Friday, July 14, 2006
Wow! The reason it has been so quiet on our blog-front this week is that the days have been streaming past at a dizzying blur. So little time and so much to do! I am working my usual 12 1/2 hour shifts at the hospital Saturday (tomorrow) and Sunday...and, then, we leave for Canada at 4:00am on Monday morning! GETTING to Canada is going to be quite the logistical challenge... We have seven people, two tents, and clothes for 12 days to fit into one average sized mini-van! We will be traveling about 10 hours a day for FOUR days to get to our destination....and four very full days of car riding to get back home again! This will be interesting!
Normally, on trips, we BUFFER our children strategically...spreading them out in different areas of the minivan so that they cannot REACH each other. This trip, however, all three of them are going to be packed snugly in the backseat, shoulder to shoulder to shoulder...for FOUR DAYS...and then FOUR MORE DAYS. Hmmm...
I am planning on taking my laptop computer with us (if I can fit it into the van!)...
and about half of our days on the trip we will be staying on hotels (which surely have internet service)...so, I hope to be able to post daily travel logs (except, of course, the three days we are on horseback in the back country of the Rocky Mountains where I won't have my lap top with me!).
I am SO PREPARED for this trip! I have THREE fully charged camera batteries. A way to recharge my batteries from the car's auxillary port....and SIX GIGABYTES of SD cards for my camera. (I can easily shoot a full gig and a half just on an average day when we AREN'T doing something wildly interesting in a place that is breathtakingly beautiful...so, six gigs isn't really as much as it sounds.) Darcy also has back-up batteries for her digital camera, and, thanks to Grandma B., she has a two gig SD card herself (which will hold over 1,100 pictures for the four megapixal camera she has).
We are probably almost the only family in America who doesn't have a cell phone (and never have had)...but, two days ago, we ceased being one of the few minivan owners who didn't have a DVD player on board. I decided that with three children spending EIGHT FULL DAYS of RIDING shoulder to shoulder, maybe a DVD player would be a sound investment! Doug is THRILLED beyond description. All three of them are really excited that they can watch DVDs in the car, but Doug is totally taken by the idea! They picked out their absolute favorite movies to take along...28 of them...Darcy chose lots of animated Justice League and the animated X-men series; Doug chose lots of animated Justice League, his animated Batman cartoons, and his Power Ranger movies; Rayna chose Barbie this and Barbie that (Barbie as a mermaid, princess, fairy, ballerina...you name it!). I didn't fully realize until tonight how much pure JUNK DVDs we have allowed our children to acquire over the years. I especially dislike Power Rangers...as Doug feels compelled to copy the moves and gets in trouble within minutes of viewing each episode. You know, I was such a better controlling parent when Darcy was little. I controlled her environment so much more closely back then than I do any of their environments today. I think it is just that I am so much older and tired-er now than I was then... But, I am also less uptight now than I was then...and, that, at least, is a good thing...I think! I probably had too MANY rules for Darcy when she was little. It is a wonder I didn't give her ulcers by the age of two.
(Grant would say, though, that I don't have enough rules these days. I think I probably have enough...but I am not as CONSISTANT with them as I was before I got worn out. I used to be so amazingly CONSISTANT with Darcy...then Rayna and Doug joined the mix and I just went into survival mode. Well...depending on the day, I feel guilty for how controlling I was with Darcy back then and what high standards I had for her...or I feel guilty that I am not the very same way NOW with all three of the kids! I think whatever you do, you are going to feel guilty as a parent...so, I think I will quit analyzing and not worry about it!!!)
