On the road again...

We are an adventure loving family! Yesterday we were invited to join two other families for a day trip to Knoebels Amusement Park in Elysburg, Pa, and we excitedly accepted! Travel with kids can be dangerous if they're bored. Boredom leads to making bad choices that drive people crazy in small spaces (like a car), and I value my sanity too much to risk it. Normally when we travel the kids have several Calvin and Hobbes books to read. I pick them up for a buck or two at yard sales and book sales, and they are treasured in our household. They're carefully planned and drawn beautifully, they're adventurous and funny, and they're packed with big new words to expand the vocabulary of my children! We discuss words they don't know, and it's great. Bill Watterson, the creator and author of Calvin and Hobbes, is brilliant. 

We also take art supplies for doodles. You never know when you'll see something that inspires an idea. I take my moleskine sketchbook EVERYWHERE. I mean it, it goes everywhere with me. The Appalachian Trail, the dentist office, faculty meetings, car rides, it goes where I go. It's the perfect size for toting around, it has a secret pocket in the back to store anything that's relatively flat, and a stretchy band easily wraps around the front to keep it closed so it's not all loosey goosey in my bag. The paper quality is great for mixed media sketching- ink, watercolors, colored pencils, etc. Plus, my favorite pens seem to really love this paper too. Well wouldn't you know that for this drive we forgot our go-to entertainment stuff for the kids?! What to do?!?! We played an animal version of 20 questions, guessing what animal someone was thinking of. Does it have feathers? No. Does it have 4 legs? Yes. Does it live in water? Sometimes. You get the idea...Randy loves to drive, which is perfect because I don't. Driving stresses me out. So while he expertly drove and we played 20 questions, I sipped coffee and sketched fish! We both try to squeeze in sketch time whenever possible, and car rides are perfect for sketching when the scenery is bland. 

My time is valuable. There never seems to be enough hours in a day to conquer the many projects, develop all of the ideas, read all of the blogs, articles, and books (last on the list is housework, that's not going anywhere). So my goal each day is to make the most of my minutes! Yeah, yeah, I know. Easier said than done some days, and the same is true for me. Our family is BUSY, so it's a personal goal that I look for ways to make the most of any free time I have. Carve out time to invest in yourself and your family. Fight for that time, it's important. 

The car ride wasn't the most exciting part of our day, of course. The roller coasters were!!! BUT... we had fun in the car on the way to our adventure making the most of our travel minutes!