Many of you have asked "How in the world did you and Dave survive in the car for two weeks on vacation with the boys?"
Well, grasshoppers, we came up with an incentive program. Dave concocted what I considered a genius idea of giving the boys an envelope every day of the vacation containing $1 bills; the idea being that if they misbehaved, they must relinquish a dollar. Think about how difficult it would be for a 6 and/or 8 year old to hand over to their parents a crisp, clean $1 bill that could have been the pathway to the Lego version of Falling Water Architect Series? (Sons of a builder/developer of course...we discourage the Pirate line of Legos as we feel the boys will not study piratedom in college.)
Each envelope contained $10 and yes, we made sure they were brand spanking new. It took Dave, myself & Grandma Cheryl over an hour to count, seperate and label each one for distribution. I know you are all doing the quick math: 2 weeks = 14 days = $1 each day = $140 per kid = $280. Are we crazy?
Not to fully discount our well-behaved children's manners but truth be told, we assumed that the kids would ultimately be paying for part of the trip. Why? Because we did a test run first. Without using real money, we pulled a "hypothetical" on Nick and Lane and lets just say that on a 14 minute car ride to a friend's house for dinner, they each got out of the car with $3 and $5 dollars respectively. This was going to be like---taking one dollar bills from kids!
Imagine our shock when day after day, mile after mile, those little guys held on to each dollar like it was a giant bag of candy. We tried to get them to talk back, fight, wrestle, throw something at each other or Dave while he was driving and nothing worked. By the end of the trip, we were sheepishly asking to borrow money to pay for dinner.
Somehow, over the course of 2800 miles, our vision of an educational Lego toy and a large deposit in their savings accounts turned into a skateboard. This originates from our summer at the beach--the sights & sounds of the area and the influence of the surf/skate culture. The boys have survived to this point on a Spiderman skateboard from Target and Dave's old, old skateboard that we revived. They loved skateboarding and recognized it was time to step it up a little with boards of their own.
Nick lost $23 and Lane lost $17. We had a fantastic and peaceful trip. We purchased skateboards when we returned from Doublewide Skate Shop. We have spent weekends at the Skate Barn. Everyone is almost happy.
For some reason, I cannot get past that more than likely, as much safety equipment that we load on the boys, that at some point we will end up with a broken bone. And it will always point back to the incentive program that WE created. Keep your (intact) fingers crossed for us.
Well, grasshoppers, we came up with an incentive program. Dave concocted what I considered a genius idea of giving the boys an envelope every day of the vacation containing $1 bills; the idea being that if they misbehaved, they must relinquish a dollar. Think about how difficult it would be for a 6 and/or 8 year old to hand over to their parents a crisp, clean $1 bill that could have been the pathway to the Lego version of Falling Water Architect Series? (Sons of a builder/developer of course...we discourage the Pirate line of Legos as we feel the boys will not study piratedom in college.)
Each envelope contained $10 and yes, we made sure they were brand spanking new. It took Dave, myself & Grandma Cheryl over an hour to count, seperate and label each one for distribution. I know you are all doing the quick math: 2 weeks = 14 days = $1 each day = $140 per kid = $280. Are we crazy?
Not to fully discount our well-behaved children's manners but truth be told, we assumed that the kids would ultimately be paying for part of the trip. Why? Because we did a test run first. Without using real money, we pulled a "hypothetical" on Nick and Lane and lets just say that on a 14 minute car ride to a friend's house for dinner, they each got out of the car with $3 and $5 dollars respectively. This was going to be like---taking one dollar bills from kids!
Imagine our shock when day after day, mile after mile, those little guys held on to each dollar like it was a giant bag of candy. We tried to get them to talk back, fight, wrestle, throw something at each other or Dave while he was driving and nothing worked. By the end of the trip, we were sheepishly asking to borrow money to pay for dinner.
Somehow, over the course of 2800 miles, our vision of an educational Lego toy and a large deposit in their savings accounts turned into a skateboard. This originates from our summer at the beach--the sights & sounds of the area and the influence of the surf/skate culture. The boys have survived to this point on a Spiderman skateboard from Target and Dave's old, old skateboard that we revived. They loved skateboarding and recognized it was time to step it up a little with boards of their own.
Nick lost $23 and Lane lost $17. We had a fantastic and peaceful trip. We purchased skateboards when we returned from Doublewide Skate Shop. We have spent weekends at the Skate Barn. Everyone is almost happy.
For some reason, I cannot get past that more than likely, as much safety equipment that we load on the boys, that at some point we will end up with a broken bone. And it will always point back to the incentive program that WE created. Keep your (intact) fingers crossed for us.