Ahhh...vacation is so close I can almost smell that cool mountain air as I sit sweltering beneath our ceiling fan here, tonight! ....and I don't care what an utter waste of time their chosen movies are, I am DELIGHTED that they will have them to watch as they wear their little head-phones in the back seat of our van! I have noticed they are SO QUIET...sitting with glazed stares...glued to that little seven inch screen. And I have noticed that telling them, "If I hear any disagreeable sounds back there, you will ALL lose your viewing priveledges!" strikes genuine fear into their impressionable little hearts! I think we might survive our eight days in the car together!!!! ¶ 7/14/2006 08:02:00 PM
Normally, on trips, we BUFFER our children strategically...spreading them out in different areas of the minivan so that they cannot REACH each other. This trip, however, all three of them are going to be packed snugly in the backseat, shoulder to shoulder to shoulder...for FOUR DAYS...and then FOUR MORE DAYS. Hmmm...
I am planning on taking my laptop computer with us (if I can fit it into the van!)...
and about half of our days on the trip we will be staying on hotels (which surely have internet service)...so, I hope to be able to post daily travel logs (except, of course, the three days we are on horseback in the back country of the Rocky Mountains where I won't have my lap top with me!).
I am SO PREPARED for this trip! I have THREE fully charged camera batteries. A way to recharge my batteries from the car's auxillary port....and SIX GIGABYTES of SD cards for my camera. (I can easily shoot a full gig and a half just on an average day when we AREN'T doing something wildly interesting in a place that is breathtakingly beautiful...so, six gigs isn't really as much as it sounds.) Darcy also has back-up batteries for her digital camera, and, thanks to Grandma B., she has a two gig SD card herself (which will hold over 1,100 pictures for the four megapixal camera she has).
We are probably almost the only family in America who doesn't have a cell phone (and never have had)...but, two days ago, we ceased being one of the few minivan owners who didn't have a DVD player on board. I decided that with three children spending EIGHT FULL DAYS of RIDING shoulder to shoulder, maybe a DVD player would be a sound investment! Doug is THRILLED beyond description. All three of them are really excited that they can watch DVDs in the car, but Doug is totally taken by the idea! They picked out their absolute favorite movies to take along...28 of them...Darcy chose lots of animated Justice League and the animated X-men series; Doug chose lots of animated Justice League, his animated Batman cartoons, and his Power Ranger movies; Rayna chose Barbie this and Barbie that (Barbie as a mermaid, princess, fairy, ballerina...you name it!). I didn't fully realize until tonight how much pure JUNK DVDs we have allowed our children to acquire over the years. I especially dislike Power Rangers...as Doug feels compelled to copy the moves and gets in trouble within minutes of viewing each episode. You know, I was such a better controlling parent when Darcy was little. I controlled her environment so much more closely back then than I do any of their environments today. I think it is just that I am so much older and tired-er now than I was then... But, I am also less uptight now than I was then...and, that, at least, is a good thing...I think! I probably had too MANY rules for Darcy when she was little. It is a wonder I didn't give her ulcers by the age of two.
(Grant would say, though, that I don't have enough rules these days. I think I probably have enough...but I am not as CONSISTANT with them as I was before I got worn out. I used to be so amazingly CONSISTANT with Darcy...then Rayna and Doug joined the mix and I just went into survival mode. Well...depending on the day, I feel guilty for how controlling I was with Darcy back then and what high standards I had for her...or I feel guilty that I am not the very same way NOW with all three of the kids! I think whatever you do, you are going to feel guilty as a parent...so, I think I will quit analyzing and not worry about it!!!)
Ahhh...vacation is so close I can almost smell that cool mountain air as I sit sweltering beneath our ceiling fan here, tonight! ....and I don't care what an utter waste of time their chosen movies are, I am DELIGHTED that they will have them to watch as they wear their little head-phones in the back seat of our van! I have noticed they are SO QUIET...sitting with glazed stares...glued to that little seven inch screen. And I have noticed that telling them, "If I hear any disagreeable sounds back there, you will ALL lose your viewing priveledges!" strikes genuine fear into their impressionable little hearts! I think we might survive our eight days in the car together!!!! ¶ 7/14/2006 08:02:00 PM
