We have been watching this for years, and it's still a favorite now that my kids are a tween and teen.

I love this advent calendar because you can buy it once, use it as your kids grow up, and not have to try to reinvent the wheel every single year.

We did the LEGO advent calendar for a couple years, and the kids loved them. There are usually a couple to choose from at Costco.

These little trains are great, and I think they could be reused in another refillable advent calendar for at least a couple years with younger kids.

We stayed at Mandalay Bay a couple years ago and the pool was the highlight of the resort for us. It was pretty crowded when we were there, but we still had a great time in the lazy river. With young kids, probably best to get an early start and hit the pool before the partiers come out.

My high schooler picked this out when he felt like he had outgrown the stainless steel lunch containers that he had used for years. It's awesome for packing salads, because there's a separate tray where you can keep ingredients or sides that you don't want in the main compartment, plus a container for dressing. We're able to fit a fork in the upper tray, too, so it doesn't get the inside of the lunchbox gross after it's been used. This container also works equally well for packing other lunches like sandwiches with sides, so he's able to use it pretty much exclusively.

This is a perfect Halloween movie pick for tweens and teens, once they're ready to move up from the ones they grew up watching!

This is a perfect not-too-scary movie for younger kids, but holds up really well with older ones too!

I went here with my kids on a visit to Charlotte and everyone had a great time.

We love Crack Shack's Encinitas location, and usually choose it if we're in the area and want to stop and eat. The food and the ambiance are great, and it's nice to be able to order a family meal and feed everyone.

This is a fun local spot. We usually choose it when we want to meet up with other families, because most of the seating is picnic-style tables and it's easy to find space for a group.

My family loved Slappy Cakes! It was our first experience at a breakfast spot with a griddle right on the table for cooking your own pancakes. So much fun, and there were a lot of unique ingredients and toppings to choose from.

We had the best time on this tour when we visited Maui for a multi-generation trip. It was so cool to taste the pineapples in the fields, and our tour guide was awesome. Pretty much ruined for other pineapple now!

We carved this Oogie Boogie pumpkin and it was awesome! The mouth was the most challenging part, but it's designed in a way that you don't have to get it perfect for it to look great.

We tried this one and it turned out great! Nothing was too difficult to carve.

We love these! Don't worry about getting the ingredients perfect. Customize with whatever you have. I like to add these to the meal plan during a week where I know I'll have leftover chicken and/or rice in the fridge.

My family loved this. One pot meals can tend to be pretty carb heavy, so this is a nice change.

We visited Joshua Tree when we were staying in Palm Springs, and I found this to be a very fun and doable National Park with our older elementary and middle school-aged kids. The surroundings and the Joshua Trees were so cool, and we had fun posing like the different tree shapes for pictures.

This was a fun side trip from Vegas for our group of kids and adults, and everyone enjoyed the tour. Plus, the kids all got away with endless "dam" puns for the rest of the day.

Definitely worth stopping in to see this when you're in Vegas with kids! The displays are pretty amazing.