03.17.08
Posted in Family, Travel at 8:44 am by Christina
Jamie and I are recently returned from New York and the funeral of my grandfather, Raymond Pisani. He was in his nineties and had been declining for several months, presumably from advanced bladder cancer for which the family had decided to cease regular treatments. Pepa had been progressively senile and the treatments were extremely difficult for him starting about a year ago.
Jamie and I traveled east with the generous company of my brother and nephew, who both flew into Oakland rather than heading due east; this was a big deal especially for my brother, because he could have gone direct from LA and conserved more than a day of personal time. We so appreciated their company and assistance! We no doubt could have managed the trip, but it would have meant violating my minimum food and entertainment requirements for a 6+ hour trip with a toddler…
We spent 2.5 days with my extended Pisani family honoring my grandfather’s life. After Tuesday’s full travel day, Wednesday was spent visiting, both at Grandma’s apartment and at the funeral home. Thursday we attended the church and cemetery services, as well as a family luncheon after those. Thursday evening we looked through many old family photographs: Pepa’s parents and his youth; a special journal of pictures sent to him from the U.S., mostly from Grandma, while he was stationed in the Pacific (as an Army dentist) during WW2; and snaps of him as a father after the war.
There were military honors at the cemetery, and I asked my father afterwards if Pepa would have appreciated so much emphasis on his army service. I was under the impression that he really didn’t enjoy that era of his life, because he lost a dear brother in Europe (without getting to say goodbye due to an unexpected deployment followed by the death soon after; there probably wasn’t even time for letters to be sent) and also didn’t meet his oldest child for almost two years. Although his parents had emigrated from Italy and others made trips there to meet relatives and visit the ancestral soil, he always refused to leave the United States because of what had happened the first and only time he ever did so, during the war. However, I learned from my dad that quite to the contrary, despite the obvious tragic aspects of the war, my grandfather was otherwise quite happy with military service. He wanted to remain in the army as a career officer after the war, but my grandmother didn’t like the frequent relocations. He served in the reserves for about twenty more years, enjoying his two-week stints each summer and retiring as (I believe) a lieutenant colonel. He even tried to reenlist for the Korean War, but was “too old” at that point. My dad said that the regimentation and order were most appealing to him, the chain of command, as well as the fact that he could enjoy his dentistry without being in private practice. Pepa was a very meek personality and although he was a successful dentist from the moment he graduated at the top of class, the management aspects of private practice (getting people to pay you what you asked and so forth) were incredibly stressful for him.
You learn something every day!
Jamie was a trooper on this trip, enduring four straight days of extreme management of his time and energy. Despite, or perhaps as a result of, being used to much freedom, he was able to cooperate with the many strictures on him as a result of planes, trains and automobiles, funeral homes, churches and restaurants. Not to mention not-toddler-proof hotel rooms and apartments, and time zone changes. I won’t overdo the modesty; much of our success arose from my own skills, developed over twelve years of traveling with my kids, resulting in choices on my part such as the original asking for traveling companions both for transport and lodging, and continuing through such actions as encouraging quiet sticker play in the back of the church and so on.
I am very glad I made the trip. I don’t know that I needed it so much for personal closure; but I would have missed out on the shared reminiscing that was so wonderful, and I know the support to those who are feeling his loss more keenly than I was greatly appreciated.
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06.27.07
Posted in Family, Holidays, Outings, Travel, Work at 4:12 pm by Christina
Jeff has finished up a big push through April and May and June that is finally over this week. We had hoped actually to go away for a few days of vacationing, but eventually decided that would be impractical given other constraints and obligations. So we decided that we would vacation from home, which gives us a lot of the pleasures of vacationing, but still our own beds and pillows and none of the hassles of a large vacation prep.
We decided that we would have an activity day followed by a rest-at-home day, with a lot of time spent together as a family even on the at-home days. On Monday we did our outing to the county fair which I’ve blogged here and here. Tuesday we took Cissa to the airport, caught up on a few chores around the house, and worked on getting the new bookshelfs braced (for earthquake safety). We got about two-thirds done and finished up today, Wednesday. First on Wednesday, though, we went to the Oakland Zoo and stayed about four hours, letting Jamie walk through a lot of it (although his favorite parts were the dirt and the pebbles and not any of the animals). I’ll post a few pictures of that once I get them off of my camera.
