Friday, July 24, 2009

All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go...


...and by all my bags, I mean my kids have all their stuff packed. I mean ALL their stuff. And we're leaving in the minivan instead of a jet plane, which is good because even if we could afford the plane tickets, the luggage would cost us a small fortune to check.

In this post I asked for travel ideas, and got a few good ones. I made Tiffany's Homemade Granola Bars that she got from Annikke, and they are SO YUMMY! But I have a little secret for you: these things are really embellished rice krispy bars, POSING as granola bars to make them sound all healthy. The added oatmeal makes them really scrumptious! I hope we end up taking some with us. The other suggestion I got from a few people was Adventures in Odyssey CDs, so I went and picked up a set. Can't wait to see how they go over!

The other day, Bethany was asking to mix together some popcorn, cheezits and goldfish crackers for a snack. Don't know where she got that idea, but then the lightbulb went on. So I let each person pick out four different ingredients, and then had a personal trail mix making party. I'm packing snack bags so when we go off on a day trip, each person can fill a snack bag from their trail mix and stick it in their fanny pack. That's what I'm envisioning anyway. I'll let you know how it goes. Pssst...shhh...I have a secret ingredient stashed away for all the WELL-BEHAVED travelers...

[Have you ever noticed how much clutter I have in the background of my pictures? And that's AFTER I crop out all that I can. Gotta keep it real here. You're welcome. Moving on...]

I told the kids this morning that I am offering a gigantic prize to anyone who chooses to do writer's workshop each day and write about our trip or some other prompts I'm bringing along. I figure we'll be in the car long enough that they might as well get their writing muscles back in shape for school. Keeping my fingers crossed on that one. How can it be that my favorite thing to teach was writing, and I have a kid whose least favorite subject is writing??? (But I'm not naming any names...)

So we've got our dry-erase maps to track our trip and the license plates we see, our supply packs, some brain teasers, and enough other miscellaneous stuff to make the van overflow.

I hope I can sleep tonight. "Oh Babe, I can't wait to go..."

Do you get as excited about vacations as I do? What's a favorite vacation that you remember, or one you are looking forward to?

8 comments:

Caroline said...

WOW! You are super prepared...moreso than I would ever be! I want to travel with you if I can do all those fun things!

Hope your trip is fun! As you're driving through NC wave to us!

Dea said...

wow, looks like quite the trip! Hope you all have a safe and happy vacation!

Joy said...

You are Uber prepared. You put so much thought into it. snacks, games, writing activities, the States, incentives.
I'm so bad. I make sure the headphones have new batteries and the dvd's are well stocked.
My kids do like to listen to Adventures in Odyssey when we catch it on the radio sometimes.
Looks like a fun trip. Can't wait to see pictures of your adventure.
We don't do too many road trips. Very few with our kids. My husband would fly to the south side of Houston if he could. He hates to drive places. So we end up flying a lot. But with the airlines charging for luggage now it stinks.
My favorite memories were when I was a little girl we would take my grandparents pick-up truck and camper up to the Smokey Mountains. Our family of four in the front of a pick-up. (bench seat of course) :) It was a red Ford pick-up with a horse mural in the back window. remember those.
I'm sure there were no airbags and I know we didn't wear a seatbelt. But survived nonetheless.
Have fun fun fun.

Joy

Marrdy said...

Wow, Cheez Its...I lost my train of thought for a second. Have a fun trip, looks like you have everything you could need. Or do you still need a map for Utah.. we could do lunch! It would be fun!

Betty W said...

I would say you are prepared for everything! I´m sure this will be a big help to keep everyone happy on the road trip!
Have fun and take lots of photos! :)

StitchinByTheLake said...

Love those maps! Haven't seen them before but I would have loved them when I was a kid. What am I saying...I'd love them now. :) blessings, marlene

Summer said...

What a fun mom you are! You have seriously thought of everything!!!

stefanie said...

I have one who would go anywhere, anytime, with practically nothing. The other, however, needs certain things. She brought her pillow on our last trip. I paid $15 each way to check bags and a large chunk of her bag was her PILLOW. At least she's grown out of 'Big Guy' the stuffed lion that she used to use as her pillow. That would have looked interesting when they scanned the bag.
Hope you are having a wonderful time together!