within these walls: Man vs Nature Tour : Part 1 Driving

We decided to start our little adventure in a most relaxing way. You know, what could be more relaxing than spending 12 hours in a car with an energetic 3 year old

(I know, really, what were we thinking?)

and an equally as energetic 9 month old?

Were we of sound mind when we made such a decision? I guess we'll try anything once :) We have 2 very energetic girls but they are both really happy and pleasant...for the most part.

We made sure we had a few 100 tricks up our sleeves to help the process of driving 784 miles a little more enjoyable for all involved.

Because we aren't completely insane we didn't try to drive all the way there the first day. We stopped the ~~first night~~ the next morning at 1:30am in The Dalles, Oregon. Everly was the first one of our traveling team that threw up on this trip. We were trying to push through to Twin Falls, Idaho for our big 1 hour dinner stop. She threw up right before we made it to the stop. It really helped the aroma of the car, nothing smells as fresh as baby throw up that's ground into the straps of a car seat.

As a testament to how crazy Chris and I are(as if you need anymore written proof), we decided we really didn't want to make electronics a part of this road trip(with a few exceptions...go ahead read on). It's just a personal thing, we wanted to spend time together, enjoying the girlies and their silly personalities.

I prepared an over abundance of activities to keep the party going.

At work we use cookie sheets as magnetic boards. I stole that idea for the road trip. I got one at the dollar store and some magnetic numbers and magnet paper dolls (we had those already). She had so much fun playing with them

(I also used this wooden TV tray. It was the best thing we brought on the trip. It had little folding legs and sat perfectly in her lap)

I packed new coloring books, crayons, notebooks. I printed pictures off the internet, put them in page protectors and got some dry erase markers and let her scribble all over the pages. She did end up covered in marker. Due to the fact that she would forget to put the lids back on them and then she would sit on the marker, letting it soak through her pants and onto her leg. Oh yeah, and she did color on her arm. She said, "Look at the pretty trees!" The trees just happened to be drawn on her arm. It did look pretty cool. My little artist.

I put everything in a tote that I put on the seat next to her. It made everything nice and organized.
While Lil' Picasso played, Everly did a lot of this

When she wasn't sleeping, I had a lot of different toys for her so I could switch them out a lot. She loved the big Legos the best. I would stack them and she would unstack them one by one and throw them over her seat. I would stack them again and we would start all over again. I hung a cloth shoe organizer on the back of Chris's seat to keep all those toys, diapers and wipes organized and close by.

We definitely had a lot of snacks. I tried to go the healthier route. With Cheese, fruit, veggies, and almonds. But of course we brought some not so healthy ones too.

For Everly we got one of those mesh bag thingies that you can put fruit in, she could suck on it and get the juice without us having to worry about her choking

I also picked up a few little gifts for the girls at the dollar store and every so often would give them one to open.

The first little present I gave Nory was a pirate treasure map that I made. It had dots on all of the places we were stopping. I was surprised how much she liked it. She kept referring back to it and asking what dot we were at.

We did splurge and get her a little childproof camera so she could take pictures of our little trip by herself. Unbeknownst to us, it had games on it so we did let her play a few video games.

I guess I take back the electronic thing because at our dinner stop on the first day, the presents we gave Elanora and Everly were PJs and we had a redbox movie. We had a pajama party in the car. Nory was so excited to have a party in the car.

We played "I Spy", travel bingo, had an epic tea party that lasted for like 45 minutes and we used Everly's big Legos for binoculars. We would look out the window through them and I would point out dinosaurs, unicorns and all kinds of animals. Elanora with her perfect imagination would describe the animals she saw and all of the problems that we needed to help them with. She was a Dr. and fixed their hurt legs and bruised arms. She was also a super hero and pulled all those animal out of the mud. It was priceless.

I had some kids picture books that came with CDs I had been saving for something special and what could be more special than a road trip. This was one of Nora's favorite things. She listened to those CDs reading the books to her over and over, while I turned the pages. It was great.

It wasn't all roses. There were a few times we had to make unplanned stops to play on playgrounds because we had crying babies and sore bums.

Going there and coming home we stopped at a hotel at 1:30am. Both times when we got the girls out and into the hotel they were wide awake. Chris and I wanted to pass out from being so tired and they wanted to play. Silly baby girls