Let's talk meals! I said yesterday that I didn't really cook on our trip, but I'll admit that my "not cooking" is the same as many people's "cooking." I prepped as much as possible before leaving (cutting up carrots and celery, premixing the vinaigrette, etc.) I also designated Monday night as my big night in the kitchen, although I only spent about half an hour throwing together the crisp and boiling the pasta for Tuesday and the eggs for Wednesday while I scrambled the eggs for dinner that night. However, your mileage may vary.
Sunday- Father's day
Breakfast at home: waffles, strawberries, whipped cream.
Lunch picnic: Cherries, carrots, celery, crackers, peanut butter.
Dinner at a restaurant: We were supposed to go to a brewery. Turns out breweries in MO are closed on Sunday. Lesson learned.
Monday
Breakfast at the Airbnb: Oatmeal with walnuts and raisins.
Lunch picnic: Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, grapes, bell peppers, cherry tomatoes.
Dinner at the Airbnb: Scrambled eggs with cheese, corn, carrots, cantaloupe. (This is the most unintentionally orange meal ever. Also, so many C's.)
Tuesday
Breakfast at the Airbnb: Rhubarb crisp (baked the night before while we ate dinner), peaches.
Lunch picnic: Pasta salad (made the night before: penne pasta, cherry tomatoes, kalamata olives, feta cheese, cucumber, and a dressing of olive oil, apple cider vinegar, Italian seasoning, salt, and pepper.) celery, granola bars.
Dinner at the Airbnb: Quesadillas, refried beans from a can, salsa from a jar, bell peppers.
Wednesday
Breakfast at the Airbnb: Cereal, trail mix, milk
Lunch picnic: Hard boiled eggs, leftover pasta salad with lots of extra tomatoes, grapes.
4 PM picnic: Cherries, crackers.
7:30 PM at home: Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, cucumbers, peppers.
Packing list
Produce
Rhubarb
Cantaloupe
Peaches
Cucumber
Cherry tomatoes (3 meals)
Celery (2 meals)
Carrots (3 meals)
Cherries (2 meals)
Grapes (2 meals)
Bell peppers (2 meals)
Corn (frozen is fine)
Olives
Prepared Foods
Cereal
Trail mix
Oatmeal (mixed with raisins and walnuts)
Tortillas
Peanut butter
Jelly
Refried beans
Salsa
Pasta
Crackers
Vinaigrette
Rhubarb crisp topping
Bread
Tortillas
Granola Bars
Refrigerated
Milk
Quesadilla cheese
Feta cheese
Eggs (2 meals)
Showing posts with label Travel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Travel. Show all posts
Saturday, June 25, 2016
Friday, June 24, 2016
Home from St. Louis
We just took a vacation. The first of two planned for this summer! Wild, I know. We spent four days down in St. Louis, MO, and it was a wonderful time.
Sunday we traveled. Packing up the kids to get out of the house for something like this always takes twice as long as I think it will. It didn't help that the kids had made no fewer than 30 Father's Day cards for their dad, all of which had to be opened before we could load the car.
It's a 5 hour drive, so we stopped at a playground for a picnic lunch at about the half way point, and rolled into St. Louis around dinner time. We walked around the famous Gateway Arch, although it's a major construction zone right now, and then went out for mediocre pizza and excellent beer.
We stayed at an Airbnb. It was our first experience doing so, and we were delighted. It was so nice to have a kitchen. I didn't really cook, but I prefer to slap together quick and easy meals than to take three kids out to eat twice a day. Also, it was awesome to have multiple rooms. One night L went to bed in the big bedroom, V went to bed in the little bedroom, Z set up a nest in the kitchen, and Husband and I stayed up late chatting in the living room. All for 2/3 the price of a single hotel room. I'm hooked.
On Monday we went to the St. Louis Zoo. It's consistently rated as one of the top five in the country, and it was easy to see why. They do a tremendous job balancing the need for animals to live in somewhat natural environments, the need to keep people and animals safe from each other, and the desire of zoo visitors to actually see the animals in the zoo. There were quite a number of "talk to the keeper" types of experiences all throughout the day. Also, the garden plantings were gorgeous. I know nobody goes to the zoo to see the flowers, but these were truly exceptional. To top it all off, the zoo has free admission!
We tried to cram it all into one long day. In retrospect, it would have worked better for our family to plan an extra day in town and spend two long mornings at the zoo, followed by lunch, naps, and playground time. We missed quite a few animals, and everyone was exhausted and cranky by the time we got back to the Airbnb for dinner.
