That week I had it all planned out on my kitchen dry erase board. Forget what groceries were needed, it turned into a day to day plan of what needed to be done for the end of school and for our trip. I had things like the award ceremony at the boys school, field day, laundry, and packing. I also have a long list of “don’t forgets” because there are always things that can’t be packed until the last minute. John’s dad and stepmom were coming down on Friday afternoon, so we could leave Saturday. That meant ALL the To Do’s needed to be done before Friday afternoon. I knew once we had company there was no way anything was getting done. All bags were packed and ready by Thursday night. Okay a few things had to be added Friday morning.
The kids were really excited about packing this time. Before they all got thrown in bags together or used their book bags to pack their clothes in. This trip we got them all their very own bag. John found on one of our summer clothes shopping trips small sports bags that were on sale. Yes, he got brownie points for his find.
When they were all packed I told them to put them in our dining room. They lined one wall of the room. They thought they were cool. Oh and now can’t wait to start a sport so they can use their bag for that too.On top of the normal packing, I also decided to use some of the ideas I found about kids and car trips. So, I had to finish up the boys’ binders for the trip. I used their book bags attached to the back of the seats. This way they could reach their binders, books, and other things we put in the bags. I wish I took pictures because I thought it was very ingenious. The top handles for two of the bags were wide enough to slip the headrest through to hang them. The other one I used some zip ties to attach the bag to the head rest. I had tic-tac-toe, travel scavenger hunts, travel bingos, word finds, practice math sheets, color pages, etc for them to do. The website MomsMinivan is where I got a lot of the printables I used for their binders. I used the plastic sleeves on the printables so they could reuse them. I had dry erase markers, pencil colors, and pencils in zipper pouches in the binders. The only thing I forgot was something to use to erase the dry erase markers. I was pretty impressed with myself, the boys seemed excited about their binders. On another site that had links for ideas including the MomsMinivan, they mentioned using the Crayola wipeable crayons because the won’t stain clothes and seats; but I did not use these. I was afraid of them being left in a hot car and melting. So, I went with the erasable markers and hoped that the Magic Eraser could work its magic on them if the kids got it on the seats.
They were worth all the work to get them together (okay so putting them together wasn’t that bad). The boys didn’t even let us get out of the driveway before they were wanting to pull them out. We had them wait till after they ate their “second breakfast”. They also had to put in a movie, their norm for a road trip. They didn’t seem to be watching the movie so I had them turn it off. We then found out Makaela was. But Caleb and Ian gave her toys from their bags and she was fine.
The battleship game I printed off MomsMinivan may have been a little too hard for Noah and Caleb. It took them a while and I had to do a lot of explaining. We should have played it at home first. It was really funny hearing Ian and Noah playing the Scavenger Hunt game. Noah was going off of memory, if he had seen a gas station before, he would mark it off. Ian was trying to find the things one at a time. It lasted for a while. Eli seemed to loose his colors and pencils. His seat isn’t very binder friendly. Also he had some trouble zipping and unzipping the pencil pouch. Caleb was my one kid that got marker on the seat. I don’t know how he did it, but he got it on the seat, side of the car, and Makaela’s car seat. The Magic Eraser saved the day when we got home. I got all the marks off the car, just need to wash Makaela’s car seat cover to see if the mark comes out of that. Oh and they seemed to drop the lids to the markers, so we had dry erase markers go dry because they couldn’t find the lids.
I enjoyed the boys having the binders, because John and I got to listen to the radio. Most trips we listen to a movie, since we don’t have enough headsets to go around. I also thought it reminded me more of when I was a kid and we would travel. We had to entertain ourselves. The boys seemed to interact with each other more than a fight over what the next movie would be. The binders are a must do again!