Katie would like to go on a nature hike; we will likely go to Garin Regional Park in Hayward, which has a creek, but I’ll research a bit to confirm a location with water as that’s important to her. (It could be a hunt; the bay area is very dry and we are seeing daily wildfires out our back windows turning many acres black.) Jeff would like to spend a day at the beach; we’ll need to decide which of the many great Pacific beaches to enjoy. I think I would like to do a bike ride. We’re also talking about seeing a baseball game.
Now that the bookshelves are braced I am going to set up our Library Thing account and we’ll start cataloguing the books and emptying boxes. That is going to be exciting; I got us some custom stamps to label the books once we’ve input them and the girls are looking forward to turning the process into a bit of a game.
It’s wonderful to have Jeff mostly off from work (he’s still participating in a few regular status calls and the like); he’s been working really hard! Still, it seems to be paying off with repeat clients; Genentech just contacted him today to negotiate for a new project.
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06.23.07
Posted in Household, Kids, Music, Travel at 10:37 pm by Christina
We picked Katie up from her music sleep-away camp today, enjoying a wonderful concert in the process as the kids performed the culmination of their music work-play of the week. Katie was thrilled to see us, and had a terrific time there. She made friends easily, made music in an orchestra about ten times the size of her homeschool one, slept out under the stars every night… The food seemed to be consistently “gross” by her estimation but she apparently ate it. (It was prepared by the counseling staff; I don’t know if there was a kitchen supervisor or not…) She definitely wants to return next year; whether it will be the one-week or two-week program will be determined at a later date. Emma is hoping she’ll get to go next year as well! The location was gorgeous, along a creek and surrounded by coniferous forest, and the facilities looked nice too. The camp actually offers a “family camp” program, a four- or five-day weekend affair, near the end of the summer. Had I known about it earlier I might have arranged for us all to go and make music together!
We are together now to celebrate Emma’s 8th birthday tomorrow. My mother is back (having needed to return to Spokane for a couple of nights to deal with a flooded basement) and my brother arrived this morning as well to celebrate with us; we always love seeing them both. The girls are actually sharing a birthday party tomorrow at the pool; they shared a significant present in January around Katie’s birthday when they traveled to Spokane for the U.S. figure skating championships, and we decided not to have a non-family party for Katie at the time. I’ve got two cakes going in the oven, and a decorating theme all picked out as well based on their family nicknames. It will be a busy day tomorrow as I’ve warm-ups and auditions in the late morning (last day, thank goodness!), and I’m really glad the party is not here at the house…
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06.17.07
Posted in Homeschooling, Household, Kids, Life in general, Music, Travel at 10:21 am by Christina
This has been an incredibly busy stretch for us and the most recent “big push” is just about over:
- I have been rehearsing like crazy for ensemble auditions for my chorus; six of them are done now and just two left next Sunday.
- The girls have been in their final push at chorus, which culminated with two concerts this week: Friday’s lunchtime community concert at Stanford Hospital, and Saturday’s evening performance for friends and family.
- Jeff left at the crack of dawn today (happy Father’s Day!) for the Drug Information Association trade show in Atlanta. He is going as a techical consultant for the company that bought the Ninaza technology he developed. Even so, it’s a great opportunity for him to network the new consulting business; the last week has therefore been filled with preparatory work on that front (business cards, website, plus work with a friend who is a professional coach) on top of the regular work.
- Katie leaves for her first sleep-away camp at the crack of dawn tomorrow. She’s going to a music camp north of San Francisco, and she is beyond excited about it. As soon as she came downstairs this morning she wanted me to help her organize her packing list so she could get started. Her excitement is pretty contagious; still, I’m apprehensive that she will experience an anxiety attack tonight, or worse, tomorrow morning en route to or at the camp bus in Berkeley. I’ve been doing my best to be proactive on this front, initiating numerous discussions over the last few weeks to get her feelings and thoughts out in the open; maybe that approach will end up being successful and my apprehension will be all for naught!
- Emma also starts camp tomorrow; hers is a science day camp at a local park on the topic “Gizmos and Gadgets”. She’s excited to do that, make some new friends, and also use her new lunchbox and backpack. (We lost her backpack in the move, and I’d managed to consistently use her matching lunchbox as Jamie’s milk cooler, which made it a bit smelly from leaks and so forth. We got her a new light blue with pandas set from L.L. Bean; about three days after it came, the old backpack turned up…)
Is there more? Of course!
