Monday, July 8, 2013

Summer Road Trip 2013--Organization

As many of you know we just returned from a 9 day whirlwind road trip! I have to start off by saying that when my father-in-law and husband propsed this trip back in April, I was not too excited about it. They wanted to go to Yellowstone National Park, and then added a leg through Mount Rushmore as well. I thought the destinations themselves would be great but I was not at all excited about traveling 1800+ miles roundtrip with three kids four and under. BUT.... that being said, I did a lot to prep for the trip, and I am SOOO glad we did it. We are already talking about where to go next summer!!

My in-laws have a 5th wheel, so they towed the camper and we followed in the van. Once the camper was parked, we were able to set up all three boys across the back seat so we had room for Gma and Papa to ride around and sight see with us. Sure, we had some crabby days; some unexpected events (namely, the truck breaking down, resulting in Miles and Janet STILL stranded in Casper, Wyoming as we speak)... but overall we had an awesome time! As I am sitting here reflecting while my kids are still sleeping and recovering from the journey, I am sad that it is over.

To ease my stress over so much travel with the little boys, I set out to be as organized as possible for the trip. I also wanted to eliminate the need to put on movie after movie after movie to enteratin the kids in the car. So I spent a lot of time on pinterest (of course) to come up with some ideas to help with the drive.

Here are a few of the things that I prepped:

#1. The Binders:

 In the weeks leading up to the trip I hit the internet to print out all sorts of activities for the boys. Max's and Miles's binders were obviously different, tailored to their ages. I also ripped some pages out of workbooks we have in the house. Each binder had about 40 pages double sided (so about 80 activities).

I bought them some new crayons, colored pencils, and markers for the trip. I split them each up between the binders. Therefore, no fighting over who had what, no sharing required. :)

I bought some stickers, because every kid loves stickers, so both the front and back pockets were well stocked with stickers. And each binder had a pencil holder that snapped into the binder to hold all of their writing utensils.

Here are some of the pages from the binders.

The state licence plate game proved to be the most fun and interactive of all the games. Some of the pictures below are outdated, but since Miles V can read, he was very into this game. And we found EVERY plate except Hawaii and I think one other. Miles had a great time crossing them out as we found them.

And I got these little sticker books on amazon. They are reusable stickers that you can place in the scene in the book and change over and over. The boys liked them!

Here they are actually using the binders! Success!


It is amazing how different each of my children are. Miles V was SO into the binder, and was meticulous about reading the directions on each page, doing each activity, crossing things out as we saw them, etc. I was almost worried that he would use his binder up on the first leg of our journey!! (And thankfully, for a kid who usually gets super car sick when reading in the car, he was completely fine this time!!). Maxwell, who is so super smart but also stubborn and who refuses to show any interest in learning his letters and numbers, had a little different experience with the binders. I printed out pages for each letter of the alphabet with corresponding pictures to color (A for airplanes, apples, apes, etc)... I thought, "Ok, this is the time he is going to learn his letters and their sounds." Well, sweet Max, as always, had his own plans. The included putting stickers EVERY where.. and this (probably one of my favorite pictures from all of the trip):
Using his markers to color a 'mustache' (more like a beard!!) on himself. Man, I love this kid!!! 
Aside from the binders, I did a few other things to keep us sane and organized in the car and camper.

#2. Snacks: 

Ah yes, snacks. The key for any parent to a successful trip in the car. Whether driving 30 minutes or 30 hours, snacks. Now, I'm usually kind of anal about what the kids are eating, how much junk food and sugar they consume, etc. However, Miles and I decided that vacation is vacation; that means fun in all areas, including snacks. So, the boys like Cheetos (yes, Cheetos. They must not be my children!). Cheetoes usually don't see the light of day in my house, but I bought Cheetos for them for vacation. They also love fruit snacks, and so I bought fruit snacks. Before we left, I bought each kid a little tackle box to use for snacks. I labeled each one, and when were were ready to head back out on the road I re-stocked their snack boxes. When they asked for food between meals, they got their boxes filled with treats. I did try to limit the amout of sugar in each box just so they weren't bouncing out of their carseats, but they LOVED this. One time they had Skittles for a treat, sometimes fruit snacks, etc. But this way, they could eat whatever they felt like within reason in the car, and got some treats in the process. Plus, it kept them occupied for awhile!!! Also, each boy had a designated 'car cup' for the trip. It was filled with nothing but water and didn't leave the car (hypothetically... we actually left Mason's at a resturant). But I re-filled the cups about  3/4 full after each stop, and the boys knew that is all they got to drink until the next stop so they learned to ration it. This helped them not have to stop for the potty too often but they stayed hydrated.

Here is a picture of the snack boxes I stocked before we left. I did not make one of these for the baby. Since I could reach back and touch him, I passed him snacks whenever he needed something.
For the first leg of the journey they got crasins, almonds, teddy grahams, 'gold penguins' as Miles named them, and a few fruit snacks. 




#3. Trays: 

I guess I didn't get a picture of these, but I got three trays at (gulp) Walmart before we left. They worked perfectly when we needed to eat on the run, or when the kids wanted to spread out their binder's and color. The trays were affordable, and when we weren't using them we flipped them over and put the book basket on top of them so they weren't in the way. In the picture below they are right under Max's carset.


I also picked up the white baskets pictured above. They fit perfectly next to Mason's seat. The bottom was filled with toys I could grab to entertain Mason, as well as the books I took along to read on the trip. The top basket was filled with snacks for the car. I used these snacks to refill the boy's trays, to give to Mason as needed, as well as for Miles and I.


#4. Miscellaneous: 

Between the big kid's car seats I put a basket with some little toys. Superman, Batman, toy cars, diggers, mixer trucks, and those toys with the strings that you can lace up. (They kids 'fished' with those). They were in reach of both the boys and they played with them alot. They threw them back in the basket when they were done with them, and I'm happy to say that the car stayed as neat and organized after driving for 52 total hours as is possible with three little kids. (In the picture below, you see the basket of toys, and two tupperware containers. Those were our barf bags. Miles and Max both knew if they felt sick they were to grab them and puke in them. I am happy to say they were unused!!!).


Each boy had their own designated car blanket and pillow in or near their car seats for when they wanted to rest in the car.

And finally, movies and CDs. We bought the kids each two new movies to watch on the trip. In addition, for $5 we found an AWESOME DVD with Bible Stories on it. It was like 7 hours of Bible stories, really well done, two discs full. And the week before we left we raided the library's audio book section and checked out a bunch of audio books. The kids tend to NOT nap in the car if there is a movie on, even if they are tired and in need of a nap. So the days when we were driving during naptime, I would put on an audio book for Miles to listen to, which Max soon lost interest in and would sleep. Mason didn't care about movies or books, so he slept no matter what. But the audio books created a sort of 'quiet time' for Miles similar to what we do at home, and it worked beautifully. 

I will be back with some more details and pictures of trip soon. For now, I wanted to share some tips that helped us immensely on the drive. 

Oh, and there is just not a good way to entertain a very active one year old for very long in the car. Mason was good for about 3 hours, and then we had several hours of fussing and sometimes all out screaming. We gave him breaks when we could, and sometimes nothing, not even snacks would work. But overall he did well, and I think all three of them had an awesome vacation. I know Mom and Dad sure did!!! 


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