Traveling...

Okay...I'm just gonna go ahead and throw this out there...

I'm a good mother.  My kids are lucky to have me.  Now...maybe that sounds weird, but honestly, if I don't say it, who's going to?  We all deserve a pat on the back occasionally and this time I'm just gonna go right ahead and give myself that pat.

(If I'm being completely honest, most days I feel like my kids are really awesome in spite of me, definitely not because of me...but every once in awhile I have one of those proud moments when I think I've actually done something great and I feel like it's important to point out those rare occasions.)

So let's back up a bit.  The back story here is that my husband is completely AGAINST watching TV in the car.  Ever since the invention on the car TV (whatever you call them) he has firmly said absolutely no TV watching for us in the car.  If we're traveling, he wants kids talking to each other and us, enjoying scenery, etc.  He's for anything that involves family interaction and against anything that involves everyone plugging into electronic devices and tuning out the rest of the family.  At first I was sort of annoyed, because...let's be honest...how many little kids enjoy scenery?  I heard a lot of "he's touching me", "he's putting his feet on my side", "are we there yet"...your typical fun family travel dialogue.

So fast forward several years, and I will send kudos to him because he was RIGHT to insist that we never plug in to the car TV craze.  I still remember hearing Savannah talk about how she loved to watch the beautiful landscape go by and I suddenly realized that, even though I didn't think they were, they actually were enjoying the scenery...or at least noticing it.

Now fast forward even more to the present.  Everyone has phones and i-pods and even without the TV they are starting to tune us out.  So it was time to get creative.  I went looking for some ideas for games to play with teenagers in the car (it's amazing how many games there are for little kids and how few for older kids and adults) and I came up with something.  And last year when we went on vacation, these "game bags" were born:

No one knew about these until the morning we left.  The folders were full of games and the bags had treats, a drink, a dry erase marker, a pen and pencil, and some handi-wipes.  I had a big bag of prizes for the winners (and none of this sissy everyone-gets-a-prize business...we're talking serious prizes for winners and nothing for losers...I don't believe in that whole participation trophy stuff).

These bags were such a HIT!  The kids loved them.  I had put together a Disneyland Trivia game that kept them all going through the entire trip (they were looking for answers through the whole park--we heard them trying to count all the animatronics on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride every time we went through--breaking down who would count birds, who would count pirates, and who would count animals).  There was also a Disney Characters and Movies trivia game, a Disneyland word search and a crossword puzzle.

I also found some great travel games online that I printed and laminated. (From other people's creative juices--I didn't make these myself, so I have to give credit where credit is due)

There was a State License plate game, which required finding as many license plates from different states as possible (believe it or not, a couple of kids found every single state, including Hawaii and Alaska...didn't think it was possible).

The Slug Bug game--which did NOT allow slugging.  The first person to see the color and call it out "got" it and no one else could count that car.  (Winner was the person with the most by the time we got there)

Road Trip Bingo was fun and we played that one over and over.  I really needed a small bag of candy for prizes for that one because everyone was getting bingo so fast.

The little cards in the corner were for a scavenger hunt looking for different makes of cars.  Each person had six different cards.  Dylan got mad when he heard Patrick say that they don't make Saturn anymore so he figured he couldn't win...but when we played for a second time coming into California, we switched packs and Colby had the Saturn....and suddenly there were about a dozen of them all over the place.  That one was fun but hard.

These kept everyone talking and laughing and interacting throughout the entire trip.  It was great!  The kids loved it so much that now that we are getting ready to go on vacation again, they have asked me multiple times if we're going to have game bags for this trip.  Everyone thought it helped the time pass fast and it really did.  Savannah took it very seriously and won multiple prizes.

So today I put their bags together again and they are ready to go.

These are the things I put in this time.  As of right now there are no trivia games, but they said they could easily do them again because they don't remember any of it.  Haven't decided yet whether or not to add them.  My sister and I made a new game they don't know about yet--a scavenger hunt all in a huge list with things like "a herd of cows all laying down", "a billboard advertising home cooking", "a tanker truck hauling milk", and "an alpaca".  It's going to be hard but awesome!

I also made them something like this:

I didn't take pictures of mine, but this is the general idea.  I used hand towels so they are larger with more pockets for all their bathroom goodies and I made each of them their own. (Sorry, but everyone's toothbrush rolled up in a towel together kind of grosses me out a little.)  They keep everything dry and when we came home they went in the washer like magic.  These little towels have been used for camps and all other kinds of trips so they were a great time investment for me (and much better than throwing stuff in a plastic bag.)

For anyone that might be interested, here are some links to find these great ideas:

I got my idea for the travel bag here as well as the slug bug game that I printed.  Her ideas are great but mostly for young children.

The Road Trip Bingo and Scavenger Hunt cards came from here and are easy to print.  Her ideas were for a date...pretty ingenious!

The License Plate game can be found all over but I got it from here and these ladies have a bunch of great road trip ideas...also meant for dates but would be great for families too.

So today I'm having one of those "I'm a good mother" kind of days...feeling a little proud of myself.  I'm sure I'll do something tomorrow to screw it all up, but I'll enjoy the feeling for now.