Oregon Family Vacation 2015...Day 1

We left the house only 45 minutes past our planned departure time which was 6:00 a.m....not too bad :)

I have printed off a map for each day of travel so I can mark with a dry erase marker how far we've gone.  I keep it up on my sun visor so the kids can see it.  The plan was that it would cut down on the "are we there yet?"s.  We still heard it but maybe not as often as normal.

Also, I have a clothespin for each of the kids and as long as their clothespin stays up they get to participate in the next round of snacks or electronic device time or whatever it may be.  Their clip would come down with poor behavior.  I found these cute "car bucks" (free printable) on pinterest and printed them out.  They earn them for being good and will translate into real money that they will then be able to spend on souvenirs.

That's our behavioral strategy for the trip.

So today was about a 9.5 hour drive.

I was really concerned but I must say...my kids did awesome!  I was so proud of my crew :)

No one lost their clothespin even once!

 This was at the halfway point in Boise, ID.

We picked up some sandwich makings here...

...and then drove a little further just over the border into Oregon and stopped and ate.

We thought we were so lucky to have found such a shady and pleasant spot to eat until we sat down and noticed all the tiny, orange spiders crawling on the table and benches.  My two oldest boys decided to eat standing up.  I thought it was girls that were supposed to be afraid of spiders...

Also, neither Andy nor I had thought to pick up paper plates or even paper towels with the food so Andy found a bunch of tourism pamphlets at the visitors center nearby and we ate off of those :)

Little Ben zonked for almost the whole last half of the trip.  I love how he tucks his feet up under him in his carseat when he sleeps :)

More car bucks earned and a whole lot of progress on that map!

 We got lost for just a few minutes in the cute little town of Bend which was just before our final destination of Sisters.  When we finally got on the right road I decided I had better find out what time the quilt shop in Sisters closed for the day.  I looked it up on my phone and found out that I had just missed it!  I was so disappointed because I knew Andy wanted to leave early the next morning before it opened again.  I tried to tell myself it was okay...after all, that wasn't the purpose of our trip so it should not be a big deal.

Andy could tell I was unhappy about the situation so when we finally drove into Sisters and drove past the Stitch' Post and I exclaimed that the doors were open, he happily turned right around and let me and Abby out of the car while he and the boys went and found our lodging for the night.

I know it's silly, but that made me so happy!  I was just thrilled that I would not miss visiting it!

It was a sweet little place and Abby and I lost no time in finding some "souvenirs".

Andy pulled back up the exact moment we walked out of the store...such perfect timing...I'm glad he didn't have to wait for us :)

I had asked one of the workers at the Stitchin' Post for a recommendation of a good, family place to eat.  She looked kind of sheepish and pointed across the street to the Sno Cap.  She said it was her favorite and to her, "that was Sisters, right there".

It looked like a regular old greasy burger place so we told ourselves that we would end up there if we didn't find anything a little more appealing.  We drove around for a bit and finally came back to the Sno Cap.  It's just a teeny little place so we ordered our food to go and took it back to our spacious and lovely room.  It was really yummy food...I mean, how can you go wrong with milkshakes and fries?

Ben was kind of going crazy in our room and Andy thought it might be good if everyone blew off a little steam that had built up in the car all day long.

So we all trooped down to the pool.

Ben went crazy in the pool too.  He just loves the water and splashes constantly.

Andy's faces are pretty fun to watch.

It was a good idea for everyone to swim and get their energy out!

Finally, I took Ben back to the room so Andy could have a break to relax and work out his sore muscles from driving all day.

We had to think of an incentive to get Ben out of the pool so we told him we could Face Time Bapa & "O" if he came back to the room with me.  That did the trick :)

Everyone is now sleeping...which is a relief since we thought it would take Ben forever to fall asleep because of his extra long nap in the car.

So I will say goodnight and hopefully have a chance to post tomorrow evening as well