Crossing the Border

Day 7 of our summer family road trip was spent almost completely in the vehicle.

We headed out of Vancouver with the goal of being in Portland by a decent time that evening. We had not bargained for 2 hours and 40 minutes in line at the border! With this delay, we ended up creeping through Seattle during an early Friday afternoon rush-hour.

This particular drive also was not quite as scenic as the ones taking us across western Canada. Needless to say, our children needed a bit more entertaining in the vehicle.

As I shared earlier, we are driving a beautiful 2015 Lincoln MKC {courtesy of Ford Canada} on this family road trip. One of the things that is different in the Lincoln MKC than in our mini-van, which has middle-row bucket seating, is that it is easier for the kids to play together. I have really liked this, for the most part, as they have been acting out dialogues with their stuffed animals and sharing books and snacks with each other. I say "for the most part" because the closer quarters also means they can reach each other, which a few times has NOT come in so handy. {"Mom, she's touching me!"}



I checked out 20 children's books from the Saskatoon Public Library before we left and these books are in bags between the seats. I picked some that would be great for leafing through to look at the pictures. I chose a few more that I knew my 6-year-old could read to his sister. I also picked out some that I knew both kids would enjoy being read to them from the front passenger seat.

We also purchased a great book for the trip that has gotten good mileage. The Book with No Pictures by B.J. Novak {Amazon affiliate link} is a fun book that leads the reader to say some crazy words and phrases that make kids like mine gut-laugh. "BLORK!"

Music has also been a large part of our road trip. Not only do we enjoy sing-alongs and hand-motion songs, but at different times throughout the drive {when I have felt like we needed to get the wiggles out} I would find a good dancing tune and announce a "DANCE PARTY!" We would start out freestyle and then I would have us each take turns busting out signature moves that the others would imitate. SO MUCH FUN!

We have really enjoyed running my husband's Slacker Radio playlists into the Lincoln MKC's stereo system through Bluetooth.

As for children's music I would recommend, of course, we love Saskatchewan's own Sylvia Chave! We not only love her in concert, we have all of her CDs, and my kids and I know most of her songs by heart.

We are also big fans of Caspar Babypants music {Amazon affiliate link}. I was introduced to it by checking out a CD at the library. It was on repeat in our van for weeks, and I later came to find out "Caspar Babypants" was a pseudonym for Chris Ballew, lead vocalist for the band Presidents of the United States of America, which I used to listen to in the late '90s.

Speaking of artists I used to listen to in the '90s, we also have Jewel's children's CD, The Merry Goes Round {another Amazon affiliate link} in our case of CDs for the car. There are a couple songs on this one for which the kids and I have created hand motions to go along with it.

We also played a lot of the classic car games like "I Spy," the "ABC Sign" game and "In Grandma's Attic." {You play those, right?} One that I just recently found, that is now my son's favourite, we call the "Last Letter Game." Someone starts out by saying a city, province/state, country or continent. The next person in line has to come up with a name that starts with the last letter of the previous name. We have also played this game with plants and animals. It is a great for a beginning speller, and can become a challenging game for adults as well.


We also brought the hand-held DVD player with a variety of movies. Frozen was our friend again this particular day. We also have three The Berenstain Bears DVDs {one last Amazon affiliate link} that both kids and I like. Each story provides real-life situations that kids can relate to, good moral lessons and opportunities for discussion. My personal favourite is

But, even with all of this in-car entertainment, there were still cranky car moments. I think it is just part of being cooped up for long periods of time.

We are a bit more than half-way into this road trip and all-in-all, we have enjoyed our time on the road. There really is so much to explore on this beautiful continent! What a privilege to be able to share a chunk of it with these wonderful people of mine.

Is it just me? Or does my guy look a little bit like
 Matthew McConaughey in the Lincoln MKC commercials? {wink-wink}