- Our new maple bookshelves came this week. Jeff and I had hoped to get more done on that front, but the business responsibilities took precedence. All six shelves (three paperback, three regular) are still in their packaging in the front room. I ordered a custom stamp from VistaPrint.com for the Sonas Family Library, which we’ll use to stamp the books as we catalogue them at LibraryThing.com. Once Jeff is back from DIA he is trying to schedule a week of minimal business tasks and we’ll work on this project as a family then.
- The kids and I made a fun trip to IKEA on Monday while Jeff was at a business meeting nearby. Our goal? Gorm shelves for the homeschool room. We used the previous version of these shelves in our kitchen and garage at the old house (left those there) and we also used the big drawer units in the playroom for stuffies, dolls and pillows (we brought these along with us). Those were all the 20″ deep units; for the study we bought 12′ by 6′ of the 12″ deep shelves to hold all the homeschooling and arts/crafts supplies. I think I’ll be able to organize things more by topic than they have been. For example, a geography shelf that has the globe, atlases and other geography books. This is my project to work on this week during camp time. (We also had a bonus find at IKEA of collapsible trunks for the girls. They are part of this line but really look like a trunk, with a velcro padlock and everything! These were a great find for the girls, who began unpacking their Hogwarts cardboard-box-trunks as soon as we got home. The new trunks are constructed with a zip-out bottom, so they are fully collapsible for storage. They’ll definitely see a lot of use here!)
I would have a hard time tackling this level of stuff with Jeff gone, but my parents came down yesterday for the choir concert and my mother is staying the week. (Next weekend are Katie’s camp concert, the girls’ joint birthday party, and Emma’s actual birthday.) I talked with her about my hopes for productivity, and we decided that we would use the hours Emma is at camp (930-230 after the driving) for me to work on the homeschooling project. After we get Emma home from camp, we’ll do more “together” kinds of things. Hopefully that pattern will work; we need to see what Emma’s energy level is like in the late afternoons. If she’s too wiped, Mom and I may change our approach to do more active stuff during the camp hours (walks, bike rides, park outings with Jamie) and I’ll do the shelving in the afternoons. And even though Mom will be getting plenty of time with Jamie, I’ll almost certainly still do naptimes; I’ve always found that the key to getting good stretches of time away from the kids is to make sure they are tanked up with connection at other times!
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05.20.07
Posted in Homeschooling, Household, Kids, Parenting, Travel at 11:52 pm by Christina
Katie (11) and Emma (7) left yesterday to spend the week in Spokane with their grandparents (my parents). [Sidebar: also traveling as an "unaccompanied minor" with them was a 10yo girl returning home to the Spokane area from her grandparents in San Jose - and she was also a homeschooler! Not too big a surprise when I think of it, because of course non-homeschoolers are in school right now...]
Today, therefore, it was just myself, Jeff and Jamie in the house. We got up at 7:30 and moved into the daytime routines – but amazingly, every time we looked at the clock it was incredibly early! At 9:30 I had already cycled two loads of laundry, done the dishwasher, eaten, and done my morning computer stuff, plus all of Jamie’s morning needs and activities, and I had already moved onto a large household project! All told, today I did six loads of laundry (swim and bath towels needed doing, plus diapers and diaper covers in addition to clothing), emptied/loaded/emptied the dishwasher, straightened the kitchen and living room, vacuumed and swept, went to the library, did a juice fast grocery trip, spent two hours on a moving boxes project, read an Agatha Christie book, cooked dinner, cleaned my desk, and paid bills. I also spent a lot more “on” time with Jamie (presumably meeting needs that the girls generally fill with their active or passive presence).
I have to say that I consider Katie and Emma to be very self-sufficient. They take care of their own breakfasts and lunches, they do a significant amount of housework (maybe 1hr each day), they play with or supervise Jamie at key times of the day, and so on. Katie does much of her academics independently as well. And yet it was very clear today that the work of parenting (and in our family, the work of homeschooling) takes up a large amount of time and energy each day. To experience the difference was impressive!
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03.06.07
Posted in Travel at 6:54 pm by Christina
We just returned last night from two weeks traveling to Keystone, Colorado for the annual Pisani (my family) ski trip. Having bought a minivan at Thanksgiving, we are enjoying the expanded space for the five of us to hit the road together. This trip, we didn’t have the time, or the laptop (continuing saga with Jeff’s consulting laptop and HP/Compaq since early December), to make any side trips, so we jumped right on I-80, turned south/southeast at Salt Lake City, and joined I-70 to Keystone.
