Holiday Road

This summer we are heading up to the Motherland (as Shane affectionately calls Canada) for our summer vacation. We are going to stay at Gord's chalet in Collingwood, a resort town a couple of hours north of Toronto. I am anticipating long summer-y days in the sun and cool evenings, with the family gathered in the kitchen or on the deck, eating delicious meals that everyone pitched in to make, the kids calmly playing and giggling in the corner after a day in the pool, a cold glass of white in hand and lots of good times and laughs on hand...memories to last a lifetime. You know, like in the movies!

My mom, the kids and I are packing up the mini-van and driving up around the 20th of June. Shane and my dad will fly up and meet us there. Sarah and Gord will be in the city during the week and will join us for the weekends. We'll be gone about a month altogether...nice to be out of Texas for part of the sweaty summer.

I just realized that we have really been talking up the trip, but mostly the drive aspect of it. Anytime Claire asks if we are almost there because it is taking forever to drive the 3 miles to Target, I remind her that we are driving ALL THE WAY TO TORONTO! and it is a much, much longer drive. And making sure that she knows the hotels we'll stay in have pools! And we'll have so much fun together in the car! Propaganda to help smooth the 24 hour drive. I haven't even really talked about what we are going to do when we get there, just talking about the drive.

When my mom was here just over a week ago, she and Claire started a list of things we need to make sure to bring. Movies...specific titles included, snacks...specific types included, vitamins, stuffed animals, toothbrush, toothpaste and suddenly...Oh! Put Gavin on the list, Gummy! So Gavin made the To Bring list after all. I like how a) he was not just assumed to be coming and b) he joined the list after movies, toys and snacks. And she added Gavin's toy car, so that was nice.

I am looking forward to it all, even the drive. I guess this time we won't take a detour through very Deliverance-esque backwoods to get to Lynchburg to tour the Jack Daniel's distillery like Sarah and I did last time we made the drive. And maybe we'll steer clear of the very, very bad part of Memphis my mom and Sarah ended up in last time they made the drive. We'll play it by the AAA rules this time around.

Anyone have any fun road trip games to share?