Tuesday we went to the City Museum. It's like nothing you've ever seen. I keep calling it a recycled junkyard art installation playground. There are enormous slides, a three story rebar climbing maze jungle gym, ball pits 15 feet square, a rabbits' warren of caves constructed from concrete, an indoor skate park with no skateboards, a tiny circus, a Ferris wheel on the roof, and more. The whole place is eye-popping, weird, and exciting. Z, V, Husband, and I loved it. L is two, so his experience was more mixed.
His comment after riding the Ferris wheel was, "I not crying." He rode the tiny train, but at the end of his first lap he said, "I no like it!" He then proceeded to wail "I NO LIKE IT!" during the entire second lap. The ride operator let him out after that, so he didn't have to do the third lap. He told me, quite seriously, "I no like it" as soon as I picked him up. He slipped on a slide and scraped his ear. He was scared of the circus. He didn't like when other kids were in the ball pit with him because they kept bumping him. And he got lost for a few minutes in the caves. He really did enjoy exploring the rebar maze, the tree house, and the caves, though, as long as I stayed right behind him.
Wednesday we spent a few hours at the Science Center and Planetarium. To be honest, we were all tired, so half a day of half-hearted looking was enough. We drove home with movies and snacks to placate the masses.
It was a wonderful vacation, all things considered. I'd recommend St. Louis if you're interested a not-too-stressful trip with your kids.
Sunday we traveled. Packing up the kids to get out of the house for something like this always takes twice as long as I think it will. It didn't help that the kids had made no fewer than 30 Father's Day cards for their dad, all of which had to be opened before we could load the car.
It's a 5 hour drive, so we stopped at a playground for a picnic lunch at about the half way point, and rolled into St. Louis around dinner time. We walked around the famous Gateway Arch, although it's a major construction zone right now, and then went out for mediocre pizza and excellent beer.
We stayed at an Airbnb. It was our first experience doing so, and we were delighted. It was so nice to have a kitchen. I didn't really cook, but I prefer to slap together quick and easy meals than to take three kids out to eat twice a day. Also, it was awesome to have multiple rooms. One night L went to bed in the big bedroom, V went to bed in the little bedroom, Z set up a nest in the kitchen, and Husband and I stayed up late chatting in the living room. All for 2/3 the price of a single hotel room. I'm hooked.
On Monday we went to the St. Louis Zoo. It's consistently rated as one of the top five in the country, and it was easy to see why. They do a tremendous job balancing the need for animals to live in somewhat natural environments, the need to keep people and animals safe from each other, and the desire of zoo visitors to actually see the animals in the zoo. There were quite a number of "talk to the keeper" types of experiences all throughout the day. Also, the garden plantings were gorgeous. I know nobody goes to the zoo to see the flowers, but these were truly exceptional. To top it all off, the zoo has free admission!
We tried to cram it all into one long day. In retrospect, it would have worked better for our family to plan an extra day in town and spend two long mornings at the zoo, followed by lunch, naps, and playground time. We missed quite a few animals, and everyone was exhausted and cranky by the time we got back to the Airbnb for dinner.
Tuesday we went to the City Museum. It's like nothing you've ever seen. I keep calling it a recycled junkyard art installation playground. There are enormous slides, a three story rebar climbing maze jungle gym, ball pits 15 feet square, a rabbits' warren of caves constructed from concrete, an indoor skate park with no skateboards, a tiny circus, a Ferris wheel on the roof, and more. The whole place is eye-popping, weird, and exciting. Z, V, Husband, and I loved it. L is two, so his experience was more mixed.
His comment after riding the Ferris wheel was, "I not crying." He rode the tiny train, but at the end of his first lap he said, "I no like it!" He then proceeded to wail "I NO LIKE IT!" during the entire second lap. The ride operator let him out after that, so he didn't have to do the third lap. He told me, quite seriously, "I no like it" as soon as I picked him up. He slipped on a slide and scraped his ear. He was scared of the circus. He didn't like when other kids were in the ball pit with him because they kept bumping him. And he got lost for a few minutes in the caves. He really did enjoy exploring the rebar maze, the tree house, and the caves, though, as long as I stayed right behind him.
Wednesday we spent a few hours at the Science Center and Planetarium. To be honest, we were all tired, so half a day of half-hearted looking was enough. We drove home with movies and snacks to placate the masses.
