Rules of the Road

I am not going to pretend to be the kind of mom who doesn't let her kids watch a movie occasionally while on a road trip.

Because I do.

Not very Von Trappish of me, I know.

But we also sing and play games.

And I take pictures.

Sometimes of myself.

That being said, I thought I'd share with you some of our favorite games. We've been on so many road trips this summer, we can't stop playing our games even when just running to the grocery store or going to soccer practice.

One of the games we play is to add up the numbers of our birthdays, for example, my birthday is 10/05/71, (wow, I can't believe I just posted that on the internet...) so when you add up all of the single digits, you get 14. Therefore 14 is my special number. Then you count that number of cars that pass and when you reach the special number, that is the car is the car you will drive or drove on your 16th birthday. The kids have a blast with this because typically they end up getting a real clunker for their first car. And I always get the corvette. HA.

Because we are the Ellerbees and are indeed somewhat gross, we also play the road kill game. You get points according to which road kill you see. Obviously armadillos are not worth as much as deer etc. A deer with a good rack is worth a lot. So are foxes. See the point? Good clean family fun, don't you think? Josh once thought he saw a fish... on the street.... no where near any source of water. He didn't get points for that.

Several years ago, on a road trip to Chicago, we made up some "rules of the road." These were rules we had to follow on all subsequent road trips. We have been on so many road trips this year, the kids can't stop playing the game!

Here's a few of our rules that we follow all the time, even when it becomes an embarassing and annoying habit...

• Lift your feet up as the car goes over a railroad track.
• Hold your breath when you drive under a bridge or overpass.
• Sing as you drive over a bridge.
• Touch your nose and say beep beep when you see a yellow car.
• Moo when you see a cow. Neigh when you see a horse. Bark.... you see my point here.

The best part about games like these are that the kids remember every single rule. They remember every game. They will remember these moments.

At least I hope that's what they will remember....

And not me screaming about being cut off in traffic or getting mad at "Daphne" (our GPS) for telling me I'm going the wrong way.

But that the memories they will keep will be of all 8 of us singing off tune at the top of our lungs everytime we drive over a bridge.

These are certainly the days I will remember.