Connor understood right away what 23 hours one way meant and Emily was frustrated that her brother dared to suggest she didn't understand. She said "I do too know! It's like 10 minutes!" We had never bought DVD players for the car and it felt like this was the time to make that happen. We did and I really like the set we got that had two screens that could be playing the same thing or each person could pick what they wanted to watch.
We knew that we didn't want them just watching movies all the way and wanted to this also to be a fun trip as much as we could make it be. I found something similar to this idea on Pinterest and changed it up to work for us.
The gist of the idea is - putting together boxes of goodies made up of snacks and activities to do along the way. Here's a picture of what went into the boxes. Turns out my eyes were bigger than our amount of boxes and there's way more here than what was actually put in the boxes, but this was my starting point. I bought the snacks and treats but most of the games and activities were things we already had (card games, coloring books and mad libs), were lent to us (car bingo) or were bought at some point for a rainy day because I got them on sale.
Fun times filling the boxes! It was perfect timing because I had about 30 mins or so where it seemed everyone was occupied and I was able to get most of this done before anyone noticed what I was doing. I was trying to keep most of it a surprise.
This last box ended up being just what we needed two times! We snacked on the chips and dips at the end of the day on Thanksgiving. I'm sure everyone knows the feeling... you eat a late lunch and aren't hungry for dinner. Then it's getting close to bedtime and you realize you're kind of hungry. Fox box to the rescue! The second time was when we were headed home the day after Thanksgiving and the kids were excited to see they got $5 each to spend at a gas station picking what they wanted. I had strategically put the only box with money to be one we didn't open early in the trip.
The initial idea was that we would open a box every 3 hours on the road. It wasn't a perfect thing because sometimes at the 3 hour mark we would stop to eat or they might forgot and be in the middle of a movie. I can remember a time when it felt like someone was going to crack and I got to say - Hey! Let's open a box early! I just so happened to notice a couple side glances from my Mark where it looked like he was wondering who was enjoying the boxes more - the kids or me. :D
I set aside a couple for the way home as we were packing. This was fun because I kind of hid them and the kids didn't realize until we were headed home there were still a couple boxes.
Thanks for stopping by! I hope you have a great day.
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