The stars aligned and we are headed to Oregon at the end of this month. It’s been far too long. I’m opening my schedule for one, possibly two shoots while we’re there. Please email me for details. Sessions are full.
And PLEASE, if you have any brilliant ideas for entertaining my kids on a 13+ hr drive, leave a comment. I’m real, real scared.
Taken by my parent’s house the last time we were in OR.
We just went on a trip to San Francisco from Utah. One thing that really helped was splitting up the long drive. We stayed overnight in Elko then woke up early and were on the road by 7. The girls were all so tired from getting up early that they fell back to sleep for a few hours. For the 2 older girls it helped to have tv’s in our car for them to watch movies. My 1 year old was the hardest for sure. My mom was a sweetheart and put together a box of things for the girls that included hand-held mirrors for making silly faces, little dolls, travel sized magnadoodles, drawing pads with colored pencils, small reading books and last but not least SNACKS! I hate having food in the car but I make exceptions for road trips. Good luck, especially with the little one.
You are BRAVE! Good luck!! DVD player, naps, snacks, color books, sticky notes, bendaroos and bandaids are my suggestions 🙂
I just recently heard an idea where you make a baggie for every hour of the trip. Each baggy has a new activity of some sort (like from the dollar bins at the store) and a snack. And they get to have them at the begining of every hour. I haven’t tried this for a trip yet, but I did just try it for my three and half year old for Stake Conference this last weekend. And I actually did 15 minute baggies and actually saved them for when we were in dire need of something to keep him occupied and quiet. It worked great!
I actually know Kim Greenfield from living in Corvallis a long time ago and I have actually met your dad, briefly, when he put on a memorial of sort for my sister-in-law Brooke. Just so you know that I am not some creepy person 🙂
I need you to come back in December please. January would also do 🙂
We are SO excited! Maybe get a new movie they haven’t seen yet? We will have the new book for the way back that will fill up at least an hour so you’ll only have 12 hours to worry about then. Can’t wait to see you guys.
Get a note book for each of them at the dollar tree and then on random pages either put some stickers or a squiggly line of some sort, and then have them create a picture on those pages, and ‘write’ a story/draw more pictuers that tell the story of their original drawing. And then get them a whole bunch of stickers to fill up the rest of the notebook with themselves.
What we did when we were driving from SLC to Oregon was I found a Dollar Tree along the way and we stopped and got a new treat from there. That way they were getting something new to hold their attention and it was getting us out of the car for a while.
We also did “temple” stops. We stopped at every temple that was along the way to walk around the grounds and take pictures. So we hit the SL temple, the Boise, Twin Falls, and Portland. They were just short trips, but again it was something new and special, and it got them out of the car for a few minutes.
Hi Leah, My family and I live in the Portland area…where in Oregon will you be? I would love to have you shoot our fam!
Pixar and benadryl.
You can take a cookie tray and look up magnent board activity print outs. My friend made one that was a road trip Bingo (so they were looking for cows, a barn, motorcycle, a river, etc with clip art for each one). We also have a CD with fun Disney movie songs- that was the only thing that would calm Naomi down on our last trip.
I see another reply was already posted..about a goodie bag per hour (or so) of the trip! We call them “Are We There Yet???” bags and my kids Loooooove them! I am already stockpiling little treats for our week long trip to Seaside next month! 🙂
Have you tried a book on tap with them yet? Maybe they could draw something in a notebook about the characters or something going on in the book?
I hear that giving a new toy or activity each hour really helps. Maybe you can little surprise baggies with a candy treat here and there.. We also like to make travel books which document our trip as we go: maybe they could draw a picture of what they are doing, what they are eating, what they see, how they feel, etc. Then you can put pictures in later after the trip. But to be honest, most parents I know just let their kids watch a million movies and have bad snacks the whole way. hehe. that isn’t a bad idea either. Good luck, drive safely, have fun!
LEAH! My parents did this once when we were all little.
On a trip from Vancouver – Gooding, my parents made a ‘good child’ type game where you earned faux paper money for each good thing you did, kindness you performed, or listening to our parents, etc… Then my mom had a menu of little toys and the cost of each one. We could save our $ for a big toy on the menu, or we could buy several little things. She had the bag of goodies with her so we saw them, but we saved our dollars.
I saved for a Jem doll…yeah, it was that long ago 🙂
You should try it-
Oh Leah, will you please please please stay there for awhile? We will be there mid July. It would be so fantastic to see you…