VaCa post #1

I was the solo driver to visit family 23+ hours away.  All three kiddos did better then expected.  Parker kept busy with comic books.  Mimi kept busy with all the little fun things I packed for all three of them.  Yoda didn't love sitting still so long, but that's why I planned lots of longs stops.

Here's a few highlights of our drive out to Utah...

 We packed lots of food and ate at rest stops.  Mostly they were clean and ready for a picnic. 

Other rest stop highlights...

Day one, we played with a frog in the grass

Day two, we avoided a SNAKE!

Day three we saw this...

 I read lots of tips on driving cross country with children.  One of the tips was to go ahead and stop at the interesting places that are advertised on the side of the road.  This was our one and only interesting stop -- a giant replica of van Gogh's Sunflowers. 

 I drove for 3 days, about 8 hours each day.  We stopped early and swam in the hotel pools to tire the kiddos out before bed.  Parker:"They have a POOL?!!!  This is the BEST vacation EVER!!!"

This was by far the most scenic rest stop!  Mimi collected rocks and played with them for an hour after this stop.

Here are some other tips that I used on our car trip if you are interested...

I bought plastic trays at Walmart- the kind that you can use for breakfast in bed.  Parker and Mimi LOVED them and kept them on their laps the whole ride, even when they weren't using them to store drinks or lean a book on, just a place to rest their elbows at times.

I printed off maps for them to follow along with the drive.  It gave them a clearer picture of where the heck we were each day.

I brought along post-it notes to cover up the auto-flush sensor at the restrooms, silly but it helped Yoda feel better.

Lots of sanitizer, pop-up napkins = genius.

To prevent emergency stops for the restroom, I didn't let them have water until about an hour away from our next scheduled stop.   In 3 days of driving there was only one unplanned stop!

I brought things to color, lace, read.  Stickers, Geo boards, felt boards, dry erase boards, balloons.  Books on CD, and some movies.  The dvd player decided to stop working now and then, that was no fun, but we got by since Greg loaded up the ipod with movies.  I also printed off the license plate game, dot-to-dots, hidden pictures, and let them take 100's of photos with the camera.

More to come...