It was a wonderful vacation, all things considered. I'd recommend St. Louis if you're interested a not-too-stressful trip with your kids.
Thursday, August 1, 2013
Toys for the car
Or, what I packed on my 60 hour road trip to Alberta, Canada.
I was really, really nervous about taking a 60 hour, 6 day car trip with my 2 and 4 year old children. In retrospect, it wasn't so bad, but the anxiety I had leading up to the trip led me to make list upon list of things to pack. Of course there were clothing and toiletries, diapers and the little potty for the newly potty trained Sparrow, dozens of kid's books, a DVD player with plenty of cartoon movies, and more snacks than you could possibly justify.
But I also packed toys. The Sparrow isn't much into movies. And the books that hold her attention tend to be little 5-minute stories that she wants you to read over and over and over and over. Would you like my giant obsessive compulsive list of toys for the car? Even if you don't want it, I'd like to record it so the next time we undertake this kind of delightful family togetherness, I've already got the list compiled. Also, my notes on what worked.
1. A doll or stuffed animal for each kid
2. A magnetic lap tray for each child (In retrospect, we really only needed one at a time. However, having *A* tray was immensely handy not only for toys and coloring, but also for making and serving meals in the car.)
3. Lots of paper (construction, lined, printer, watercolor)
4. Scissors
5. Crayons (Not markers this trip. The Sparrow loses the caps like nobody's business.)
6. A dozen sheets of stickers.
7. Homemade I Spy bottle with 34 items and 10 letters
8. A set of magnets with colors, numbers, and shapes. Maybe 50 magnets total.
9. Rubber stamps (The self-contained stamps were ok, although a bit messy. The stamp pad was a disaster. The Gibbon enjoyed it for maybe 3 minutes, and The Sparrow dyed her hands, face, outfit, and car seat blue. Maybe for older kids, but never again for preschoolers.)
10. Fancy colored Duct Tape (The Gibbon likes to just cut inch long pieces and stick them on paper.)
11. Construction trucks.
12. Little People and their vehicles.
13. Playdough and a few tools to work it. (It definitely keeps the kids occupied for a good length of time, but it crumbles and makes a mess. I had enough else that I didn't actually get it out of the bag. Plastic modeling clay will probably be my choice for the future.)
14. LED flashlights.
15. Bubbles (Another idea that didn't go so well. The kids wanted to hold the bubbles, and that always results in a mess. So they alternately popped the bubbles I blew and whined that they weren't holding the wand.)
16. Magnifying glass.
17. Clips (I had bulldog paper clips, hair clips, clothes pins, and mini-carabiners. They clipped themselves, their clothes, their car seats, their hair, and me. Good times.)
18. Toy doctor kit.
19. Coloring books and preschool worksheets.
20. Post-it notes. (The Sparrow enjoyed removing each post-it from the stack and handing them to me. The Gibbon enjoyed drawing on the notes and sticking them to things. I also drew simple shapes or sketches on the notes and hung them on the window after the kids guessed what they were. We got almost an hour of play out of a $1 stack of post-its. Totally a win.)
21. Paint rollers and brushes. (No paint, just the rollers and brushes. My kids both like to pretend paint. "What color do you want, Mom? Dip, Dip, Dip. I paint your hand blue.")
22. Magnetic drawing pad (Like the Magna Doodle, only generic).
23. Lacing shapes.
24. Dinosaur toys.
25. Pony beads.
26. Pipe Cleaners (These were used for stringing the above mentioned pony beads, but The Sparrow also enjoyed taking them out of and putting them into their package. Subsequent to the trip we've used them to make fabulous accessories. Pipe cleaner glasses are awesome.)
27. Pom Poms (Because they're basically balls, but you can't hurt anyone with them. We played tiny games of catch, blew them on the trays, treated them as fuzzy pets, and of course put them into and took them out of their package.)
28. Dollar store plastic shot glasses. (For stacking, pretend cooking, and putting pom poms into.)
29. Shape sorter (Didn't get enough play value for the amount of space it took up. I'd skip it in the future.)
30. A magnetic door puzzle.
31. Calculator (Doubles as a pretend phone and a "find the number" game.)
32. A dozen Easter Eggs stuffed with random tiny toys. (The Sparrow, being two, likes to open and dump stuff. Have you noticed that trend yet?)