We have a lot of fun in the car. Katie and Emma, although interestingly choosing to be in different rows of the van, play with their dollhouse people, felt boards, and share the iPod through a splitter to listen to audiobooks and music. Jamie generally gives us an hour and a half of content awakeness at a stretch, spending that time working his way through the basket of toys and books at his feet, as well as snacks and water doled out from the front seat. After breakfast at a restaurant, we would climb in the car for that hour and a half, then stop for a bathroom and diaper break. Back in the car again, Jamie would have a bottle and some music to fall asleep, sleeping for an hour and a half or more. We’d usually pick up some fast food for lunch (absolutely the worst part of a road trip; one of these times I’ll be on the ball more and pack picnic food!) and eat while driving, then take a stop at a park along the way for 30-45 minutes of obstacle coursing and leg stretching for all of us. Then we’d get another hour and a half out of Jamie before stopping for the night. That all adds up to about eight hours from our departure after breakfast until our stop for the night, with about 6+ hours of actual mileage.
On the way east, we left in the late afternoon because of the girls’ Wednesday music classes. We put in 3.5 hours to Fernley, Nevada, a bit past Reno. Thursday we crossed to the other side of Nevada, to Wendover (or West Wendover) right on the border. We ate dinner and breakfast at the Rainbow Casino and had interesting talks with the girls about gambling and casino architecture (motivated by the fact that we couldn’t find our way in or out very easily!). The buffet food was good and offered variety for all of us.
Friday we crossed Utah completely. A bit south of Provo we had to make a decision about whether to stay on the interstate or take a road to the southeast that cut 60 or 140 miles off of our trip (there was a second non-interstate option further along). It was cold and cloudy with some precipitation, but with an emergency shovel and window brush (which we forgot at home and replaced in Provo) we decided all systems were “go”. (As with our holiday trip, we had plenty of food, water and warmth along with us for an emergency as well, and we always gas up before heading into potentially difficult driving conditions.) So from Provo we headed to Price and Green River, Utah. We hit some “slow down!” conditions in the pass through the Wasatch Mountains to Price, with low visibility and covered roads, but never felt like we’d made the wrong choice; it just never got that bad. We made it to Grand Junction, Colorado and then from there had a fourth, short day of travel over to Keystone where the rest of the crew met us in their cars out of Denver.
Neither Jeff nor I was fit enough this year to join the kids on the slopes (although that is the goal for next year); we’ve let exercise and our nutrition lapse terribly and have some serious ground to make up. The girls’ cousins were along this year though for the first time and they took snowboard school while the girls did ski school. (These are not actually cousins, but the half-brothers of my brother’s son. Grandma Cissa was concerned about being the only adult skier this year; her solution was to invite more kids along! but it worked out wonderfully.) Katie was in a place of low confidence compared to last year, with a lot of anxiety about getting back on the blue slopes, so she chose to fall back a level and she and Emma were in the same group every day, working on matching their skis to break through to parallel. (Parallel skiing is our goal for them; no one can force them to feel comfortable on steep or otherwise difficult terrain and we won’t make them go places that cross that line. The skills of skiing can easily be mastered on any kind of terrain; my mother and father ski the greens all the time and are accomplished skiers.)
We did our traditional sleigh ride dinner; Katie and I saw a fox and a hare/rabbit (from the bus and not the sleigh!), and Jamie did pretty well although rather bundled up and otherwise restricted by the adventure. The weather was very cold and windy snow the whole week, so besides the sleigh ride he only had fifteen or so minutes out in the elements, during which time he fell face first in the snow and didn’t want any more. I took care of the four kids in their ski school, supervising their morning preparations with some help from my mom, shuttling them over and getting them placed, picking them up in the afternoon. I had a few nice walks during that process, though the altitude was challening on the respiration (and on the singing, which was short of breath at naptime and bedtime for Jamie). Jeff went tubing with my dad, cousin and nephew and had fun doing that again. We all took turns with the cooking (and the menu planning, which was done ahead of time) and cleaning, and had our usual complement of gaming in the evenings. We played a fun game called “Time’s Up!” which I’ll review separately, along with Scrooge (competitive solitaire), spoons, Scrabble, Blokus, and auction 45s.
