Good luck, Vaporvac. I wish I could visit Freedom Gardens someday. About the roses: Lullaby would be the biggest and most winter-hardy of the three. It is an upright grower that gets to around 3-4 ft. here. The first flush just blankets the bush. After that, there are always a few on it, until fall, when it puts out a respectable show. It has a nice fragrance and will blush in cool weather. Tip Top is a pretty little rose, maybe 2 ft. +/-. Its foliage is almost always clean and pretty all by itself. The flowers are darling. They start off as little red and yellow buds with classic form that become pink and white puffballs. Fragrance is very mild. Fair Molly is young and is on the "Creep" year of the "sleep/creep/leap" growth cycle. I got her from Freedom Gardens along with Brindabella Dawn. They weren't shipped until well into fall and couldn't have been more than 3-4 inches. They both survived a hard winter with very little dieback. It wants to bloom even though I try to keep blooming to a minimum to encourage growth. She has pretty little apple blossom flowers that have a very mild scent. It is a very clean rose.

I and my wife transport breathable bags of 10 pounds of Reds or Euros in 10 pounds of dry peat moss in our wheelchair backpacks all the time. These wheelchairs are placed in the warmer pet transport area of the baggage compartment at the loading gate when we board the plane. There may be to much peat moss converted to castings in the bag if the worms have been in the bag over 24 hours and cause the explosive nitrates scanner to alert, but TSA people look at the contents funny, call everyone over and pass it through. I think it makes their day as the most interesting ‘positive’ item of the day!

We have two kids and are departing soon for a trip to Europe, we will be in the south of France for two weeks and in Holland for one week. In the south of France, we are staying in a house that is located in the Luberon. I drew a circle around the town we're staying in and basically researched the towns within a one hour driving radius. We are then flying via Ryan Air to Holland and staying in an apartment in Amsterdam. The house we're staying in in the south of France is a relatively simple place. My kids are older than yours, but we've made it a priority to pack books and simple arts activities they can do. I expect to buy a jigsaw puzzle. We are bringing a deck of cards, an IPod and a Nintendo DS. There is no TV or internet connection at the house. We've talked to the kids a lot about flexibility. The biggest hassle with the electronic games, is that yes they have the advantage of being small and light, but they need a variety of chargers and power adapters to work with the European electrical current. Radio Shack had the highest prices around, Best Buy was better, but believe it or not, I found electrical equipment in the men's section of Marshalls where they sell things like um, power golf ball washers and the like. I also have purchased and wrapped small items for the children to receive at various times through the trip. Little clay kits from JoAnne bought on sale, they like these, and they cost about $2 each. Calvin and Hobbes books collected from garage sales for about 25 cents each. I sleep mask and ear plugs set, two bucks on sale at KMart. I assemble these and wrap them before we leave -- unwrapping the 'gifts' makes it even more fun for the kids. Oh, crayons and paper are another must. I had my daughter down load a lot of young adult books on CD onto her eye-pod and got an ear phone splitter so two kids can listen to the books on tape on the same Ipod player. Ideally, they'll listen to these in the back of the car while my husband and I talk or listen to our own music up front. We enjoy having down time while we're away, and plan on doing only one 'big' touristy thing a day. When traveling with kids, I like to have a sort of big picture plan, with info about all the sights available in a specific region, but like to play it by ear on a day to day basis, being responsive to people's moods, energy levels, health, etc. I also know in advance that I want to show them certain things, as in categories of things, like in the south of France, it'll be something like one cathedral, one abbey, one art museum, etc. I have a child whose into nature so we've made sure to research natural habitats and will probably get him a book so he and his sister can identify bugs and birds while we're there. I've also taken out library books on the countries we're visiting and left them lying around the kitchen table and we've done some casual thumbing through the pages. I don't force it. I just try to get them thinking a little, and looking at pictures really does that. It's important to remind them that travel is fun but it's also work and some days may be challenging for them. Oh, one more thing, we bring addresses for their friends so they can write postcards. I also take pictures of their friends and keep them stored on the digital camera so they can scroll back and look at the pictures when they feel like they're missing the kids back home.

Great pictures. I love castles. When my brother and I toured Heidelberg Castle the tour guide showed us a gigantic barrel and explained that local were allowed to pay the tax they owed in beer or wine or mead. When they did so the wine or beer was all poured into the giant barrel. Then the guards working in the castle were provided some number of mugs per day of whatever came out of the barrel. Yum. Also they explained that the moat around the castle was made using local sandstone, which was quite porous, and if they filled the moat, which took several days, it would all leak out within a week or two. I guess it was only useful if any attackers were thoughtful enough to call ahead to let the castle know when they were coming.