Road trips are fun. Now, wait - don't roll your eyes at the thought of driving cross country with your family. It's a forced togetherness, to be sure, but some of the strongest memories I have from my childhood involve driving to Missouri to visit my relatives, in my parents van. Stopping for lunch at a rest stop, making duck bills out of Pringles chips with my sisters, drinking warm orange juice as we went uuuuuppp the hills and back doooowwwnnnn the hills and - well, let's just not talk about what happened next.
Suffice it to say, I still don't like orange juice.
Not all memories involve queasiness, though. Spending time with your family is something that your kids will remember for their entire life. One of the greatest way that you can do this is allowing your children to create a scrapbook. I'll admit - I wasn't a big believer in this until a few years ago, when my own mother brought over the scrapbooks that she'd made with my children when she'd taken them on various trips. I'd seen those scrapbooks in passing and not put too much stock in them - simple spiral bound notebooks that my kids had journaled in, glued in and markered up, they seemed childish and unimportant.
To me, as an adult, maybe they were. To my children, those albums were priceless treasures. My daughter opened one, pointed to a picture and started laughing. "Remember all those ladybugs? Remember how afraid of them you were?" And just like that, they were off, talking about the memories that they'd made on this trip or that vacation.
Going away this summer? You can pick up a scrapbook quality book for not much money. Hand it over to your child, and give her free reign. Of course, you can buy stickers, borders, fancy papers and the like - but quite often, kids don't need that. As a special bonus, creating a personalized scrapbook both keeps your child busy and allows you to see the trip through your child's eyes. You might be surprised at what is the highlight of the trip for him.
Not traveling this summer? You can create the same memory wtih at home plans. Gluing in movie ticket stubs, museum pamphlets and maybe a shell from the beach will have the same effect, and help your child to create a memory that is stamped on the heart forever.
These scrapbooks are treasures that will last a lifetime, and the reflection that will happen when you review them with your family - well, that is priceless and without equal.
My aunt put her trips in a scrapbook, and they were great. She typed a cover page, then included pictures and descriptions.
Every saturday we go for a ride. No destination planned, we just jump in and go.
We stop and take a lot of pictures at different places. It may be a field of cows or a beautiful shot of the mountains.
If we go some place like the aquarium or a fair we save the ticket stubs.
In the summer time lots of wild flowers are picked and dried and the same with fall leaves we collect while out on a ride.
i love scrapbooking!! We travel alot and I have a special scrapbook just for our travels and the monuments we have visited
"I am wearing my san fran fleece sweatshirt from our family trip that i bought at gw while we were there. How old is this thing? But it so makes me smile...great great trip, so many good memories. I was remembering our hike at lake tahoe, just you and me, and the horseback ride, and the cinnamon buns from safeway, the hotel and their awful leaf filled pool lol...god, i am so happy we did stuff like that!
Like · · See Friendship · Yesterday at 10:54am near Memphis ·
Jodi likes this.
Me too!!! And even though the cosmos disagrees with my need to travel, I still love it! Thanks Mom : )
Yesterday at 11:00am · Like"
Ps-the gw in the post above stands for goodwill, lol. I could find them anywhere lol
Quoting mysticalmalissa:Every saturday we go for a ride. No destination planned, we just jump in and go.
We stop and take a lot of pictures at different places. It may be a field of cows or a beautiful shot of the mountains.
If we go some place like the aquarium or a fair we save the ticket stubs.
In the summer time lots of wild flowers are picked and dried and the same with fall leaves we collect while out on a ride.
Love doing this too!
I love scrapbooks! Not only making them, but also looking through them!
Colossians 2:1-5
- Carmen S
on Jul. 24, 2011 at 12:00 AM