The lodging was challening with Jamie; it always makes me want to manage vacation homes that are truly “family friendly”, or perhaps it would just be “toddler friendly”, without all the folderol of decorative flowers, candles, artwork, etc. We arrived first and stripped away all the dangerous stuff to closets; we had to keep a heavy sideboard in front of the stairs down from the living area; we brought our own outlet covers but could have used some cabinet latches; and we had to pay enough rent for a high chair and rocking chair that we could have bought new ones for the price! (Don’t tell my dad though…) Still, the together time makes it all worth it and we are so thankful that my parents are so generous as to fund the trip for us every year (and for the extended family every other year).
We had originally planned to do four days back, in the 3/6/6/3 pattern that we’d taken on the way out; that would have put us back Tuesday (today), with me having a double ensemble rehearsal tonight, and the regular early Wednesday tomorrow. So we researched from Keystone and found accomodations to do three six-hour days instead. Returning, we stayed in Provo/Orem right across from the Brigham Young University stadium, and in Battle Mountain, Nevada, which was in the middle of nowhere (”base camp to the Nevada outback” was the advertisement on the billboards…). We were actually excited about being in the middle of nowhere because the girls have been studying astronomy with Jeff, and all were wanting to see the night sky without the light pollution of our metropolitan area. Alas, the night was overcast and we’ll have to try again on a camping trip later this year. From Battle Mountain we pushed on to home last night; it was definitely the hardest day on the road, between the bright snow coming through the Sierra Nevadas for me the driver, and the kids running out of patience a bit before we got home (the girls were actually physically violent with each other, which is unheard of at this point!).
Emptying out the car last night I had a flare of pain in my left hip/buttock, which does not feel muscular at all and so I guess counts as sciatica (which is a collection of symptoms rather than a causal diagnosis); it’s been very painful for me to move around today, although walking itself isn’t so bad and so I’ve been trying to do that. I guess something about my driving position yesterday was not good. Even with that, we managed to get almost totally unpacked and put away this morning, with me sorting and directing from a throne on the couch while others did the legwork.
We really do enjoy traveling as a family; one of the things Jeff and I did on the road was to talk about future plans in that department. I’d like to start visiting the national parks; Jeff enjoyed quizzing me through the U.S. road atlas about what parks there were in each state (there are about fifty, with only around a dozen east of the Dakotas). We’re hoping to save for a whole month’s rental in Hawaii next year, with Jeff working while we’re there. We’re likely heading east again this fall, to New York for family events (my side). We’re going to do a week’s camping this spring and hopefully another one this fall. Mostly we need Jeff’s laptop saga to end so that we’re actually traveling with a laptop for him (mine doesn’t have the power or the software) and not a tower, a monitor and a bag of peripherals…
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01.04.07
Posted in Kids, Life in general, Travel at 12:19 am by Christina
2007 is upon us – it doesn’t seem like it should be already though… Our 2006 was incredibly packed with many medical appointments for Jamie’s nursing dysfunction, more pumping than I can count, selling a house, moving… We are hoping to achieve a higher level of peace and tranquility in 2007!
We are back from the holidays in Washington State. This year we hit the road, having bought a new minivan with some of the proceeds from our house sale. We bought a large cargo box for the roof and we used pretty much every square inch of both it and the car. This was complicated by needing to bring along Jeff’s computers (two towers, a monitor and peripherals) because his business laptop was delayed more than a week, past our departure date, and those took up most of a seat. We added the laptop shipment on the way back, which we had rerouted to Spokane. Travelling in the winter means lots of bulk in terms of parkas, snowpants, etc., plus being on the road meant we added in a couple of sleeping bags, blankets and pillows for the kids, two cases of water, two bags of groceries, and a cooler bag for a week’s supply of milk for Jamie. Cloth diapers for our eight days in Spokane, all the gifts, and a generous stock of car entertainment for all three kids…
The travel was fun, though. We left very late in the day and broke our travel in Redding/Red Bluff, CA and Vancouver, WA in both directions. Our first destination was Issaquah (Seattle) where we met up with Jeff’s parents at his sister’s home. Our departure north was delayed by an health insurance snafu; Jeff’s old company went bankrupt just when we left, and although we had been seeing that train coming down the tracks for quite a while, it never connected for either of us that when it finally happened we would lose our health insurance! So we had to move quickly over Friday and Monday to get both a short term and long term policy in place. As a result we didn’t arrive in Seattle until Thursday afternoon, and so we only got a short 48 hours with Jeff’s family.
