Have plans to get fit in January Issaquah?

Adventure Kids Playcare is here to help with your childcare needs! If you are a member of Adventure Kids Playcare, we have several partnerships around town with fitness centers that range from hot yoga to crossfit and whole health planning. If you're looking for a nutrition program designed to jump start your fitness and body composition changes, we really like the Advocare line of supplements and meal plans. Nicole can get you everything you need for the 24 day challenge.

Here are our partners and the discounts on childcare available with each. To be fair, they are in alphabetical order.

Fitness Together offers individual fitness and nutrition training and education. Childcare at AK is free during your training sessions.

Gravity Janes takes Crossfit to another level and focuses on the fit-ness of your exercise and diet routine with a variety of group trainings, private trainings and nutritional seminars. Childcare at AK is half price during training sessions.

Hot Yoga Experience features far-infrared saunas, hatha and power classes and cater to beginners and long time practicioners alike. Childcare at AK is free during classes.

Sound Body Fitness & Nutrition offers a variety of exercise classes and nutrition training. This month, they are offering a free week of classes with free childcare at AK.

Stroller Strides is holding classes at Swedish Hospital with us & we're offering their members 30% off childcare during their workouts and the hour after.

Terra Yoga offers Hot Hatha Yoga, Power Vinyasa, and Anahata Vinyasa as well as Prenatal Yoga, private sessions, workshops and Pranassage®, a combination of yoga and bodywork that produces deep relaxation in the receiver. Childcare at AK is half price during classes.

We hope this information is helpful in your pursuit of health in 2012! Links to each of these partners are provided to the left.

What is a Drop-in Childcare Center???

A lot of people come to us at Adventure Kids Playcare and really aren't sure what it is we do. Usually, their friends have told them that they have to come check us out, but they don't really understand why. Everybody knows how a daycare operates (boring!). Everybody knows how Chuck E. Cheese operates (crazy!). But if you've never had a drop in center, chances are you just don't understand how it can change the way you live your life. There are times I feel like I'm trying to explain to a desert nomad how cool and refreshing a summer time swim can be and they look at me like I'm crazy for wasting the water!

Known as AK if you are texting, Adventure Kids Playcare is a child entertainment center that is also licensed as a childcare care center. This means that parents can leave their children with a care provider whose main goal is to make sure the children have a GREAT time while having all of their basic needs met as well. We provide meals and snacks, take care of hygiene, lead arts & craft projects, lead games, read stories & provide an opportunity for kids to meet new friends nearly every day. We provide bus transportation before and after school to several Issaquah schools and make sure the kids are getting their home work done. We hold camps all the weeks that school is out and are always open if it snows.

I think our only limitations are a defined capacity, children who are obviously ill, have a condition that requires one on one attention or threatens other children, and putting the kids to bed for you (although we do try to get the to sleep later in the evening.) The owners are there most of the time & really do listen to parents if there is a concern and try to find a good solution.

The advertising conundrum

What child friendly sites do most parents trust for valuable information? I know of several as they have all contacted me for advertising 'opportunities' on their sites. Most of the now large advertising companies are mostly run by professionals who may or may not have kids of their own. The thing I can't wrap my head around is that for all of their 'authoritative knowledge' of all things kid related, their e-mails and websites are simply paid advertising. The thing is parents don't actually know that because they haven't been contacted to advertise with them and had their events & venues ignored as a result of NOT advertising. There is actually NO information on most of these sites that isn't a result of a paid transaction.

So who is a parent to really trust???

As far as I can tell, by looking at the Facebook posts from some of these sites, there is little content that isn't paid for. I can say that Adventure Kids Playcare of Issaquah has been the recipient of several unpaid posts from Macaroni Kid and Rely Local, which does make me trust their information as more authentic. Parent Map, Red Tricycle and others have yet to do anything that wasn't every expensive for us to place, so we don't do much with them. We tried to place in Red Tricycle's best of contest, but placed behind other companies we know to advertise with them even though we believe we provide a better service based on the comments of our customers.

