Kids in the Capital Celebrating Ten Years (A Belated Anniversary)

Kids in the Capital turned TEN on March 30th! We were right in the early weeks of what I like to call “pandemic-land” and the anniversary got forgotten. Now that we’ve all settled in to a bit more of a routine, I thought it was time to belatedly celebrate a HUGE milestone in Kids in the Capitals’ existence.

On March 30th, 2010 I (Lara) launched Kids in the Capital with my friend Brie. I wanted to create a space where parents, who knew there was lots to do with their kids but were overwhelmed trying to figure out WHAT to choose, could get advice from other parents based on their experiences.

We had lots of people who regularly contributed content giving parents ideas on where to go, crafts to try, foods to cook, and so much more.

This is what the blog looked like when we launched (and our very first post!)

Kids in the Capital’s very first blog post and original layout - a header of a school bus going down my street wasn’t the very first header, but it was one of the first!

In those early days we ran playdates (mostly because I had a 3 year old and not even 1 year old twins and I needed to get out of the house) and photography challenges in addition to posts on places to go. Since then we’ve grown, we have a team that runs the site, and we’ve worked with a lot of great sponsors to help us keep the site going.

Thank you

I want to take a moment to thank the wonderful ladies who have made this blog possible over the years. Brie McManus who put so much love in to the blog in those early days (and hours of work!), Karen Wilson who was my second partner running the blog, Ali Goldfield who was our first community manager, Misty Pratt who has been helping run the blog for over 6 years now, and Tracy Noble who joined us in 2016. All of these ladies have helped run this blog as more of a passion project than a way to make an income, and I so appreciate their time and energy and commitment to helping create great content that parents in the National Capital value.

I also want to thank the Kids in the Capital audience who have always been so respectful, supportive and friendly. Thank you for still being here, engaging on our social channels and sharing our content.

Some of our most popular content

I wanted to do a list of our most popular content over the years and you know what - the content all feels like an in your face list of things we can’t do right now while COVID-19 still impacts us. So instead, I will share our most popular post ever (so you can work on a bucket list) and ask you to share in comments what kind of content you’d like to see from us for a summer that is not going to look like other summers.

Most popular post of all time: 50 things to do in Ottawa

Some of the promo images from 2010

What’s next

I don’t know what’s next for Kids in the Capital other than we’re not going any where. As the blog has aged a lot of the content has aged with my kids, making the content for older kids and not toddlers. We’d love to have more toddler content so are always looking for contributors. We don’t have a budget for paying for posts at the moment, but can often get people free tickets in to attractions so we can write about them (once we can get back in to places again!).

In the first weeks of the pandemic we held our first workshop on becoming an unexpected homeschooler and we are open to having more workshops over the summer, some for parents and some for kids (I know we’re all looking for ways to keep the kids busy right now!) If you have thoughts or ideas on what you’d like to see, please comment and let us know!

Thank you for being a part of the Kids in the Capital community!