33. Playing cards. (The Gibbon is old enough for War and Old Maid.)
34. Scrabble ties. (The Gibbon is also reading and learning to spell. So these were good fun for him.)
35. Plastic laces. (You could use these to string pony beads instead of pipe cleaners. Or you could simply tie them in knots or threaten your siblings with them.)
36. Hole puncher. (Office supplies are awesome to preschoolers!)
37. Stapler (See #36.)
38. Staple remover. (See #36, again.)
39. Dice. (There are a million games you can play with a handful of dice. We like to roll them and count. To make that an actual game, you can say that when you roll doubles your turn is over and try to get the biggest number before then. Or try to be the first to roll a 1 then a 2 then a 3. Or just google "easy dice games" and find a few that suit you.)
40. Pirate action figures. (These are the tiny guys, like you're used to seeing little soldiers. We've also got football guys, although we didn't bring them on this trip.)
41. A wallet full of cards. (We honestly used our store discount cards, some business cards, and one of my old student IDs. But it would be truly awesome if you had a set of these.)
42. Two copies of this free printable travel game. (The Sparrow got one set hole punched and on a ring. The Gibbon got seven cards at a time and a snack when he found all seven items.)
43. Glow bracelets. (We used these the one day we ended up traveling after dark. Good times.)
I was going to make a latch board, but I ran out of time. Maybe next year.
What are your favorite toys for long road trips with the kids?
I was really, really nervous about taking a 60 hour, 6 day car trip with my 2 and 4 year old children. In retrospect, it wasn't so bad, but the anxiety I had leading up to the trip led me to make list upon list of things to pack. Of course there were clothing and toiletries, diapers and the little potty for the newly potty trained Sparrow, dozens of kid's books, a DVD player with plenty of cartoon movies, and more snacks than you could possibly justify.
But I also packed toys. The Sparrow isn't much into movies. And the books that hold her attention tend to be little 5-minute stories that she wants you to read over and over and over and over. Would you like my giant obsessive compulsive list of toys for the car? Even if you don't want it, I'd like to record it so the next time we undertake this kind of delightful family togetherness, I've already got the list compiled. Also, my notes on what worked.
1. A doll or stuffed animal for each kid
2. A magnetic lap tray for each child (In retrospect, we really only needed one at a time. However, having *A* tray was immensely handy not only for toys and coloring, but also for making and serving meals in the car.)
3. Lots of paper (construction, lined, printer, watercolor)
4. Scissors
5. Crayons (Not markers this trip. The Sparrow loses the caps like nobody's business.)
6. A dozen sheets of stickers.
7. Homemade I Spy bottle with 34 items and 10 letters
8. A set of magnets with colors, numbers, and shapes. Maybe 50 magnets total.
9. Rubber stamps (The self-contained stamps were ok, although a bit messy. The stamp pad was a disaster. The Gibbon enjoyed it for maybe 3 minutes, and The Sparrow dyed her hands, face, outfit, and car seat blue. Maybe for older kids, but never again for preschoolers.)
10. Fancy colored Duct Tape (The Gibbon likes to just cut inch long pieces and stick them on paper.)
11. Construction trucks.
12. Little People and their vehicles.
13. Playdough and a few tools to work it. (It definitely keeps the kids occupied for a good length of time, but it crumbles and makes a mess. I had enough else that I didn't actually get it out of the bag. Plastic modeling clay will probably be my choice for the future.)
14. LED flashlights.
15. Bubbles (Another idea that didn't go so well. The kids wanted to hold the bubbles, and that always results in a mess. So they alternately popped the bubbles I blew and whined that they weren't holding the wand.)
16. Magnifying glass.
17. Clips (I had bulldog paper clips, hair clips, clothes pins, and mini-carabiners. They clipped themselves, their clothes, their car seats, their hair, and me. Good times.)
18. Toy doctor kit.
19. Coloring books and preschool worksheets.
20. Post-it notes. (The Sparrow enjoyed removing each post-it from the stack and handing them to me. The Gibbon enjoyed drawing on the notes and sticking them to things. I also drew simple shapes or sketches on the notes and hung them on the window after the kids guessed what they were. We got almost an hour of play out of a $1 stack of post-its. Totally a win.)
21. Paint rollers and brushes. (No paint, just the rollers and brushes. My kids both like to pretend paint. "What color do you want, Mom? Dip, Dip, Dip. I paint your hand blue.")
