Car Crazy (pt.1)

Does sitting in a car for 6ish hours sound like fun to you? How about 12ish for the whole round trip?

No? Well, me either. But until our family is able to teleport ourselves wherever we want to go, driving it is.

My other "baby"

Because of our family size, traveling by car is the cheapest option for us. Even considering those crazy California gas prices!

In a week from Wednesday, our family is headed to Arizona to spend Thanksgiving with family and friends. I am so looking forward to spending  time with my family.

This year is our first time traveling with a potty trained 3 year old. Of course it is nice to not have to change diapers anymore, the bladder of a 3 year old is roughly the size of a pea. That means a lot of extra stops on the way.

Every trip is different but I have learned a lot in all of our travels. So I thought I would share some of the things I have learned.

Traveling covers a lot of areas, and so I am going to break this up into subjects (4 pt series)

**Entertainment:

With kids ranging from 13 --->3 we have a wide array of interests.

 *My 4 older kids all put their DS's/ipods on the chargers the day before we leave. Then they go into a ziplock bag with a charger and 2 games that they pick out. The end. No more than 2 or we spend half our time searching for lost games. Seriously, could DS games be any smaller?!

*We bought a power cord that can be plugged into the usb port in our car. We let the children take turns as needed.

* My youngest, basically gets the dvd player to himself, since the olders are busy with their games. However, I do try to pick movies that they ALL like, at least every once in a while.

* Every few hours, I make my kids take a break from their games. It isn't good for them to stare at those tiny screens for a long time...not to mention getting car sick and using up the battery.

* I have a really hard time reading in the car and not getting sick.  Some of my kids are ok with it and others aren't. So books are nice to have but some other ideas are:

** Etch a sketch , Magna Doodles, white boards w/ markers & erasers
** classic car games like: I Spy, License plate game, 20 questions etc

* While I only have Netflix online ( I don't get actual discs anymore) if you do, bring one of your Netflix movies with you for something new. Or...
**borrow from the library,
** borrow from a friend (maybe a swap!)
**stop at a thrift store and see what they have
** Both Target & Wal Mart have inexpensive movie sections ($5 & $7)
**Blockbuster often has dvds that are on sale for really cheap

*Gamestop has inexpensive games without cases. Or trade with friends.

New things can hold a childs attention for long periods of time. However, budgets don't always allow us to do it. Those darn budgets, I tell yah! So borrow from a friend, buy from a thrift store, take a trip to the library...

How do you keep your kids entertained in the car? Any good tricks up your sleeves?

(Look out for Car Crazy pt. 2 tomorrow when I talk about---FOOD!)