West Edmonton Mall!

Hi everyone! So sorry it’s taken this long to blog again. We went to West Edmonton Mall on Monday and came back on Tuesday… then Wednesday I spent the day cleaning around the house, Thursdays are my crazy days with DD having to be taken to preschool in the morning and then I work in the evening. Yesterday I just needed a lazy day and read the third book in the Twilight series. Today I work all day, but I’m taking the time to let you guys know that our trip was great

We stayed in the Western room at the Fantasy Land Hotel, it was very well decorated and looked awesome! I spent some time catching up with a friend from high school who happens to live in Edmonton, we took both our kids to Build-a-Bear Workshop to make stuffies. My little Ally made a teddy bear

On Tuesday I took Ally to the Water Park, I used a disposable waterproof camera to take photos so I’ll have to edit them a bit before I use them for some scrapping… lol. But at least I got some photos! As did Ally, I gave her a disposable camera to use and she took some pretty good photos considering the cheap quality of camera and the fact that she’s only 4 yrs old… lol.

So here are some of the photos we took, keep in mind that I haven’t had a chance to fix them up yet

View Full Album

(You should be able to click on View Full Album to see all the rest of the photos that I added to the album)

Tomorrow I’ll share with you the layout that I scrapped last weekend before we left on our little trip. Have a great day everyone!

Road Trip Writings – last words and tips for next time

So all in all our trip was a huge success. And we’re already planning next year’s trips, we’re planning on going for shorter (4 day weekend) trips, but several throughout the summer. So if you’re planning a road trip, before you pack you’re bags have a look at the list I have compiled of the top things that I think made this trip the success that it was.

• Short driving days. Most of our days consisted of 6-8 hours of driving, plus breaks. This combined with an early start (awake at 6am, on the road again packed and gassed up by 7 am) got us to each of our end of day stops with plenty of time to do some sight-seeing, burn off some pent up energy, and really stretch our legs well.
• Brown bag surprises! I packed a bunch of things in brown (lunch type) paper bags and taped them up. Then I put them all in a larger “activity” bag and on the long days when my DD was needing something new to keep her busy, she could pull out something new from the bag. I highly recommend the cheap wrapping of the individual items as it adds to the novelty of it, my DD loved not knowing what she was going to get and having the thrill of unwrapping something new. Now these don’t have to be expensive new things, I packed I Spy books (there are some toddler board book ones available that I love!), a couple new movies (which will bring me to my next point), a notebook and some new twistable crayons, activity books (filled with mazes, dot-to-dots, and more)… Make a visit to a Dollar Store and get some cheap stuff that will keep the kids busy for a while.
• A portable DVD player! My DD didn’t always watch it, there were a couple of days where it was never turned on. But it was a life saver when we wanted a couple of quiet hours in the car. I love the t.v. show DVDs as they are usually only 45 minutes long, and it’s easy to just watch a little bit as that usually has 3 episodes in it. So you can turn it off after just one episode if you’d like.
• Free printable activity sheets! Do an online search and you should be able to find some printable activity sheets on several different sites. I printed out a Dora the Explorer activity book with about a half dozen image search activities. My DD just had to find… 5 stars and colour them in, all of Boots’ bath toys etc. There are some available for all ages online, just Google it!
• Klutz activities. Seriously, check them out. They now have a series for kids as young as 4, but look through them and pick something out that you think you’re child(ren) might enjoy. Even though my DD’s only 3.5 yrs old the set I bought was just fine for her. I bought my DD the Short Stuff set and she played with it every single day we were in the car. We had a blast making different things then playing with them. It helps promote creative thinking and includes instructions to make a few classics like a pig, dog, rabbit… get creative, my fave creation was a flying monkey!
• Next time we need to remember to bring… a nightlight! My DD had us keep the bathroom light on every night we were in the hotels because she was scared of how dark it was in the room. She normally sleeps with one so I don’t know why I didn’t think to bring one. So needless to say, I bought one at a dollar store before we made our road trip back home again… lol, nights were much more comfortable for all on the way back.

Well, that’s all I can think of so far. So when and where are you going on your next/first road trip?

Road Trip Writings – the numbers

Here are the numbers for our family’s first Road Trip!

5 – number of days to get from our home in Alberta to my In-Laws’ home in Ontario, comfortably. Done in reverse too, lol.

14 – number of family members we spent time visiting.

467 – number of photos taken with our camera.

21 – number of new postcards acquired on our trip.

$885.05 – amount spent in hotels.

$740.70 – amount spent in gas.

$1.303 – average cost of gas per litre.

The amount of fun and great experiences we had on our trip – PRICELESS.

And with that I’ll leave you with a photo of all my new postcards, I think I’ll crop the photo and use it as a background in some of my road trip layouts, what do you think?