Miss me?

Nah, I didn't think so....

;-)

Well, the latest family roadtrip has come to an end. We made our usual trip down to the Florida panhandle to visit "Los Abuelos" (aka: my wife's parents) with a side trip to Ft. Hood, Texas, for my brother's wedding. All told we were gone for 17 days and put nearly 4,000 miles on our van.

The kids, who are old pros at this by now, were great the whole time. I have a couple stories about the trip to post, but one interesting thing (at least to me, as their father) was how being on the road really highlighted some of the personality differences in our kids. Our daughter, who's 5, is very independent. She is quite content to entertain herself for hours on end, which is a pretty handy thing when you're stuck in a minivan for most of the day. Our 3-year old son on the other hand, craves personal interaction and more structured activities.

One day, as we were traveling from Houston to my in-laws' place east of Pensacola, I think our daughter spent the entire 10 hours deeply engrossed in some imaginary play with two toy cats and really was quite happy about it. She had various conversations with them (voicing all three side of the conversation, of course), pretended to play games with them, read them books, tucked them under a blanket on the seat next to her so they could take a nap, etc....

Meanwhile, our son was constantly vying for Mommy and Daddy's attention. At least until we introduced him to headphones. We plopped in a Milkshake CD and he put on the headphones and his sunglasses and rocked out for a while. The shades were his idea - just for effect since the tinted windows of the van make them unnecessary.

So, there you have it. More posts to come....