Roadtrip, Days 5 and 6

Here's a question for anyone living in the Chicago area... "How do you afford it?" Seriously?! $16.00 to park the car for an hour and twenty minutes. If that doesn't lighten your wallet, try tossing all of your change to the toll booth as you zip back and forth across town.

Today was our Chicago day. Definitely not as easy a city to navigate as Salt Lake City. We finally found parking (at said outrageous prices) and got our bearings. We thought the kids would enjoy the Navy Pier. Within a few minutes of arriving, the rain came. (That's four out of six vacation days with significant rain!) Tried to stay dry by ducking into some of the overpriced tourist attractions but after $40.00 for ten minutes of the Fun House Maze we decided to outrun the raindrops back to the overpriced parking.

Couldn't leave Chicago without the memory of Chicago style pizza. Lou Malnati's came up on our Google search for best city pizza. Oh man, were they right!

If the high prices don't break you, trying sitting in Chicago traffic for a couple of hours. It took us 60 minutes just to go 15 miles. This time the kids got to feel my pain as there were no trees available for 'watering' when the call of nature came.

We are now headed for a day of memories in my old stomping ground of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Kids are rolling their eyes. Guess they're tired of hearing me relive my yesteryears. Can't wait to see if anything lives up to my sixteen year old memories.

Road Trip, Days 3-4

Lessons learned in the last four days...

Lesson 1: Days go by even faster when you are relaxed and enjoying them. We were sure that eight vacation days would give us plenty of time to see the sights... we're running fast and hard, and skipping half of our to-do list.

Lesson 2: Don't assume that because it's a popular national historic site that it will stay open late. We took a two-hour detour just to see Abraham Lincoln's hometown of Springfield. We arrived just as the park was closing.

Lesson 3: Don't trust 'Never Lost' GPS services to never get lost. Have back-up paper maps!

Lesson 4: Kids that are loud and obnoxious at home are going to be even louder and more obnoxious on vacation.

Lesson 5: Put _____ (fill in the blank with any of our kids) in a padded room and he'll still find a way to get hurt.

Every once in a while we like to poll the family to determine individual preferences. Here's the current list of vacation favorites:

Trent - Nauvoo Pageant (it really was spectacular!)
Davis - Coach House Restaurant (loved the candlelight dinner...and the shrimp!)
Kevin - Nauvoo Temple (made three visits)
Lauri - Land and Records Office (found the records for several ancestors' properties in the Nauvoo area)
Colton - No specific site or activity. His favorite memory is the number of times his mother swore over the course of the vacation. Sad, but true... remember lesson 4? That's my only defense.

Gratefully, most of the memories are happy, and the rest of them are the stories that we'll enjoy telling for years to come!

Food for Thought

This packrat has learned that what the next generation will value most is not what we owned by the evidence of who we were and the tales of how we loved. In the end, it’s the family stories that are worth the storage. ~ Ellen Goodman (1948 - )

Memory Monday

Here's a fun idea that has made the rounds through different blog sites. It's EASY, so of course, we had to share it!

This interview can be done with a son or daughter, grandchild, nephew or niece or any little friend. Be sure to record the answers and the interview date. Throw in a picture (or two) of the two of you and you have another priceless memory preserved!

**So you know... the sites where we found this idea posted had the cute comments of family members for each question. My boys just aren't at the cute stage... we think 'surly' is a better description. We don't want to taint your perception of the activity, so we'll leave our kids comments out!

What does mama (or nana, papa...) always say to you?**

What makes mama happy?**

What makes mama sad?**

How does mama make you laugh?**

What was mama like when she was little?**

How old is mama?**

How tall is mama?**

What does mama like to do?**

What is something mama doesn't like to do?**

What does mama do for a job?**

What is mama's favorite food?**

What is mama's favorite color?**

What do mama and (child's name) like to do together?**

How do you know mama loves you?**

Road Trip, Days 1-2

We're on the road and makin' memories. The two hour plane trip was palatable; no delays, no screaming babies, no lost luggage. The kids seemed a little surprised that we didn't spring for a Hummer, but they willingly crammed into our midsized rental for a whirlwind tour through the mid-western states of Kansas, Missouri, Illinois and Wisconsin.

We've hit most of the local sights. Some were more interesting than others. We couldn't believe that the kids were more interested in the local wildlife (mainly frogs, hundreds of them) than the history of the area. OK, maybe we could believe that. We have learned why it's important not to drink large amounts of liquid beverage when traveling through unfamiliar territory. Especially, areas lacking the convenience of fast food pit stops, or even old, decrepit gas stations. (Not so important a lesson for boys who are willing to pee anywhere as it was for their mother with standards to uphold!) The landscape is amazingly different from our desert scenery. Tonight we learned why everything is so green. Twice we were detoured off the freeway due to local flooding. Not a worry. We're equipped with GPS and old-fashioned paper maps. We became pretty handy at negotiating the country back roads. About two hours from the day's final destination, the sky turned ominous and the radio warned us of impending hail and high winds. The Weather Channel indicated that we should take shelter immediately. We quickly calculated that we might make the next big town...if we hurried. We had already missed lunch and didn't want to miss dinner, so we hightailed it to the Coach House Restaurant in Quincy as the raindrops fell in earnest. Just as our dinner was served, the storm hit in all its furry. The storm was everything predicted, and then some. Emergency vehicles wailed outside. The winds howled and the rain pounded all around us. The lightening was intense and caused all of us to jump on more than one occasion. Within a few minutes the power was cut off and we spent the next 40 minutes enjoying our delicious dinner by candlelight. Once it was deemed safe, we headed back out in the storm to complete the day's journey. Hopefully, the rest of the trip will be less adventurous!

Here's a fun game that we called "And Then There was One." As we traveled down dirt roads, dozens of grasshoppers jumped onto the car for the ride of their lives. We cheered loudly as they were able to hang on. We cheered even louder as they lost their grip, one by one! Cheap and easy entertainment, who doesn't love that?!

Road Trip!

Why is it so much work to go on vacation? I get tired just thinking about everything that still needs to get done just so I can cram into a hot, stinky (I have ALL boys) car and spend the next seven days pacifying, entertaining and even threatening the kids into getting along. It's not so different from the road trips of my youth. We had a green station wagon, I think we called it "The Jolly Green Giant". Seat belts were optional, and we spent most of the trip flipping back and forth between seats. Pit stops were always minimal. Mom dutifully doled out boiled eggs, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and the fruit of the day. We played a lot of car games like "I Spy" and "State Plates". CB's were big back then and we loved to strike up conversations with anyone willing. My 'handle' was Chatterbox. Need I say more?

I imagine that my mom worked every bit as hard to get us out the door, harder given the fact that we ate our meals in the car and camped along the way. Things are looking pretty blurry right now, but I plan to come back with a thousand new family memories (most of them happy) that we'll be talking about for years to come!

Canvas Family Tree

Poking around on the web uncovered this beautiful family tree. It really doesn't seem too complicated and the end result produces a great visual of family names connected through the branches of the tree. The contributor is obviously a talented artist, but I think it would be equally eye-catching to let your kids design the background and add the leaves to their masterpiece!