Travel Photojournal: Lowell Observatory

We walked in the footsteps of astronomers, looked up through the telescope that discovered Pluto, and ran the length of the solar system:

 
Then we bought one pumpkin spice latte and two kiddie hot chocolates and headed back to our cheap motel, where the girls ate cheddar bunnies and journaled about their day:

I thought that this picture was going to turn out to be a drawing of Clyde Tombaugh's Pluto telescope, but nope.

It's our motel room. Again.

Next up, we tromp through the Petrified Forest, taking only pictures, leaving only tromp-marks!

Travel Photojournal: The Grand Canyon

I was worried that the kids wouldn't like the Grand Canyon:

 

  

  

  

  

 

  

They liked it.

Next, we tour Lowell Observatory!

P.S. Want to know more about my adventures in life, and my looming mid-life crisis? Check out my Craft Knife Facebook page!

Travel Photojournal: Bakersfield, California, to the Grand Canyon

Southeast through California into Arizona:

There are a lot of windmills.

Next, we see the Grand Canyon!

Travel Photojournal: Bean Hollow State Beach

The girls and I are on our wild and unruly adventure!

We make our pilgrimage to Bean Hollow State Beach, otherwise known as Pebble Beach, every time we visit the San Jose area. But we've never before been in November:

 

 

 It's still pretty great.

Next up, we're driving to the Grand Canyon!

A Statement of Truth

Chad is rad:

Am I right or am I right?

Rainbow Snowflakes

I always have about a million projects going on in my head at one time, but if you ask me, the best projects are the ones that my kiddos come up with.

Such as my older daughter, who found seven perfect colors from my cardstock stash, folded them, cut them--

 --glued yarn on the back of each of them--

 --took a break while the glue dried to watch a little Roy G. Biv on youtube--

--and then had me hang her rainbow's worth of snowflakes up in her room:

Where, yes, she has asked me to hang other things amply, as well.

Barter and Trade

I've been bartering. Inspired by Radical Homemakers, a book that I didn't even really like that much, I've found myself setting up trades for lots of things lately, saving myself money and getting stuff that I appreciate in exchange for something that somebody else appreciates.

Also, no tax!

Here are some of my more recent trades:

• a baby bag for a book bag
• blog post editing for cookies
• photography for cornstarch
• fabric for fabric

In that last one, a lady at a craft fair admired the novelty prints that I use in my I Spy quilts so much that she offered me three bags of stash fabric in exchange for some 2" quilt squares in novelty prints for a charm quilt that she's sewing. I'm also sewing a postage stamp charm quilt for myself, and I occasionally offer postage stamp charm quilt sets in my pumpkinbear etsy shop--

--so it was no problem.

Now I need to find a way to barter for babysitting, a travel chess set, some yardwork, candlemaking lessons...

Bedtime Story

Because One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish is DEFINITELY better when it's read out loud.

Travel Prep: The Essentials

We still play the odd game of chess, and Scrabble Junior, and checkers, and Matt has taken to teaching the girls Solar Quest every night after dinner, but Sorry is the latest true obsession:

 
Have I mentioned that the girlies and I are going on a very odd and unruly road trip next week? Our elderly and much-mistreated van, which we use for hauling everything from craft fair stuff to the craft fairs to bicycles to the trailhead to our dumpster-dived coffee table home to our living room, is just about dead in the water. Every day Matt tests its bum transmission by driving it to work and back at under 25 mph and 2,000 rpms. While I was researching little cargo trailers to be pulled behind our Sable (and to probably kill ITS transmission), Matt's parents bought themselves a new used car, and generously offered to give us their old minivan--if only we could find somebody to drive it cross-country to our house!

Hmmm...I wonder who we know who has the time and the inclination for a cross-country road trip?

Hmmmmmmm.....

The kiddos and I leave next week.

Travel logistics are doubly difficult for me, since I have a plane trip AND a road trip to plan for. As you with small kidlets know, entertainment is different for each method of transport. A plane flight, especially since it's likely that Will won't be able to sit right next to me if the rows are small, requires lots of independent, quiet, small-space, no-mess snacks and activities. The benefit, however, is that I can often play with them, or at least fetch them things and set them up with stuff. A road trip, at least for my kiddos, requires LOTS of books, LOTS of educational DVDs, LOTS of audiobooks that we listen to together, LOTS of snacks, and a few playthings and activities. I also can't fetch anything or set anything up, because once we're in motion, I don't take my eyes off of the road--paranoid driver, I am. Now you know.

Hallelujah that we're flying Southwest, in which each traveler gets to check a bountiful TWO FREE BAGS. For us, most of these bags will be filled with road trip stuff; this is good, because when Matt's parents come to pick us up at the airport, it's a tradition that my father-in-law pick up one of my bags, almost die, and then say, "What's in this BAG?!? ROCKS?!?"

At which point I reply. "No, books. Duh!"

So the travel essentials shopping list looks like, to date:

• magnetic board games. Chess is an absolute must, of course, but it's been decades since I've gone shopping for magnetic board games, so WOW me, board game manufacturers!
• car kit for the ipod. I hated that ipod FM transmitter thingy that I bought last year and then returned because I hated it. Wow me, Apple!
• as many books and DVDs and audiobooks as we can sneak out of the public library before we go.

When that's all settled, I'll think about packing some clothes, if we have anymore room in the luggage...

The World's Sleepiest Kitten

She earned her keep at the Halloween party, that's for sure:

And now the world's sleepiest kitten indulges in the sleep of the just, and the kind, and the patient:

We'll see that she gets a good nap before she wakes up to play some more.