to NY was start looking to see where I could book a tip overseas to. As a parent, I’m hoping these trips will not only make great memories for us, but make my kids feel special as individuals and let them know the world is a place full of adventure and experiences waiting to happen.

Summer Road tripping with the littles

This wasn't the first and won't be the last time I take the kids out of town solo. It's never easy, but it's always worth it. A lot of times we just call it sleepovers because it centers around me picking a nice hotel where we swim, make s’mores, and stay up late playing games with room service. Our trips haven't been particularly adventurous until this past year now that they are getting bigger. They've mostly been a way for us to really bond. I'm not on a crazy schedule so we take our time, we color, someone else cleans up after us and brings dinner to the room, and I just really use that time to give them my total undivided attention. It's usually around when my husband is already out of town so it ends up being easier for us both to be in a new environment.

Our trip to South Lake Tahoe was super spontaneous. I talked myself out of driving out of town with the kids on my own at least 3x in 24 hours because I do spend the night out of town with just us, but more like pick an easy resort and two hours or so away and go swimming. At most, we maybe leave the place once or twice and just hang out on the property. It’s also never been a destination that felt so “very middle of nowhere” on my own.

I would have loved to rent a kayak or boat because the water is so beautiful and crystal clear, but I stuck to activities this round that I thought I could manage on my own easily. We stuck to hiking and exploring the lake. I picked out hiking trails and beaches that were pretty popular so there was pretty much always a lot of people around even if the areas we were at looked desolate in photographs. I didn't geotag where we were while I was gone because as much as I love chatting online, there are still too many people out there that could use that information to target a woman who is traveling on her own. Actually, I exercise that same bit of caution online as I never mention my kid's school or camps or post a photo with them wearing any school tees.

I thought I was going to chat more about what we did while we were gone (Mostly Eagle Falls, Sand Harbor Beach, and exploring the city to eat), but I got so many DMs and questions from friends about traveling on my own with the kids that I decided to make this post about that.

Here are a few of my tips if you are going to attempt a few nights away like this yourself before the summer is out:

Be Alert: I'm an optimistic person, but my father has instilled street smarts into me from day one. I'm never going to be the person who just leaves their purse on a chair during a birthday party, and when traveling, I'm always going to remain on high alert especially if I'm traveling solo without my husband because there are crazy people out there who target women and women who may be alone with children. I make it very clear to my children that not all people are good people and I'm here to protect them, but I need their help sticking close to me and listening so I can keep us all safe.

Let Someone Know Where You Are: We planned really last minute, but my husband had our hotel information and we just got our daughter a Gizmo which also acts as a location tracker so we had that with us and activated so he could stay on top of where we were in case we had any issues.

Hotels/Resorts > Airbnb: So everyone may not agree with me here, but I felt 110% more secure staying in a hotel with multiple other guests, kid-friendly, with and someone we could check in with more than I did trying to be in contact with a homeowner and then being off in the woods somewhere on our own. For all that we may as well went camping somewhere on our own. . . . which wasn't something I felt comfortable doing on my own.

Talk Through What Happens If You Get Separated: I just got my daughter a Gizmo which is like an Apple Watch for kids that you can program up to 10 numbers of people they can contact by calling or texting. I felt much more at ease knowing she could call me if we got separated (when we weren't in areas with no cell service while hiking!). For both children, I've always told them to look for a mommy and yell out my full name instead of "mommy" if they ever got lost. In a mommy and me class, they explained that teaching this to young children can help so you can identify them in a crowd where there may be a ton of other kids saying mommy and to specifically tell them to look for a woman for help because women will most likely commit to helping a young child while a man may be hesitant of looking like he was trying to run off with them. My kids are of an age that they can remember my phone number, but there are companies who make tattoos of your name and number you can put on a child's wrist for the day that I've ordered for things like days at Disneyland when they were too young for basic conversation.

Are you heading anywhere with the littles this summer? DM me @jasminepennamma and let me know. I’d love to hear!