Michigan Trip Part One
We are coming to the end of our 2 and 1/2 week trip to visit family in Michigan, and we have seen and done so much!
Part One of this blogging series is dedicated to the drive from West Jordan, Utah to Mason, Michigan. The drive took us two days, with an overnight stay in York, Nebraska.
The first day we left at 6 AM, and arrived in York, Nebraska thirteen hours later. The second day we were planning to leave the motel at about 7-8 AM, but due to some baby's (ours) inability to stay asleep, we ended up leaving at 6 AM. We took a few more stops this day, and ran into some road construction, so it was about thirteen and 1/2 hours later that we arrived in Mason, Michigan.
My kids are such amazing little travelers. As long as they had something to keep them occupied they were good natured the whole drive. Unfortunately with attention spans of about 10 minutes, I was constantly digging through and rotating activities. It was only for a brief moment when both boys were sleeping that I got a chance to rest and listen to my ipod.
I had the car packed with toys, books, and activities (thanks to some friends and http://www.momsminivan.com/toddlers.html for suggestions).
Here's me about 1/2 way through the drive, when all the activity stuff had migrated back to me, and I was squashed between a car seat and the mound of toys and activities.
New this year was a laminated map I made showing our route.
There are two maps, one for each day of traveling. The stars on the map were the cities where the kids could open a "surprise bag". The surprise bags were basically manila envelopes with a dollar store toy or two thrown in, decorated with stickers and the name of the city on the outside. Albertsons was also clearancing out some kids books right before we left, so a couple of the surprise bags had some cool books in them. Out of all the things I did for the drive, this was the best thing. Instead of only having our end destination to look forward to, we would count down miles until our next surprise bag city. And at each surprise bag city they would get something new to play with.
Here are the kids playing with some surprise bag items:
We also used a washable marker to keep track of where we were on the map. The kids could see our progress and how close we were to the next surprise bag city.
Anytime the kids asked how close we were, I'd just pull out the map and show them. It was nice to have a answer to that question.
We also had the luxury of portable DVD players and laptops. (Thanks Mom and Dad for letting us borrow players and movies!) For about 5 minutes while my laptop battery had juice we had 3 movies going at once.
I'm totally bummed that we didn't have this technology when I was growing up!
The boys also enjoyed a little synchronized sleeping:
We stopped at a cool rest stop just outside Joliet, Illinois. It had a neat little playground attached to it.
The highlight of the drive was an overnight stay in York, Nebraska. I made sure to book a hotel that had a pool, and the Holiday Inn there didn't disappoint.
Part One of this blogging series is dedicated to the drive from West Jordan, Utah to Mason, Michigan. The drive took us two days, with an overnight stay in York, Nebraska.
The first day we left at 6 AM, and arrived in York, Nebraska thirteen hours later. The second day we were planning to leave the motel at about 7-8 AM, but due to some baby's (ours) inability to stay asleep, we ended up leaving at 6 AM. We took a few more stops this day, and ran into some road construction, so it was about thirteen and 1/2 hours later that we arrived in Mason, Michigan.
My kids are such amazing little travelers. As long as they had something to keep them occupied they were good natured the whole drive. Unfortunately with attention spans of about 10 minutes, I was constantly digging through and rotating activities. It was only for a brief moment when both boys were sleeping that I got a chance to rest and listen to my ipod.
I had the car packed with toys, books, and activities (thanks to some friends and http://www.momsminivan.com/toddlers.html for suggestions).
Here's me about 1/2 way through the drive, when all the activity stuff had migrated back to me, and I was squashed between a car seat and the mound of toys and activities.
New this year was a laminated map I made showing our route.
There are two maps, one for each day of traveling. The stars on the map were the cities where the kids could open a "surprise bag". The surprise bags were basically manila envelopes with a dollar store toy or two thrown in, decorated with stickers and the name of the city on the outside. Albertsons was also clearancing out some kids books right before we left, so a couple of the surprise bags had some cool books in them. Out of all the things I did for the drive, this was the best thing. Instead of only having our end destination to look forward to, we would count down miles until our next surprise bag city. And at each surprise bag city they would get something new to play with.
Here are the kids playing with some surprise bag items:
We also used a washable marker to keep track of where we were on the map. The kids could see our progress and how close we were to the next surprise bag city.
Anytime the kids asked how close we were, I'd just pull out the map and show them. It was nice to have a answer to that question.
We also had the luxury of portable DVD players and laptops. (Thanks Mom and Dad for letting us borrow players and movies!) For about 5 minutes while my laptop battery had juice we had 3 movies going at once.
I'm totally bummed that we didn't have this technology when I was growing up!
The boys also enjoyed a little synchronized sleeping:
We stopped at a cool rest stop just outside Joliet, Illinois. It had a neat little playground attached to it.
The highlight of the drive was an overnight stay in York, Nebraska. I made sure to book a hotel that had a pool, and the Holiday Inn there didn't disappoint.
This entry was posted
on Sunday, October 12, 2008 at 7:21 AM.
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Looks like you guys had fun! I love your map idea! That's a bummer that Alex got so sick. I hope he doesn't have a food allergy! That would be a total bummer!
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