Beginning a vacation

We took an awesome vacation this year! Looking back at the pictures, I don't know how I will ever catch up on the blog! Here are a few quick facts from our trip:

10 days

2,339 miles

591 pictures

4 cousins
a grandma and grandpa
a zoo
a train ride
4 Presidents
and 6 states!!!

We have amazing kids when it comes to travel! Amazing! It's not that they are perfect. But, they've learned that long car rides can be fun. We've learned quite a few tricks over the years. The first long car ride we took with kids was when Bria was only 9 months old. They've pretty much grown up with road trips.

This year, we did a couple of things different. First of all....we love, love, love DVD players. We can't always get our kids to watch a whole movie at home, but on the road when they are stuck, they love watching movies. This trip, we took full advantage of Redbox. You can pick them up and drop them off ANYWHERE and we did! It was completely worth the $10ish dollars we spent.

Also, before we left, I made these cute bags for each of the kids:

We went to Walmart and the kids all picked out their own fabric (except for Logan....but that wasn't very hard to figure out!)

The most awesome part?

Yep! They are crayon bags!! I think they may soon be church bags, too. They were super easy to sew. You can get the pattern here (it looks like the lady is on vacation right now, but the pattern is only $4.50). The only thing to consider is that crayons melt in hot cars. We unfortunately were reminded of that from experience. It looks like Bria will be getting a second crayon bag in the near future.

The other new thing I did this vacation is how I packed the kids clothes. I found the idea here last year and have wanted to try it ever since. My bags weren't quite as organized as hers, but they pretty much worked the same!

Okay...if you are saying to yourself...."I don't care about any of this! Where are the vacation pictures!?!", then please accept my apologies. We have SO many, and I'm sure you'll more than get your fill. I'll post them as quickly as I can . I have to get this blog caught up! We have other important blog-worthy events on the calendar.