By Tamara Loomis 5/21 5:45pm

Spring Travel

[ashlindseyphotography.com]

6 Family Travel Tips You Will Thank Us For This Memorial Day Weekend

Memorial Day weekend marks the beginning of family summer trips. After you have kids, the old adage about the journey being more important than the destination is immediately thrown out the window (along with the bathwater).  Many trips are decided based on the question:  is it worth being cooped up in a [travel vehicle] for [number of] hours? But it doesn’t have to be that way. These six travel tips will make your family trip a lot less stressful and a lot more fun. Read More

By Jennifer Wright 5/17/12 4:12pm

Memories

Waldorf Astoria

For One Girl, The Waldorf Lobby Was Heaven On Earth

The happiest I ever was when I was a child was at the Waldorf-Astoria.

Now, I don’t think a hotel is supposed to be the happiest place in anyone’s childhood. Unless you are the heroine in a Kay Thompson story, in which case I wandered into the wrong hotel. I think I should be able to fudge my happiest childhood memory a bit, and say that I was happiest at F.A.O. Schwartz or in Central Park—though I don’t recall spending much time at either of those places.

But I can go back to the first time I walked into the Waldorf. I was 4, accompanying my parents, who were in New York for the Canadian Society Ball. (We lived in Chicago.) As soon as we walked into the lobby my nanny said, “Well, this is heaven.” Because I was 4, I took her literally. I was sitting on a chair by the H. Stern jewelry shop, and there was a necklace in the window that was a rainbow of gemstones. In the lobby was a flower arrangement I still remember as the largest and most perfect I have ever seen. Someone mentioned that there was never a night when there was not a party in the ballroom. Read More