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It’s officially Fall! It definitely doesn’t fe It’s officially Fall! It definitely doesn’t feel like it in Miami, it really never does but that just gives us a reason to explore other states. West Virginia is one of them, fun fact I actually lived here between undergrad and grad school! Here are Things to do in West Virginia (SAVE + SHARE): 

1. Enjoy New River Gorge National Park & Preserve, or visit any of the states 35 state parks as West Virginia has 1.5 million acres of parks and public land. We personally walked the Shavers Lake Trail and canoed on the lake. 

2. Enjoy some serious adventures! We’re always trying something new and West Virginia offers a lot of options from whitewater rafting, to 1,000+ miles of off-road ATV trails, to rock climbing, caving and mountain biking . 

3. Take a train ride on the Cass Scenic Railroad which stops at the Whittaker Camp where those who worked in the lumber and coal industry lived during the work season. 

4. Explore Cranberry Glades Botanical Area where you might just get to see some black bears! 

5. Walk the Falls of Hills Creak trail to get up close to some gorgeous waterfalls! 

This week I’ll be sharing various cities and states you can experience a beautiful Fall getaway. What are some of your favorite places to enjoy autumn?

Tap the link in my bio for my West Virginia blog post and a blog post of the best places to experience Fall in the US!
Still not over our day exploring the waters of For Still not over our day exploring the waters of Fort Pierce. We danced, snorkeled, fished and went tubing. Definitely want more days like this and still pinch myself that this is what a day of work looks like for me sometimes. Thank you @seadoo for the opportunity.
If you know my husband you know water activities a If you know my husband you know water activities are his favorite! Fishing, jet skiing, just being on a boat on the ocean relaxing, name it, he’s there. So we couldn’t be more excited than to not only get the chance to test out the new @seadoo Switch but be the stars of a whole commercial for it. We had entirely too much fun filming this. Of course now he wants to buy one!

Do you like getting out on the water? Favorite activity?
Our 3 Day London Itinerary (SAVE + SHARE): 

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Day 1: Walked across the Tower Bridge (you can take a tour of London of Tower as well), walked along the River Thames and took a make a fascination hat class with @create_your_own_hat! 

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Day 2: Harry Potter walking tour, checked out Borough Market and went on a night ghost bus tour. 

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Day 3: Morning Tea at Peggy Porschen, Buckingham Palace for Changing of the Guards, and explore Westminster for the infamous red telephone booths, Big Ben and Westminster Abbey.

If you have more time on previous visits to London we have taken a day trip to check out Stonehenge, Bath and Windsor Castle, rode the London Eye, took a ferry ride down the Thames River, checked out Warner Brother Studios, and did a graffiti/street art tour.

Is London on your list? If you’ve been what did you do that you think is a must for visitors?

Things to do in London, London with kids, family travel
Then vs Now (swipe left)!🥹🥰 My babies are no Then vs Now (swipe left)!🥹🥰 My babies are not babies anymore. Where has the time gone? Excuse me while I go cry in the corner 😭😭😭😭. 

Too in my feelings to provide an informational post, I’ll be back tomorrow.
Why is this man always trying to stop my fun? List Why is this man always trying to stop my fun? Listen replace husband with whoever you need to but why these ppl keep acting like we can take our money when we’re gone?!? Y’all feel me or nah? 😅😬😩
Morning Tea in London! Afternoon or High Tea is us Morning Tea in London! Afternoon or High Tea is usually on everyone’s things to do in London list but since the girls and I don’t eat beef or pork the menus for most places didn’t make sense for us as they are filled with ham sandwiches and other things we don’t eat. I ended up finding Morning Tea at Peggy Porschen instead which offers a tea menu with breakfast items, while not traditional it worked best for us! It cost £35 pp.

