Sleeper Hit: Temecula Valley History Museum

Today's sleeper entertainment hit is the Temecula Valley History Museum in Old Town Temecula. Tucked away on Mercedes Street, next to the Fire Department, it's easy to miss--and I have missed it, despite the fact that I am in Old Town every Saturday for the Temecula Farmers Market.

Yet the Museum is a surprisingly vibrant force in Temecula's cultural life, offering tours of historic Old Town, workshops, gallery-style installations, and--most importantly for the purposes of this family-centric discussion--a Summer Explorers Camp for kids. (For a list of activities, see pages 26-27 of the activities brochure.)

The Summer Explorers Camp runs every Summer for four consecutive weeks. Each week (you can attend any one or all of them) features a different theme. This year's themes were Natural History, Native American History, New World Influences, and Exploring Pioneer Life.

My older daughter (the one complaint I have about the camps is that the age range only accommodates 8-10 year olds) attended sessions three and four this summer. Each day she got to participate in a different activity--weaving, dyeing yarn with onion skins, making adobe bricks, spinning on a drop-spindle, panning for fool's gold--and one day each week was a field trip.

The first field trip was to Mission San Luis Rey in Oceanside. The TVHM docents were organized, efficient, and inspired confidence--impossible to overestimate the importance of these traits in parents' minds. One caveat: if your child is unaccustomed to old-school Catholic iconography, well, they will be afterwards.

"Mom!" My distraught 8-year-old informed me, "They had a big statue of Jesus and he was bleeding and had a crown of thorns on his head! And we had to walk through this cemetery where they had buried all these dead people!"

Thank goodness she didn't ask why Our Lady of Sorrow is so sorrowful. Next up: Vail Ranch and a walking tour of Old Town, Temecula. Let's hope they score a little lower on the creep-out scale.

Nightmares and sleeplessness aside, my favorite thing about the camp is that it is so wholesome. The activities are wholesome, the museum itself it wholesome, the field trips are mostly wholesome. There is no franchise here, no weird sporty-type inter-parental politics, no subtextual merchandising. There are no expensive dance costumes to be purchased, no junk-food-filled outings. It's just a bunch of good kids being adeptly managed by folks who genuinely care about passing on knowledge about the area's considerable history.

The camps run from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. every day and--given the load of hands-on activities and the overall quality-per-dollar ratio--are a screaming deal at $45 per week.

Even if you've missed the camps, you should still check out the Temecula Valley History Museum. There are some genuinely fascinating displays documenting the various historical influences on Temecula.

Old World artifacts:

Original maps:















Replicas of Old Town:
















Reminders of a more recently bygone era:




















But the number one reason why you must not miss the Temecula Valley History Museum if you have children?

Stay tuned. That will have to wait until tomorrow.

Paradise Found

This unplanned blog has come to be due to my current obsession with looking at real-estate combined with my decidedly blockheaded opinion of maps- that opinion being that I don't need one. Fortunately for my children, this accidental adventure turned out to be a good one- one that we will go on again, for sure. You see, usually in the world of suburban living one must make choices. You can choose to live in a convenient location or you can choose to live in a beautiful location. You can have a huge-gantical lot OR you can be right around the corner from Ann Taylor Loft. You can't have both....or can you? In addition to my all my other flaws, I am definitely interested in having my cake and also eating it. I mean, who doesn't like cake? So for all you cake lovers out there, I present Via Norte, Temecula, CA a windy, hilly street with gorgeous views:
And beautiful homes with enormous yards you can really do something in. And by "something" I mean, like, ride horses. And by "enormous" I mean minimum half an acre....for the po' folk of that neighborhood:



On this street (and and any of its little, tiny side streets/driveways) you will find all sorts of houses: traditional, spanish style, adobe, ranch, colonial, a house that looks like it moved here from Plano, TX, a glorified lean-to....the list goes on and on. What you will not find is congestion or zero lot lines. And most importantly for this modified city girl, you can be at Trader Joe's in 8 minutes flat. BOOYAH!

