Friday, July 02, 2010

Camping pictures!!

These photos are in their un-edited state.  And there's a lot. You  cand thank PapaCoyote for pushing me along on this project.  I'll add some captions later, so check back in a few days if you want to read about the pictures.  I have a van to pack up. :-)













Thursday, July 01, 2010

Preparing for the road trip

This year we are travelling to Idaho to be with family for the 4th.  This entails a road trip of approximately 7.5 hours driving time.  With kids in tow with regular potty and wiggle breaks, this usually figures to somewhere around 8 to 9 hours.  Really it only hits 9 hours when we have a small baby who is still only breastfeeding.  But still, it's a long trip and I have been honing my preparation skills for many years now.
In thinking about what to take in the car this year, I combined a few previous successes and came up with (I hope) a good plan.  I decided to share in case anyone else is looking for ideas for road trip survival.

My kids like kits.  My kids like presents.  My kids get bored.  I think these are all pretty normal.  So I hit upon small kits, wrapped up in individual bags, and a varied selection of activities.  I just bought a package of plain brown lunch sacks.  Cheap and easy.  Here's a list of what's inside.  Oh, and I put together a bag for each boy and rubberbanded them together in groups.  So everyone gets the same(ish) thing at the same time.

1) a stack of mini post it notes in multi-colors.  There is a note on the bag that says, "decorate your window!"
2)Stickers with facial features, dot stickers and crayons with an extra bag.  The note says to make puppets and put on a puppet show for each other.
3)Aerials.  Each bag has something different in the this one, so they have to work together.  Yeah, I know, we'll see how it goes.  They have string, paperclips, paper, rubber bands, and scissors.  The idea is to run the string through the hooks next to lights at each seat and hang creations from it.  Maybe they can send stuff back and forth.  We'll see what they come up with.
4) more facial feature stickers and paper and pencils.  The note says to make up some people and tell mom and dad about them.  They have prompts like, "who is this, where are they going, what are they doing."  Basic stuff like that.

Then there is food!  One set of bags will have crackers, lunch meat and cheese. Another will be cookies, frosting and sprinkles.  Another will be fruit cups.  And snack bars and juice boxes.

The bags are mostly packed.  But I still need to pack up the food packets.  Oh, and hit the grocery store for said food.
And pack the rest of the stuff.  Like clothes.  At least packing to go to grandma and grandpa's house is pretty straightforward.  They really only need clothes.  Grandma spoils them with anything else they could possibly need.