We saw Bodies: The Exhibition in Seattle, and it was spectacular. I wanted to see a larynx in particular, being a dedicated singer. Katie became an expert at kidney spotting, and we all agreed that one of the most spectacular exhibits was a mirror-image pose of a man: one side was the entire skeleton, reassembled with glue or whatnot, and the other side was all the other parts of the body, reassembled with steel bars, etc. They had a fetal development room which was impressive; I think of the larger presentations, I liked the circulation and nervous system rooms best. More information here: Bodies The Exhibition.
My sister-in-law’s family had experienced almost three days without power the weekend before we got there due to the windstorm that affected much of the area. Regardless, we all had a fun time visiting and celebrating a pre-holiday with Jeff’s side of the family. The girls got some fun things they’d been wanting; my MIL quilted Emma a nine-block “doll bed” quilt, complete with little rag dolls for each bed, and Katie got a dictionary and writing materials so that she could play the Dictionary game, a fun game we enjoy playing with them.
We had my brother shuttled in from Sea-Tac on the 23rd (he got the best fare that way) and we immediately made for Spokane, as the weather was reported to be gathering for trouble on the roads. We installed our chains to go over Snoqualamie Pass, as we have very little snow driving experience and that’s what was recommended, but I didn’t find the roads to warrant them. It was nice to have practiced with my FIL in the driveway in Issaquah though! We made it to Spokane without incident in time for a nice macaroni and cheese dinner. For what was probably the first time, we were the last contingent to arrive, although I anticipate that will continue as we continue to make the drive rather than fly…
Also for the first time, I had to do some shopping on the 24th as by total coincidence my SIL’s family had given Emma what was our primary gift, a lap loom. Boy is that hectic! I’m glad I almost never have to do it… My cousins are always shopping that day; being at home means we get our wrapping done during the day, having first dibs on the fabric gift bags we made, and being able to help more in the kitchen and relaxing in the evening…
Jeff and I both got our top items – Star Trek Deep Space Nine DVDs for him (he got the entire set!) and I got a three-month cello rental so I can see if I’d like to pursue that. (I already play the violin, but with the girls doing violin as well I’m interested in adding cello to the mix.) I also got some homeschooling books that I felt warranted ownership rather than library access, and we all got new fiction to read, too.
Somehow, I’m always happier when Christmas Day and all the gifting is over, a bit because there are so many of us gathered there that it is a very long process even with restrained giving, but mostly because it means that we all shift from that part of the holiday into the being together, sharing good times part of the holiday. We always play games, with Scrooge (the group solitaire card game) being a mainstay and Scrabble as well for quieter times. This year we got Snorta which was an excellent multi-age game, and my brother was incredibly creative with his gifts – he did a bunch of research and tracked down excellent games from ages past, like PIT, Blockhead, Go to the Head of the Class, etc. and bought them on eBay as his gifts to the family. That was fun! We also played Encore! which is one of my favorite games, a two-team singing competition where you go back and forth singing songs around a common word or theme until one team can’t find another one.
Most of the family departed on the 29th, leaving us with my parents for a couple of days. We have always stayed through New Year’s before, doing the First Night celebrations downtown as well as traditions of our own – NYE dinner at Luigi’s, crab legs on NY Day, etc. We shifted what we could to the 30th, including playing Mystery of the Abbey which is a more complex Clue style game that all of us enjoy (from Emma at 7 on up). We needed to leave on the 31st to get home for rehearsals…
The drive home was uneventful. As soon as we got back and unloaded the car, I took it for a nice bath inside and out – boy was it filthy! But it was very comfortable and we never once felt anything was missing. We passed lots of cars along the way with the installed DVD systems playing away; the dealer certainly wanted us to buy that model, not that he was pushy after we declined. But we spent almost 40 hours in the car and didn’t once feel the need. The girls had plenty of books, music, they had their little dollhouse people, felt cutouts, drawing stuff… I guess if the kids are used to being plugged in to videos and games at home, that’s what they need on the road. Our kids are used to all that other stuff! Even Jamie, who is obviously too young for the girls’ entertainment, was able to go for a two-hour stretch with his favorite toys, like the lockbox, jack in the box, board books, etc. He would snack and have his bottle (this is really the biggest advantage of the bottle; breastfeeding requires stopping, and just as important, getting the baby out of the carseat which they then don’t want to get back into!). We drove nonstop through his naps, and found places to get out and let him run around (like a mall on the way up, a vacant parking lot on the way back). I’m looking forward to more travelling like this, not only our other trip to Spokane in July, but also to Colorado in February, and we’re trying to pick a location for some fun camping as well.
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