Where Did the Time Go? 10 DAYS!!

An incredible Southern sunset.

Wow!  We're down to 10 days til Blast Off!  Time has gone by quickly and we are SO excited to get on the road.

The past few weeks life has been a little chaotic as the Fearless Wonders and I have been preparing for our trip, and Jeff has been preparing for his.  We've also had a couple of obstacles.  Unfortunately, we've had several deaths within our family and circle of friends/acquaintances.  After receiving news of the death of the 2nd child, I began to think that maybe this trip was really just trivial and unimportant, as there is so much suffering and sadness occurring around me.  What is a hands-on paleontology lesson, when there are mothers and fathers mourning the losses of their children?  But then the obvious occurred to me, namely that this is more than just a meaningless trip- it's an opportunity to spend precious moments with my children in an exciting way.  It's also a lesson for them in hard work, confidence, prudence, and self-sufficiency as they save and earn money to put this trip into action.

We've got a lot of preparation to accomplish still.  Today we'll be (finally!) putting the girls' crafts up in our online shop.  We've still got to do a run through of putting up the tent and making sure we have all of our gear ready and in good repair. We'll also be creating our travel/camping menu, which will in no way involve drive-thrus.

The first half of our itinerary is set! I think I'm most excited about our little excursion into Nashville next weekend.  We'll also be meeting up with my Mom and adopted siblings in Lincoln, NE!  We are thrilled that they'll be joining us for part of the adventure.

That's all for now, but keep your eyes on the blog- new items in the shop later today!

28 Days til Blast Off

A ladybug laying eggs on a slide in our backyard!  Exploration opportunities abound no matter where you are!

We've got less than a month before we hit the road!

This week I'm learning every little bit I can about the technology side of our trip: movie making, podcasting, etc.- all the fun stuff for our own memories and for our readers.  Salem and Averlin are getting excited to put together some slide shows for their friends that are following along.

I keep getting excellent suggestions of things to do and places to visit, and I'm having to exert all the self-control I can muster not to shout a resounding YES!! to all of them.  It's either self-control or we're going to have to ramp up our fundraising efforts and begin selling our organs or something because there is so much to DO!  This little trip has much potential of turning into a month long excursion rather than our original plan of 2 weeks.  I mean there are 48 whole states in the main body of the US full of exploration opportunities! 

We'll only be visiting 7 of them, but still- that's a lot of exploring to do!  Our current route takes us through Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, Nebraska, and Wyoming.  I might be easily tempted into Iowa to visit my brother and his family, which will have just added a brand new baby boy by the time I'm out that way...  So, let's just make that 8 states.

We've got our basic route mapped out anyway, and we'll have our finalized plan of stops and adventures done in about a week. That means you've still got time to plant little ideas in my head of what to be sure not to miss! (Nebraska needs some serious love, people, so if you know of something in the middle of one of those cornfields that will act as an interesting diversion, please PLEASE! let me know... otherwise that one's gonna be a killer.)

28 days and counting...

Yellowstone and Pennies

First of all, I want to extend another huge Thanks! to my 2 most recent sponsors. You can read all about them on the Sponsors page.  I know some seriously cool people, and I am humbled by their support.  I can't wait to start sending postcards from the road!

This trip is taking on a life of its own.  It's starting to look larger and larger.  My little 3 ring binder that contains my attempts at being organized for this trip is, at some point, going to stand up and walk of its own accord, dragging me along to whatever destinations it pleases. I'm okay with this.

There's so much to see and do that I'm not sure I'll be able to cram it all into 2 weeks.  Already my husband is lamenting the fact that he has a research trip to attend and that he'll be missing out on all the fun with the Fearless Wonders and me.

I received a suggestion a couple of days ago to be sure not to miss Yellowstone National Park during our time in Wyoming.  OF COURSE I'm going to Yellowstone! Okay, so it wasn't on the original itinerary, but as soon as I read this suggestion, I remembered that I've always wanted to visit the park and see some Old Faithful action. 

Salem's a little nervous about the idea because Jeff and I made the mistake of saying "magma" as we were describing geysers to her.  "You mean, like, (gulp) the stuff that comes from volcanoes?"

We're still working on the Fearless part of Fearless Wonders. 

...

Today our family had the much anticipated Roll Day.  What's that?  You've never heard of Roll Day?  Well, that's okay. It's a first for us too.  We've been saving coins in an old pomegranate juice bottle for a few months, and we finally filled it up last night, which meant that today we got to roll all those coins!  My husband made cinnamon rolls for breakfast (Rolls. Get it?) and we sat out on the patio in the perfect weather rolling coins:

We gave Averlin, our 6 year-old, the duty of nickel rolling.  My husband made a sheet of paper with 40 circles for her to fill in with nickels. When all 40 circles were filled, she had enough to fill a roll.  Salem, our 8 year-old, was in charge of the pennies, so I gave her a sheet of paper with 5 squares for her to fill each with 10 pennies.  When she had 50 pennies, she could roll them.  The Bubs was just given a paper with random circles and an assortment of coins to assuage any feelings of destructiveness he may have otherwise had towards our little project.

And the Grand Total was......

That's right folks.  Those pennies you find in the market parking lot?  Those babies will set you on your way to some pretty darn good money.  You should try it!

Makin' A List

Even our doggies enjoy our family roadtrips!

I've been known to have an attention span that barely rivals that of my 2 year-old son.  Checklists have become my dear friends for precisely this reason.  If it's not on the checklist it'll be a miracle if it gets accomplished.

I have a small but vital list right now entitled:

 THINGS JEFF MUST TEACH ME BEFORE I HEAD OUT

1.  How do I pitch our giant 10-person tent with only the help of an 8 year-old?

2.  How do I turn on the camping stove without blowing us all to smithereens? (Propane cans scare the crud out of me)

3.  How do I change a tire?

4.  What should I do if the car breaks, overheats, or otherwise explodes?


Two of these involve the car and two of them involve explosions... We're going to start working on this list asap.

***In other news: we've received 4 sponsors in the past 2 days!  3 of them have already been added to our sponsor page and the 4th will be up this evening.  Check them out!

Welcome

Welcome to our little space in the blogosphere.  We've always been a family of adventurers, but this summer we're taking it to a new level- I (Adventure Mama) am braving a cross-country trip with my 3 kids (The Fearless Wonders) in our little old Honda Accord all in the name of digging up dinosaur bones . . . and doing some other fun stuff along the way.

I'm glad you're along for the ride- well, virtually anyway.

Along the top of the page there are several tabs you can click on to learn more about us- who we are, what in the world we're doing, and where we're headed.  There's also a tab that will let you in on some ways you can join in on our adventure from wherever you are.  Pretty soon we'll also have some items in our store.  By the end of the trip I hope to have enough material to put together a unit study on some of the more interesting places we visit and people we meet.

Have fun clicking around and be sure to subscribe to our posts and become a "Follower"! You can find all these things on the left sidebar.