For a traditional Afternoon or High Tea Try:

🫖Palm Court at The Ritz
🫖The Diamond Jubilee Tea Salon at Fortnum & Mason
🫖Theatre Royal Drury Lane
🫖The Grill Room Hotel Cafe Royal (has vegetarian an vegan options)
🫖Coronation Afternoon Tea at Cellarium, Westminster Abbey
🫖The Rosebery Coronation Afternoon Tea at Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park
🫖The Goring Hotel

Afternoon Teas Geared Towards Families:

☕️Peter Pan Afternoon Tea at Aqua at The Shard
☕️Jurassic Afternoon Tea at the Ampersand Hotel
☕️Jungle Book Afternoon Tea at Brown’s Hotel
☕️Secret Garden Afternoon Tea at Taj 51
☕️The Buzzy Bees Afternoon Tea at St. Ermin’s Hotel
☕️Grover’s Children’s Tea at Grosvenor House Hotel
☕️The Peppa Pig Afternoon Tea Bus Tour
☕️Sherlock Holmes Inspired Afternoon Tea at the Mind Palace
☕️Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Tea at One Aldwych
☕️Mad Hatter Afternoon Tea at The Sanderson
☕️Wizard of Oz Afternoon Tea at The Soho Hotel

Have you done a proper Afternoon or High Tea in London before? Was the one you did on this list, if so what did you think of it? If you have additional recommendations please do leave a comment!

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Our Natural Hair Routine

August 18, 2020      Lifestyle, Lifestyle

This post contains affiliate links. If you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small commission at no cost to you. Please see our disclosure policy for more information. All opinions are my own.

I know this post is long overdue but I finally wrote it. I’ve been natural for fourteen years so I thankfully mastered my natural hair routine prior to having my daughters. While we all have natural hair our hair types range from 3c-4c (I think) and so what works for one of us doesn’t always work for the other but we’ve thankfully been able to find products that do work well in all of our hair.  In this article I’m giving you our weekly natural hair routine, general natural hair care tips and tips for traveling with natural hair.

Our Natural Hair Routine

We typically wash our hair once a week and I won’t lie it’s a process! It was actually one of my motivations of cutting my hair, less hair to take care of! This natural hair routine includes a deep condition, you don’t have to do one every week if you don’t feel like you need to.

Step One: Detangle and Separate

Separate your hair into sections and detangle. This step is crucial as it will make the washing process faster and less painful. It’s also easier with kids as I do this on the couch while they watch TV, read less complaining! To detangle I wet each section using a spray bottle and apply a little bit of conditioner. Then I detangle using this Denman brush starting from the ends of the hair and making my way up to the root. After I detangle a section I braid it, usually ending up with 5-6 sections.

Step Two: Shampoo

Next it’s time to wash! Again I wash their hair in sections, unbraiding one to two braids at a time, ending up with 3-4 sections to wash. For my hair I use Creme of Nature Argan Oil shampoo. For the girls hair I was using the Cantu kids line, tear-free shampoo. I love it because it works great on both of their hair textures and of course no crying if it gets in their eyes.

I’ve recently got another brand, Hair of Nature, as a gift, it’s actually a small black owned company by a mompreneur and have been using it for the past few months. We’ve liked the results of this brand as well. You can check out their curl moisture shampoo here and use promo code TRAVELINGCHILD for 10% off!

Step Three: Protein Treatment

After washing our hair I give each of us a protein treatment using Redken’s Extreme CAT Anti-Damage Protein Reconstructing Treatment. I apply this around our edges and on our scalp, massaging it in and then brushing it through our hair for even distribution. We leave it in for five minutes while sitting under our softhooded dryer. We only do protein treatments once every six weeks. If your hair is damaged and it’s your first time doing protein treatments you can do them once a week for four weeks to restore your hair and then every six weeks.

Step Four: Conditioner

If we aren’t doing a protein treatment step four becomes step three and that is our applying our conditioner. You must always condition your hair after a protein treatment so never skip this step. Some weeks we use regular conditioners, me using the Creme of Nature Argan Oil conditioner and the girls using the Cantu tear-free conditioner. Other weeks it’s time for a deep condition (typically alternating these) and then we’ve been using Hair of Nature’s Herbal Reconstruction Deep Conditioner which I absolutely love.

If we are doing a regular condition we just rinse and move onto styling. However, when doing a deep conditioner treatment we sit under our softhooded dryer for 30 minutes.

girl sitting under soft dryer getting her hair done

Step Five: Leave in Conditioner or Styling

After we’ve rinsed out the deep conditioner we’ll either put in a leave in conditioner and then style or just style. The leave in conditioner provides extra moisture so I do recommend doing it if your hair tends to dry out more. I use As I Am’s leave in conditioner.