22. Magnetic drawing pad (Like the Magna Doodle, only generic).
23. Lacing shapes.
24. Dinosaur toys.
25. Pony beads.
26. Pipe Cleaners (These were used for stringing the above mentioned pony beads, but The Sparrow also enjoyed taking them out of and putting them into their package. Subsequent to the trip we've used them to make fabulous accessories. Pipe cleaner glasses are awesome.)
27. Pom Poms (Because they're basically balls, but you can't hurt anyone with them. We played tiny games of catch, blew them on the trays, treated them as fuzzy pets, and of course put them into and took them out of their package.)
28. Dollar store plastic shot glasses. (For stacking, pretend cooking, and putting pom poms into.)
29. Shape sorter (Didn't get enough play value for the amount of space it took up. I'd skip it in the future.)
30. A magnetic door puzzle.
31. Calculator (Doubles as a pretend phone and a "find the number" game.)
32. A dozen Easter Eggs stuffed with random tiny toys. (The Sparrow, being two, likes to open and dump stuff. Have you noticed that trend yet?)
33. Playing cards. (The Gibbon is old enough for War and Old Maid.)
34. Scrabble ties. (The Gibbon is also reading and learning to spell. So these were good fun for him.)
35. Plastic laces. (You could use these to string pony beads instead of pipe cleaners. Or you could simply tie them in knots or threaten your siblings with them.)
36. Hole puncher. (Office supplies are awesome to preschoolers!)
37. Stapler (See #36.)
38. Staple remover. (See #36, again.)
39. Dice. (There are a million games you can play with a handful of dice. We like to roll them and count. To make that an actual game, you can say that when you roll doubles your turn is over and try to get the biggest number before then. Or try to be the first to roll a 1 then a 2 then a 3. Or just google "easy dice games" and find a few that suit you.)
40. Pirate action figures. (These are the tiny guys, like you're used to seeing little soldiers. We've also got football guys, although we didn't bring them on this trip.)
41. A wallet full of cards. (We honestly used our store discount cards, some business cards, and one of my old student IDs. But it would be truly awesome if you had a set of these.)
42. Two copies of this free printable travel game. (The Sparrow got one set hole punched and on a ring. The Gibbon got seven cards at a time and a snack when he found all seven items.)
43. Glow bracelets. (We used these the one day we ended up traveling after dark. Good times.)
I was going to make a latch board, but I ran out of time. Maybe next year.
What are your favorite toys for long road trips with the kids?
Tuesday, July 30, 2013
Conversation Openers
I have a friend who is taking a long road trip with her toddler, infant, husband, and mother-in-law this fall. She's an old pro at the travel thing, so she's not stressing about the small people, but she is finding the prospect of 30 hours in the car with her MIL unpleasant. Why? Because she feels awkward staring out the window, entertaining her kids, and ignoring the other grown-ups in the car. But her MIL feels no compulsion to even attempt conversation.
Now on my recent 60 hour road trip with my preschooler and toddler, I brought 60 toys. The idea was that every hour, I could bust a new toy out of the bag. Granted, most of the toys were simply packed from our copious toy, craft, and office supply collections. But having something "new" every hour provided a modicum of excitement and anticipation. If the kids were playing, eating, or sleeping happily, I didn't bother interrupting them, so many of the toys didn't make their appearance at the beginning of the hour at all. And I certainly didn't need 60 toys, because the kids slept for at least 90 minutes every day anyway. But, I felt good having a bag of tricks in reserve, and as every parent knows, kids tend play longer with the single toy available than they do with any given toy in a group of options. So even the things that wouldn't have been good for more than 5 minutes at home stretched out to 10 or even 20 when presented all alone as *the* new toy for this hour.
What do the previous paragraphs have in common? I've suggested to my friend having a new topic of conversation for each hour of the trip. She can bust them out when the kids are eating, playing, or sleeping happily and she starts to feel awkward sitting in silence with her MIL. If the MIL does her part, they can chit-chat for a while on any given topic, and if she doesn't, my friend can feel she's done her best to be sociable and happily settle back to look out the window until the kids need her attention again.
In the interest of being a good friend (read: Because I am obsessive compulsive), I've even done the mental work of coming up with a list of topics to start conversations with an older relative. Feel free to use them any way you'd like.
Do you have any suggestions for further topics?
