SB '12- Road Trip.....

A few months prior to Spring Break we decided we were going to take a road trip to Nebraska to see my sister and her family. Considering this has been our third road trip of 13+ hours in the last two years I feel like we are becoming a sort of expert! See below for my survival tips to a good road trip :)

Fritos make for some happy travelers :)

We got to Nebraska Sunday around 5:00 and on Monday we went to the weight room at the U of N. My brother in law is the head strength coach. Here is Mallory, Morgan and their cousin Ellie.

This is where NE has their after game press conferences.

Exlporing the grounds and girls doing some exercise!

Love this pic!

For Ellie's bday I got her a shirt to match the girls. They were so cute posing for pictures. This one cracks me up because although she might not show it on the scale, Morgan definitely feels heavier then both E and M!!

Here is our photo shoot....

Can you tell my niece is a major gymnast? Look how graceful and flexible!

I know Ellie doesn't have a sister but I hope she will grow up with my girls acting as that role.

Sassy and Silly

Most of these poses were totally their idea.

Even Maia tried to get in on the action.

This pictures sums up how much we enjoyed visiting our cousins. Can't believe I didn't get any with my sister or of my nephew Colton. I will make up for that when they come to visit this summer.


FAMILY ROAD TRIP SURVIVAL TIPS:

1. Leave in the middle of the night. We left at 4:00 on the way there and 3:30 on the way back. This ensures at least 4-5 more hours of sleep from the kiddos which equals less stops and Lonnie and I took turns sleeping too.


2. Stock Up- we packed a cooler full of snacks plus I made lunch for us so we would only have to stop once to eat. I also packed each kid a water bottle so they had something to drink the entire time and no mess. I am not saying this was all healthy eating but passes the time and helped to avoid some possible meltdowns from Case :)


3. Comfort- before we left we went to Target and I bought the girls some cute travel pillows. I also had the car packed ready to go with their blankies and therefore we just transferred them in their jammies when we left.


4. Activities- luckily we have a DVD and rented a few movies before we left. The great thing about Redbox is you can return the movies at any of them! So we dropped off two in NE and picked up two more on the way back. I also packed Mallory's backpack full of map pencils(again less mess) and a coloring book for each of them. Add in a DS, IPAD and some books- good to go!! Gotta love technology


5. Games- before we left Mallory told me she was excited about going but not about the drive. I told her to google road trip games. Of course there were websites dedicated to this exact topic and the one we liked best was http://www.momsminivan.com/ It listed 101 different activities and the one we chose was actually fun for us all. We printed a blank map of the United States and for every license plate we saw from a different state we would color that state on the map. We ended up seeing 24 different states!! Mallory enjoyed keeping track and it was actually fun when a new one was spotted.


6. Plan- last but not least plan for everything. We brought some car toys for Case when he got bored. We had easy access to diapers, wipes, paper towels and an outift/shoes for the kids to change out of jammies and into before going in somewhere.

I am happy to say on the way there we only stopped twice(I do have camels however) and on the way back three times. There was only a total of about 30 minutes on the way home in which Case made us regret the entire trip but it was short lived ;). All in all I loved the memories and actually kind of look forward to the next one.

Happy Traveling!