Adventure Kids Playcare sends out an e-mail every month or so and we try to highlight some parent oriented activities. It's crossed my mind to start charging businesses for this advertising, but I decided that I really don't want to. I want to keep our newsletter as an honest review of what's going on in our area. Of course that only gets read by our existing customers, so attracting new customers this way is a very slow process, which leads us back to advertising. What else is a small business to do? Please see our ads on Macaroni Kid.

Dangerous times!

I'm constantly reminded of the hazards present in my children's lives. No, I'm not obsessing over stalkers or 'bad guys'. I'm thinking of things like the ever present hazard of being last & instantly becoming the dreaded 'rotten egg.' Or the extreme danger one poses to their mother when walking near cracks!

This weekend at Adventure Kids, children were subjected to the dangers of the age of dinosaurs! Luckily, none were injured in any of the activities! The all seemed very happy when they left! I can only assume they were so happy because they had survived the experience.

Coming up this weekend is an Issaquah AKP original theme of Pokemon Party! Kids will begin their training as a Pokemon Master by developing the tools and skills required to weather the hazards of Pokemon battles! How many Pokemon can you name? Make your reservations at www.adventurekidsplaycare.com/issaquah/reservations.html

THEN, in case nobody has noticed, there are more and more spider webs growing in our center and I've seen some VERY large spiders lurking in the office and entry! I'm sure they will start migrating south after our Haunted Adventure on Sunday, Oct 30, but until then, please be very careful when visiting Adventure Kids.

The King 5 Best of Western Washington contest is starting on Monday and we'd really like to see if we can compete with the places nominated for best fun place for kids! There isn't a category for drop in childcare, so we're up against some tough competition! Prizes for voting by phone app have been approved, so we'll have something in place for people who vote by phone app at least!

Back to School week is proving to be quite active for us at AKP! While we're happy to provide service to as many families as possible, we feel terrible when we have to turn families away at the door when we reach capacity. If you've had this experience, we certainly apologize. Providing you the opportunity to pull up and drop off your children is a service that we love to offer. With school getting back underway, we certainly expect things to settle down enough to allow us to get back to this availability.

With some of our staff returning to school, we are starting to look for a couple of replacements to fill the gaps. If you know somebody who has great energy, loves to play with and care for kids, we would love to talk with them.

This week at AKP

Change is in the winds at AKP this week.  With the start of school, etc., it's going to be a happening week!

To celebrate the Back to School week in Issaquah, we're hosting an awesome Back to School pajama party this weekend!  It's the last chance for kids to stay up later than usual and end the summer with a blast! 

We're going to finish next week with camp life before switching to Adventure Kids University and the before & after school program.  Both of which are really good programs that we are quite proud of.  Fliers should be posted on our website shortly for each program.

We had a visit from our state licensor today.  As much as we love her, it's always a stress factor on us and the staff.  Their visit today has prompted Ed to get involved at the regulation level to champion for the drop in childcare industry to help them create the rules & regulations necessary to keep kids well cared for and safe in a fun, exciting environment.

August already???

It's official, July 2011 is completely gone and it's August already.  Thoughts of back to school frenzies, remembering the busy mornings of making lunches & getting out the door at just the right minute to catch the bus, but not spend extra time standing in the rain.  Ugh.

Oh wait, it's still just August!!!  Sunny forecasts for this week & plenty of summer to go!  Adventure Kids Summer Camp theme this week is FEAR FACTOR!!!  Physical challenges, seemingly grotesque snacks & weirdly intriguing arts & crafts. 

We've gotten a few requests for bus pickup after other summer camps & are more than willing to use the bus to pick up kids from other activities as long as it works out with scheduling.  For scheduling or questions, please feel free to contact the office

Ed and Nicole are taking the 24 day Advocare Challenge!  24 days of healthy eating, great tasting supplements (one that's not so tasty) and a good exercise routine.  If you'd like to join us, we'd certainly welcome the company and can hook you up with the Advocare package.