Getting Ready to Go!
So most of you know we will be doing our annual road trip up north to visit friends and family. The kids are so excited and they wanted to pack early so I typed them up a list of things to bring. First thing out of their mouths was, "what? Fifteen pairs of underwear?" So I explained that even tho we will have access to a washing machine at Omi's one should always be prepared to not have access to a washing machine. It isn't like we have to pack super light, I mean we have an excursion for goodness sake! Might as well fill it up!! It is extremely helpful when bringing sisters and nieces clothing and so on...We don't have to re arrange anything a bunch of times and Carl can actually bring along his bike so he can ride in beautiful areas of Canada. So after I typed up the list, they packed all the summer clothes they have, not much I am afraid, but good enough for this trip. Cole gets hand me downs from friends but Kaleigh doesn't so she is shy a few pairs of shorts and so on. She has a few capri's so those are going too. They each get one new toy for the car, this year they got hand held games ($10.00) at Walmart. Cole got Cars racing and Kaleigh got SpongeBob Yahtzee. That should keep them occupied for a while and they have their lapdesks too, with paper, crayons, markers, pencils etc.
Kaleigh and Cole both picked out books at the local bookstore and have not seen them since they picked them out. I will give them to the kids once we are in the car and then there is another part of the drive taken care of. Especially for Kaleigh since she is really into the Geronimo Stilton books, they are chapter books and even though she is a pretty speedy reader, they take her a bit to get through. Cole will be done with his too fast but hey he likes looking out the window at different things and listening to CD books too. They do really well most of the time and they know the cost of complaining....hmmmm what privileges can we take away? No pool when we get to the hotel? No more yummy snacks? No souvenier? Lot's of things keep them from complaining, which makes it a really fun and easy time. And no, we are not driving Lightening McQeen, I just like blogs with pictures...heehee.
5 comments:
Good luck on the trip. We used DVD players to help out too. Amazing how many miles you can get out of a movie!
We had two ways to do DVDs: first we used an actual portable DVD player that plugged into the cigarette lighter. Secondly, we had a power inverter in another lighter port (I guess they call them "power ports" now) that could power a laptop computer. However, only our older laptop draws little enough power for that to work.
Anyway, sounds like you have a lot of fun stuff planned for them. My only other advice is to budget time to stop for leg stretch breaks -- sometimes you find interesting things that way.
Safe and happy travels!
T & D are old enough that they just bring a stack of books along. Connor has always just loved watching out the window. He points things out to us as we go. We will pack along the Magna-doodle, but I doubt he'll use it much. That's more for when we are at Omi & Opa's house, really.
And yes - gotta stretch those legs! If not the kids - then the parents!!
:)
Oh I totally agree! Robert, we ended up doing the laptop movie thing a couple years ago and for some reason the movies wouldn't work, Tina can vouch for that cause I wanted to get a DVD player, but it was a no go from Carl! We found out that they really didn't miss it all that much! Carl got the laptop fixed anyway and we still have that option should we choose to use it.
It is just tough getting things started and stuff cause I have to do it and I can't see the screen very well from the front. So the movies on the laptop is last resort.
I'm a believer in going light and not having a lot of crap to deal with.
Underware? I can buy that if need be.
DVD's umkay, why not. However, our kids like books and gameboys.
I like napping.
They all nap. I'm the only one awake for the whole drive - then again, I prefer to drive than be a passenger, so I guess that's a good thing, eh?
Connor naps the least, but he gets a couple of winks in too.
:)
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