Suddenly, I’m realizing that there are just a few days left before we leave for our big California trip. (Breathe…breathe…) I’m working on staying calm and keeping things simple…but we’re talking about a HUGE trip across the country with four kids and well…it takes a lot of work to get ready for it.
This week, I’ll be making simple meals so that I can focus on finishing up laundry and packing. I am happy to say that gifts are made/purchased and wrapped…and the house is sort of, mostly clean. I’m going to settle for “sort of/mostly”…I think that’s as good as it’s going to get!
Here’s our menu:
Sunday, Dec. 14
Oatmeal, bananas
Company over: Beef stew, corn, green beans, cornbread, fudgie brownies
Nachos, fruit
Monday, Dec. 15
Whole wheat waffles (already made and in the freezer)
Hamburgers and onion rings
Turkey and noodles, carrots
Tuesday, Dec. 16
Scrambled eggs, clementines
Baked potatoes with butter and kreme fresh, cottage cheese and peaches
Stir fried rice and veggies
Wednesday, Dec. 17
Applesauce bread, pears
Clean out the fridge
Clean out the fridge (in other words…a piece of meat, a pickle, two lemons, whatever that is in that jar back there, and a glass of milk)
Thursday, Dec. 18
Breakfast cookies
Quesadillas on the road
Sandwiches on the road
(I can’t very well pack meals for our entire trip, but I can pack it at least for our first day!!)
We’ll get a few hours down the road on Thursday night and stay with friends…then get a lot of hours down the road on Friday and stay with friends…then go the rest of the way on Saturday. That’s the plan anyway. We felt like breaking it up like this would make it quite a bit easier on the kids…plus…it’s a great way to see friends we don’t get to see very often!
Here’s what I’ve been working on for the blog this week…
One more Christmas cookie recipe: Peanut Butter and Honey Reindeer Cuties….More Food Gift Ideas….Fun Gift Wrap ideas…..and be sure to join us for Gratituesday!!
How’s everyone doing on your final pre-Christmas activities? Are you staying calm and enjoying the season?! :) Have any great ideas for activities to do with your kids while you’re traveling in a van for 4536 hours?! (Okay, I’m exaggerating…but it will be something like 24 hours one way.)
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Visit Organizing Junkie for more menu ideas!
I love reading your menus. I will pray for safety and sanity as you travel. I am busy wrapping gifts and grateful that the are paid for so no January bills.
Roberta Anne
Hmmm, many many hours in the car with four boys, I WILL PRAY FOR YOU!! Don’t forget the movies.
I am so NOT ready for Christmas!! I need to finish baking and start wrapping presents!! Why does Christmas always come so soon?
P.S. Are you passing through my area?
One year for a long trip, my hubbie took an adding machine roll of paper and drew out a long line with different sites for the kids to find. He did it in the order they would see them.
An example: first they would see our town water tower. then follow the line and they would see the next states welcome sign, etc. As they saw t he new thing they could roll up the paper. If they asked if we were there yet, he would say, have you found all your sights yet? He also knew when they were coming up to something and would “help” them see it if they were occupied in other things at the time.
I wish we could do this game on the airplane, but it is not the same, the clouds never seem to change!
Safe travels.
Sounds like a great week and you’re organized and ready for the trip. I pray you have safe travel.
I have to say, the DVD player in the car makes long trip with kids SOO much easier! Especially w/ the library to get DVDs we don’t normally have.
Beyond that, I bring along simple stuff but a LOT of it (always more than I need, but I figure better too much than not enough) and I make sure that most of it’s a surprise. What I did this last trip was to get 2 (one for each kid) reusable shopping bags when Target had them in the $1 section. Then when they needed something new to do I’d put the next “surprise” into their bags and hand it to them to “open” (we also brought along their backpacks to put the stuff in once they’d gotten the surprises, so they spent time each day re-discovering previous days’ surprises from their backpacks too). I have 5 yr old girls, but some of the stuff I brought along was coloring/activity books, I also went online & printed out a bunch of mazes since they really like mazes now (and maze books tend to seem pricey to me, whereas coloring/activity books are at the dollar store). . . magnet scenes. Travel bingo (printed off online). They’re learning to read so I brought some word flashcards that someone had given us (not a big fan of flashcards but that meant they were a novelty for them LOL). . .
When I was a kid, I remember one trip where I read an entire Nancy Drew book to my whole family (parents, younger brother & I) and that took most of one day of traveling. It kept my brother and me BOTH entertained all for the “price” of a library book.
Will pray for sanity and well behaved kiddos! We made a trip from Colorado Springs to San Fran. last year with a 3 and 1 year old…. it was LONG. In January we are driving from Colorado Springs to Florida (even LONGER) and we’ve added another child (she’ll be 4 months). I agree with the portable DVD player idea – we go as long as possible before we break it out, though. You might check out some new-to-them movies from the library for something different. A game I liked to play with my brother when I was young was have each state name printed on a piece of paper and see who could find the most states (license plates).
Excellent menu! I appreciate the fact that you include lunch and breakfast items. I hope you enjoy the trip! Stay calm during Christmas!! Who does that??
We always enjoyed Adventures in Odyssey from Focus on the family. They have some really terrific Christmas episodes too. Maybe you could borrow from a friend or a great church library? There are often some really wonderful books on tape at the library. The children’s section can be lots of fun (for adults too). That’s one of my favorite things to do while traveling, even now!
I love Sweetpeas’ suggestions. My mom used to do something similar. We also played lots of family games like “We’re going to grandma’s house and we brought . . .” going through the alphabet and repeating each item every time you add a new one. We also had a homeschool project when we wrote letters to the chamber of commerce for each state and kept a journal of our trip. We stopped at visitors centers and collected brochures of state landmarks. Then we cut out the pictures and glued them in our journals.
I hope your week goes smoothly! I really think that you have a blessing in having sweet, well behaved children that are probably a joy to take places. Pro-active parenting makes such a difference when it really counts.
I am praying for a smooth week and an even smoother trip!
I have your applesauce bread in the oven right now, it smells SO good. My birthday boy today so enjoyed helping to make it, thank you for the recipe! :)
Hey, I’m in California!! Unfortunately, it will probably be raining when you get here, but I’m sure that you’ll have a blast while you are here. Praying for your trip. I love road trips. I live in Southern California and my parents live in Southern Oregon, so I’ve had many, many road trips with four children in the car.