To style our hair we do braids outs or twist outs. For both to get defined hair I always twist or braid the roots to the scalp. This makes such a huge difference is the overall look of their curls. Below is an example of what I mean on a twist out.

For braid outs I do exactly the same. For my older daughter, Jordyn, her hair is thinner and she has looser curls. For her I’m able to do 5 braids or twists and her hair will come out big and defined. Realistically for her I don’t have to braid/twist to the scalp at first but it holds better at night. However, for my younger daughter, Kennedy, she has 4c hair so I have to do more braids and twists to get the same defined curls, if I don’t her hair doesn’t look as good.

I let their hair dry overnight. Be sure to put them in a satin hair bonnet or have them sleep on satin pillow cases. Silk is actually the best but those pillow cases are quite expensive! Then in the morning I will take it down simply by unbraiding or untwisting their hair.

Wash N Go

We all know unless you have a specific hair texture a wash n’ go is never that easy! I actually remember when I first became natural and was brave enough to wear my curls I washed my hair and went out and was utterly confused about why I looked so crazy later on. My friend was like “so you didn’t use any product” lol, no sis I did not, but lesson learned.

When doing a wash and go on our hair after we’ve conditioned it I put Design Essentials Natural Curl Enhancing Mousse in. I use our Denman brush to brush it through the hair to make sure it’s gotten on all the strands. Next I apply Redken Curvaceous Ringlet Shape Perfecting Lotion and I will quickly finger curl the top layer of hair. This is how I achieved the look in the image below.

Night Time Routine

Once styled at night we still use our bonnets or satin pillow cases. You can either retwist or rebraid the hair or use the pineapple method. Here are two videos that explain this method better than I can: short natural hair or longer natural hair.

Tips for Traveling with Natural Hair

One of the questions I get the most is how we maintain our curls when traveling with natural hair. The short answer is we do the same things we do at home! Our hair routine doesn’t change at all when we’re traveling if we’re wearing our hair out and don’t have a protective style (more on those below). This is one of the reasons I got the softhooded dryer, it’s easy to travel with, folding down to the size of my hand.

When traveling to a destination where I know we’ll be swimming a lot I pack our swim caps. This keeps our hair protected and prevents me from having to wash hair multiple times during our trip. I absolutely love Swimma Caps because they are black owned and specifically made to fit afros, dreadlocks and braids! You can use promo code THETRAVELINGCHILD for 10% off until August 31, 2020.

To protect our hair when traveling I also pack our satin pillowcases. We each have an extra one so it’s easy to throw in our luggage. You can also just pack a bonnet but those always come off the girls head which is why I bring the pillow cases.

Protective Styles for Traveling with Natural Hair

When traveling with natural hair it can sometimes be in your best interest to just get a protective style! This will save you so much time when you have to be up for early morning excursions. We especially love protective styles for when we take ski trips. Helmet hair is not cute and gets your hair extremely matted so we always try to get cornrows. An alternative is to do a twist out but not untwist your hair. Don’t forget if you get braids and go swimming, sweat you still need to keep your hair clean. You can use Cantu’s co-wash dry shampoo and be sure to oil your scalp to prevent dry and itchy scalp.  

How We Pack our Hair Products

We are team carry-on when traveling (check out our light packing tips) so that means we can’t take full size products with us. That is just fine! You can buy travel size products directly from companies like As I Am and Hair of Nature. If your preferred hair products don’t have travel sized under 3.4oz you can use travel size containers and just fill them with your hair products. This is what we do since it’s typically cheaper to buy the bigger sizes of the products. Then we put them in our packing cubes and we’re off, no need for checked bags!

Our natural hair routine isn’t super simple but this is exactly how we achieve the styles we have. I hope this post has been helpful especially in when it comes to traveling with natural hair. You can find all the hair care products we use including descriptions of what we use each product for in my Amazon store here. Did you find this post helpful? Please share it!

Back to School with Sylvan Learning

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Hi! We’re The Hambricks

Hi! We’re The Hambricks

If kids live there, kids can visit! That's our motto and you'll often find us exploring destinations most don't find "kid friendly". We've traveled to 35 countries on 6 continents with our children since they were 10 weeks old and share tips to make it easier and affordable. But mom and dad are people too so we also write about solo travel, baecations and girlfriend getaways.

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