Tips from a weekend road trip Up North with a one and three year old :

• Bring ear plugs in the car. Molly, seriously, why all the crying?
• Expect that a 5 hour road trip will take 7 hours with stops.
• Sing She’ll Be Comin’ Around the Mountain. It can go a long way when people get bored.
• Do not put any sippy cups of milk in the van over night in the summer. Stinky! Opps. That’s my fault.
• Family trips are not vacations they are trips. Adjust attitude as such and voila! Mama’s happy.
• Over pack even when everybody else is rolling their eyes at the maxed out mini-van.
• Bring a portable DVD player even though your gut is saying but it’s time to unplug. Sick, I know.
• Let the kids stay up late for that extra S’more.
• Pay attention to the little things like the sounds of loons, smell of campfire smoke and the taste of fresh picked raspberries.
• Teach the kids to slow down and enjoy the moment. No more “What now?” Just be.

Stove in the A-frame cabin.

We are home sweet home with a pile of laundry that is still swimming with the aromas of Up North: Bug spray, sun screen, pine sap and camp fire smoke. We spent the weekend in an A-frame style cabin along the Canadian border. Our friends Andrew and Heather came up and stayed at a near by cabin.

Here are the highlights of our trip:

• Ryan went fishing for the first time. He caught four small mouth bass and one 14″ northern. Not bad for a 3 year old. By far his favorite part of the experience was the leeches in a cup!
• Molly loved to eat the fresh blueberries and raspberries that we picked each day.
• The kids each got to ride on a four wheeler.
• I got to take a photo walk one morning. Still water, calling loons, and no kids. Lovely.
• Peter was able to brush up his skills with a shot gun. He and Andrew did some serious clay shooting. Peter has a bruise on his shoulder to prove it.

The dock at sunrise.