Now on my recent 60 hour road trip with my preschooler and toddler, I brought 60 toys. The idea was that every hour, I could bust a new toy out of the bag. Granted, most of the toys were simply packed from our copious toy, craft, and office supply collections. But having something "new" every hour provided a modicum of excitement and anticipation. If the kids were playing, eating, or sleeping happily, I didn't bother interrupting them, so many of the toys didn't make their appearance at the beginning of the hour at all. And I certainly didn't need 60 toys, because the kids slept for at least 90 minutes every day anyway. But, I felt good having a bag of tricks in reserve, and as every parent knows, kids tend play longer with the single toy available than they do with any given toy in a group of options. So even the things that wouldn't have been good for more than 5 minutes at home stretched out to 10 or even 20 when presented all alone as *the* new toy for this hour.
What do the previous paragraphs have in common? I've suggested to my friend having a new topic of conversation for each hour of the trip. She can bust them out when the kids are eating, playing, or sleeping happily and she starts to feel awkward sitting in silence with her MIL. If the MIL does her part, they can chit-chat for a while on any given topic, and if she doesn't, my friend can feel she's done her best to be sociable and happily settle back to look out the window until the kids need her attention again.
In the interest of being a good friend (read: Because I am obsessive compulsive), I've even done the mental work of coming up with a list of topics to start conversations with an older relative. Feel free to use them any way you'd like.
- Childhood pets: Did you have them? Did your kids have them? Should kids in general have them?
- What would you do if you won the lottery?
- Memorable food: Holiday or special occasion meals, travel food, the best thing you’ve ever eaten, your favorite go-to recipes.
- Baby & toddler milestones: when did your kids reach them?
- Favorite TV shows OR why you don’t watch TV.
- Ideas for making family occasions memorable.
- Your plans for coping with more extreme weather.
- Most and least favorite sports to watch and play.
- Doping in professional sports.
- Is the Internet destroying reading? What about magazines?
- Read any good books lately?
- Opinions of ethnic foods. Which do you enjoy, not enjoy, and why?
- How to choose clothing. Philosophy and practical application. Both for yourself and for kids.
- Wine, beer, break, cheese, or pickle making. Pros and cons of making vs. buying. Personal experiences.
- Memories of school.
- How to think about school for today’s children. Public, private, home school, and why or what to consider. The state of education.
- How to feed children. Philosophy and practical application.
- Travel: Do you enjoy it? What parts? Why or why not?
- Tiny homes: 400 sq ft apartments in NY and San Francisco, Tumbleweed Tiny Houses from 130 to 500 sq ft. What do you think? What would you put in one?
- Collections: Do you or did you ever have one? What or why not?
- Dating and courtship: How you met, dated, fell in love with your husband. Philosophy on dating and courtship in general.
- The perfect day, if you were going to live it over and over like the movie Groundhog Day.
- Jobs: Best, worst, your first, your perfect.
- Technology: Your opinion of tech in general. What you love and hate of new tech.
- Amazing places you’ve been.
- Things you are proud of.
- Opinions of GMO crops.
- Is peace possible in the Middle East? How?
- Should the US use capital punishment?
- Games you’ve enjoyed. What games did you play with your kids? What games did you play as a child?
- If time and money were no object, where in the world would you like to try living?
- A place you’d like to visit but have never been.
- Worst fashion trends.
- Your and your children’s favorite toys at different ages and stages.
- Five words to describe you. Five words to describe other people in your family.
- What do you think of cooking shows? Celebrity chefs? Food as entertainment in general?
- Opinions on Global Warming. Is it a thing? What should be done?
- Have you traveled internationally? If not, why? If yes, where did you go and what did you learn?
- Race relations in the US: George Zimmerman, Detroit, how to raise children to respect other races.
- College: Did you go? Is it worth the cost? Will it continue to have the same significance in the future as it does now?
- Energy security in the US. Fracking, peak oil, alternative energy, green initiatives, your family’s relationship with energy.
- Domestic auto makers: the bail out, the direction they are headed now, what to consider when buying a car.
- Medications and kids: When they’re justified during illness, overmedicating ADHD, teens abusing prescription meds.
- Favorite movies: Recently? Of all time?
- What are your most precious possessions? Do you own any heirlooms? Are heirlooms or antiques important?
- Favorite children’s books.
- Hobbies: Which do you enjoy now? Which have you enjoyed in the past? Any that you’ve considered but never attempted?
- Your memories of family life that you hope your children remember too.
- What values did you try to instill in your children? Do you feel they exemplify those values?
- What kinds of music do you hate? Why?
Do you have any suggestions for further topics?
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