Misty Zaugg's Blog - Posts Tagged "out-west"

Hi friends,

I'm writing this ahead of time, because by the time Friday rolls around, I'll be in our minivan watching countryside swishing by out my window. We're driving out west to visit family for a couple of weeks and then leaving our daughter at college when we drive back home.

For those of you who haven't made a cross-country drive across the center of the United States, it really gives you a feel for how vast the countryside is: hundreds of miles of farmland or just empty grazing land. We do love seeing the towering windmills that have been cropping up along our drive over the last few years.

How exactly do I survive two long days of driving with a car full of kids, plus a quick update on my writing. :)

Thank goodness for electronic devices! They revolutionized long distant travel with young children and gave us adults even more stories to bore the kids with that start out with, "Back when I was a kid . . . "

I bet some of you can empathize with my memories of enduring long car rides as a kid in the '70s and '80s.

• The alphabet game - first one who finds the letters from A to Z wins . . . and everyone always got stuck on Q!
• License plate bingo: filling in different states we saw to get bingo.
• Teasing siblings until they got yelled at by parents.
• Asking parents how much longer until we get there.
• Eating tons of snacks.
• Drawing and coloring books
• Reading until you got carsick

And now, the kids can watch movies together, play games on phones, binge watch TV series, and listen to tons of audiobooks. All much more entertaining than my childhood memories.

However, falling asleep in the car hasn't changed much and everyone still wakes up with sore necks and backs from the awkward positions.

We still try to take time to turn devices off and play road games together, run a quick game of tag at rest stops or listen to audiobooks as a family. But with two full thirteen hour days of driving to get out West, binge watching a few movies is a great way to ease the boredom.

A few non-electronic ideas that are still fun:
• A clipboard with blank paper, a new pack of colored pencils (NO crayons. They melt in hot cars) and some of the following print outs:
• Custom coloring pages found with a google search and printed, like mermaids, dinosaurs, disney, or even adult coloring pages.
• Custom mazes
• Sudoku, coloring, crossword and word search books from the dollar store.
• A pack of origami paper with a how-to book of patterns.
• yarn and crochet or knitting needles with a new pattern to try.
• friendship bracelet kits
• magnet toy sets
• A bag of special treats that are given out when you get back in the car after a rest stop.
• A map of the drive so kids can follow along.

Hopefully some of these are helpful to any of you out there who are taking long trips this summer. What about you? Any fun ideas for long car rides?

As for writing, I spent a bit of time going over edits by some of my latest beta readers. Shoutout of thanks to Olivia and Jeremiah!

And we'll see if I can squeeze in a bit of writing time during vacation or not.

The plan is to get going again full speed once September rolls around.

Have a great summer out there! All the best and thanks so much for your support!

— Misty :)
Misty Zaugg Website

Ignore Grandma's advice at your own risk. Be Prepared Tip #14
Hi friends,

It was great to hear from those of you who lived in Nebraska! I'll be thinking of you next weekend when we make the drive back.

The family trip is going really well and my daughter who just returned from her 18-month mission trip has really enjoyed reconnecting with all her extended family again - especially . . . her niece! (Otherwise known as my most adorable granddaughter in the world.)



It's really so much fun to have a big family! Though, as those of you who are also a bit introverted will understand, I am finding it difficult to find some quiet alone time to recharge. Thankfully, I can hide and read a little before bed most evenings.

My prepper tip today comes from Grandma Zaugg, my mother-in-law, and the morning she took me to pick produce at her small patch of farm.

As she got out of the car that morning, she reached back inside and began pulling on a long-sleeved shirt. I gave her a questioning look, and she explained that she needed to wear them or her arms would itch terribly after picking veggies.

My first thought as I watched her? That's interesting, but I don't really need long sleeves.

I was wrong. LOL.

I really should have copied her, because by the end of reaching deep into squash, green bean, tomato and berry plants, my arms began to itch. As we finished up, the itching got worse. When I looked down at my inner arms, I saw them flushing red with fine scratches everywhere.

Oops! I washed them off with cool water and then rubbed hydrocortisone cream up and down. It took another half hour before they finally stopped itching.

So my prepper tips for the day?

1. Find friends and family with experience and learn from them.

2. Be humble enough to listen to advice.

What about you? Have you learned valuable skills and/or information from those around you?

I hope your preparations for the future are coming along well.

All the best!

— Misty :)
Misty Zaugg Website

Hi friends,

We are loving our whirlwind two-week trip visiting both sides of our huge families. Between my husband and I, we have fourteen siblings, most of whom are married and have kids. So you can imagine how crazy it is to try to see all of them in a couple of weeks.

We have amazing extended family who've fed all six of us and let us invade their homes and visit. By the time we finish our trip, we'll have stayed in four different homes, one campsite and a Wyoming cabin.

Check out the good and the bad of our trip so far. Maybe you've had similar experiences on your family vacations.

The Bad
• A retread tire flew off a semi-truck in front of us and hit our car. Thankfully, it only knocked off a small piece of chrome and left a little dent in the hood.
• A 7-year-old nephew landed on my pinky toe and broke it. No biggie though, because it healed quickly.
• My 14-year-old teenage son got into the car with shoes on, and somehow, by the time we got to our next destination, they were gone, nowhere to be found. This is the third time over the years we've had to buy new shoes for him on vacation. LOL.
• Lack of sleep and lots of miles on the car.

The Good
• Seeing the gummy, no-teeth smile of my granddaughter and watching her take her first steps.
• I loved watching my 20-year-old daughter reconnect with family after her 18-month mission trip.
• We picked blackberries with an aunt and spent a day bottling 40 jars of yummy jam.



Homemade blackberry jam is the best!

• We joined Grandma with close to thirty grandkids to visit Thanksgiving Point with beautiful gardens and museums.
• We sat snipping and snapping freshly picked green beans with Grandma.
• We all visited Grandpa in the care home, working toward finding peace with his declining condition.
• We spent a couple hours enjoying an ice skating rink where my daughter broke in her new ice skates and helped her little sister learn to skate.
• We're looking forward to relaxing in the outdoors this weekend in Wyoming before we start the long two days of driving home.

I hope you're having a great month and I love hearing how life is going for you!

My next author update will finally include new progress on my writing.

All the best!

— Misty :)
Misty Zaugg Website