The Slide Looks Like This

I have nothing to add to Erica's fab post (below) about the City of Temecula Aquatics program, but I do want to toss out this photo of the ginormous slide in all its glory. Just another reason that you'll heart Temecula, too!

So Many Parks, So Little Time

No town can claim to be truly family friendly without an excellent selection of grafitti-free, well-manicured, properly maintained public parks. Temecula can most certainly make the claim, then- with over 30 fabulous public parks spanning hundreds (yes, plural) of acres, there's always a place for your brood to blow off some steam. In fact, I keep a picnic blanket, jump roaps and hula-hoops in my van at all times just in case they start acting like fools while we're out running errands. There's always a park just around the corner, waiting to show them a good time. Just click on the title of this post to be taken to a list and a map. Happy park hopping!

Pauba Ridge Park, 33405 Pauba Rd.

I like this park's layout- only one small entrance in and out, and a large fenced area to play. This means you don't have to stare at them the whole time to know they're safe. Plus, the view is gorgeous , the breeze is fab, the path is a perfect place to ride bikes, and the hill is great for rolling down. Located just east of Butterfield Stage Rd.

Temecula Duck Pond, 28250 Rancho California Rd.

I know, you'd never know what this is by looking at the name, but believe it or not, it's a pond....full of ducks ;-). It seems that kids never tire of feeding animals (at least the ones that aren't their pets)....my oldest is 7 and still enjoys tossing stale cheerios to the not-underfed ducks who are lucky enough to live here. Even though it's located at the intersection of two very busy streets, one can still manage to find a little peaceful-haven experience here. And did I mention that kids love to feed the ducks? Well, they do.

Ronald Reagan Sports Park, 42659 Margarita Rd.

This place is enormous. Boasting two sets of play equipment (the one for smaller kids is, mercifully, shaded from the sun), barbecues, picninc shelters, baseball diamonds, soccer fields, an amphitheater, well kept (relatively) public restrooms, a path that's perfect for stroller strolling and dog walking, a creek with fun wooden bridges for kids to cross....well, it's about as big as a 'small neighborhood park' can be. This is also the site of a bunch of community events, kids sports, and pick-up games of you-name-it. Convenient and beautiful.

My question to you: What's your favorite park in Temecula?

Aglow in the Park (or The Sun Doesn't Set Until, like, 8:30)

Like I said earlier, you would be hard pressed to find enough free time in your life to take advantage of all the summertime fun the City of Temecula offers. But how do you know what's worth your time, and what's just gonna make your kids crabby? Well, wait for me to do it first, of course! The other Friday evening, we decided to load everyone up and troop (it's actually just around the corner) to the Ronald Reagan Sports park for the 2nd annual Aglow in the Park, during which they (who? I don't really know...) light up several hot air baloons and the kids run around and say "ooooooh! look! mom! can I go in one? oooooh!". That part was super awesome.



In addition, they had a live band playing beforehand- a Beach Boys cover band that was super good and oh-so fun. Because, like, apparently the sun doesn't set until 8:30 pm, something I had not thought of, but which turned out okay. This part of the event was also really fun for the kids. They loved running in the grass with the music playing, doing cartwheels, getting ketchup all over themselves, insisting that they absolutely did not need to go potty, and engaging in general merriment. Oh, and don't forget the scavenger hunt and the dance-off! Had I known this part was going to be so fun, I would have gotten there earlier.



On to the Next-Year-We're-Gonna-Skip-its:

• The movie they show in tandem with the glowing balloons. The screen is not big enough, the sound is all distorted, and did I mention that the sun doesn't go down until, like, 8:30? That's late in my world. And who really wants to watch "Surf's Up" anyway? I mean....for realz, people.
• Buying the "cheap" food at the event so I don't have to make dinner. If by 'cheap' you mean in quality, then yes. If you mean price, then not so much. We ended up spending $34 (I know! WTF?!?!?) on hot dogs and coke. Next year, we'll pick up a pizza on the way there like half the other experienced folk did.

In conclusion: Get there early, bring your own food, dance and play, then high-tail it out of there the second they start cranking up that movie screen.