My Road Less Traveled By

The Bay Beach Wildlife Sanctuary is located in Green Bay, Wisconsin.  It is a 700 acre urban wildlife refuge.  The Sanctuary is open to the public year round and is a great place to take your kids.  Not only is it free, it is a ton of fun too!  It was started in 1935 as a waterfowl rehabilitation site.  It continues to receive over 3,000 injured, orphaned, and sick animals each year.  Their goal is to return as many animals back into the wild as possible.

There is a three story building there called Nature Education Center.  There are hands on animal pods, discovery rooms, and even an estuary room.  As you can see from a few of the pictures below, my kids truly enjoyed it!

The adults even got involved:

The Observation/Rehabilitation building has a conservation wing, live prey and waterfowl exhibits, animal nursery viewing, wildlife rehabilitation area, and shelled corn for sale to feed the waterfowl.  My kids love feeding the waterfowl.  At 50 cents a bag, you can’t go wrong!

If you are in the Green Bay Wisconsin area, this is a great place to take your children.  Besides the cost of the corn to feed the waterfowl, it is free.  There are 6.5 miles of trails you can hike besides the two buildings to check out.  You can picnic there too.  It is a great place to check out!

The Bay Beach Wildlife Sanctuary is located in Green Bay, Wisconsin.  It is a 700 acre urban wildlife refuge.  The Sanctuary is open to the public year round and is a great place to take your kids.  Not only is it free, it is a ton of fun too!  It was started in 1935 as a waterfowl rehabilitation site.  It continues to receive over 3,000 injured, orphaned, and sick animals each year.  Their goal is to return as many animals back into the wild as possible.

There is a three story building there called Nature Education Center.  There are hands on animal pods, discovery rooms, and even an estuary room.  As you can see from a few of the pictures below, my kids truly enjoyed it!

The adults even got involved:

The Observation/Rehabilitation building has a conservation wing, live prey and waterfowl exhibits, animal nursery viewing, wildlife rehabilitation area, and shelled corn for sale to feed the waterfowl.  My kids love feeding the waterfowl.  At 50 cents a bag, you can’t go wrong!

If you are in the Green Bay Wisconsin area, this is a great place to take your children.  Besides the cost of the corn to feed the waterfowl, it is free.  There are 6.5 miles of trails you can hike besides the two buildings to check out.  You can picnic there too.  It is a great place to check out!

Jason’s Deli is available nationwide.  However, this review is being done on the Jason’s Deli in Oak Lawn, IL. (This review is also being posted over at Lisa Cooking.)

I went with my two kids on a Thursday night about 6 pm by myself.  (Needless to say, my hands were full).  I found that staff there the most helpful.  When you walk into the door, there is someone there to greet you and let you know how this all works (since this was my first visit, I was pretty clueless).  She got me a highchair for Will (my one year old), so I didn’t have to hold him while we were standing there trying to figure out what we wanted.  The high chair had wheels, so I was able to roll him around quite easily and get him where we needed to go.  I was able to take a menu, sit down with the kids, decide what we wanted, and get back into line, so we could order (which is what I did).   Ordering was painless.  After you order, they give you a number and your drinks, so you can go sit down.  They then bring your food to you when it is done.  The restaurant is a very open concept.  You can see where they make the food.  Another thing that impressed me was that the apples and apple juice that I ordered with the kids meals were organic.  Also, everything that they serve is free of artificial trans fats and MSG!  I personally found the prices quite reasonable.  Granted, it would have been cheaper to take the kids to McDonalds, but we would have been hungry an hour later (and this was not all that more expensive either!  Maybe a couple of dollars is it!)  They have an excellent kids menu too!  If you can’t find something for your little one off their kids menu, they are too picky.  They even have a dessert menu!  Madison (my 4 year old) wanted an ice cream cone, but since she didn’t finish her food, she didn’t get one, so I can’t comment on how good their ice cream is.  Our food came quickly and it was good.  The sandwiches were much bigger than I expected!  There was always somebody walking around cleaning off tables or checking on how you were doing, so you could definitely get help when needed (for example, 2 napkins just doesn’t cut it when you have 3 people and 2 of the 3 are under 5!).  I easily was able to get more napkins for us.

The food was great (and healthy!).  The service was great!  Jason’s Deli also has a blog which makes them stand out even more for me!  If you are looking for a great alternative for fast food, you definitely need to check out Jason’s Deli.  It is a five star place in my book!

Jason’s Deli is available nationwide.  However, this review is being done on the Jason’s Deli in Oak Lawn, IL. (This review is also being posted over at Lisa Cooking.)

I went with my two kids on a Thursday night about 6 pm by myself.  (Needless to say, my hands were full).  I found that staff there the most helpful.  When you walk into the door, there is someone there to greet you and let you know how this all works (since this was my first visit, I was pretty clueless).  She got me a highchair for Will (my one year old), so I didn’t have to hold him while we were standing there trying to figure out what we wanted.  The high chair had wheels, so I was able to roll him around quite easily and get him where we needed to go.  I was able to take a menu, sit down with the kids, decide what we wanted, and get back into line, so we could order (which is what I did).   Ordering was painless.  After you order, they give you a number and your drinks, so you can go sit down.  They then bring your food to you when it is done.  The restaurant is a very open concept.  You can see where they make the food.  Another thing that impressed me was that the apples and apple juice that I ordered with the kids meals were organic.  Also, everything that they serve is free of artificial trans fats and MSG!  I personally found the prices quite reasonable.  Granted, it would have been cheaper to take the kids to McDonalds, but we would have been hungry an hour later (and this was not all that more expensive either!  Maybe a couple of dollars is it!)  They have an excellent kids menu too!  If you can’t find something for your little one off their kids menu, they are too picky.  They even have a dessert menu!  Madison (my 4 year old) wanted an ice cream cone, but since she didn’t finish her food, she didn’t get one, so I can’t comment on how good their ice cream is.  Our food came quickly and it was good.  The sandwiches were much bigger than I expected!  There was always somebody walking around cleaning off tables or checking on how you were doing, so you could definitely get help when needed (for example, 2 napkins just doesn’t cut it when you have 3 people and 2 of the 3 are under 5!).  I easily was able to get more napkins for us.

The food was great (and healthy!).  The service was great!  Jason’s Deli also has a blog which makes them stand out even more for me!  If you are looking for a great alternative for fast food, you definitely need to check out Jason’s Deli.  It is a five star place in my book!