Places to Go (Vacation) - The long drive home on 1-80, Part 1 - The Historic Sauder Village (Archbold, OH)

Once or twice a year we pack up the minivan and drive 730 miles to visit my mother in the Chicago suburbs. Usually we divide the trip into two days. The first day is actually pretty fun, we stop in Pittsburgh and visit either the Carnegie Science Center or the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh before stopping in Cleveland for the night. But the second day consists of a long, boring drive through miles and miles of cornfields. I've been trying to find a good half-way stop for awhile, but haven't had much luck.

This trip, however, I discovered the Historic Sauder Village, through a pamphlet at a rest stop. Sauder is located right outside Toledo, OH, making it the perfect stop between Cleveland and Chicago. In addition to its ideal location, Sauder is a wonderful place to visit with kids. We spent three hours there and would have stayed later if the grounds weren't closing.

The village consists of several historic houses and shops where volunteers talk about daily life (similar to Colonial Williamsburg, though on a much smaller scale). The quality of the volunteers varied, most were older and some looked downright annoyed to have us visit, whereas others told interesting stories about the "old days" and about their own childhoods. Further, no offense to the south, but, as a midwesterner, it felt nice to visit a pioneer village where slavery was never part of the equation.

The village also includes a pioneer settlement and a "native and newcomers" section - with indian teeppes and a trading post. But, by far, the biggest hit with my children was the Little Pioneers Village, where kids can milk a "cow", "drive" a carriage, and play in a house full of toys and a children's kitchen.

If you're ever traveling on the OH Turnpike and need a place to stop, I highly recommend spending some time at the Historic Sauder Village. Admission is $15 for adults and $8 for children 6-16. Younger children are free. Click here for more information and for hours of operation (which change with season).

RANDOM LINKS:

*A sneak peak of the new Iris Apfel documentary. This looks awesome.

*A giant tree made by pedestrians.

*Some new pics of our daily life are up over here.



T spent the summer wearing pajamas everywhere. I can only fight so many battles. The train ride was a huge hit. HUGE!!!



The girls made new friends at the Little Pioneers Village and hosted a humongous feast full of fake food. Very yummy fake food, if I do say so myself.

Things to Make - Homemade Noodles

On the drive back from Chicago, we stopped at the Historic Sauder Village - outside Toledo, OH (I'll post more on the village tomorrow). In one of the houses, a woman was making noodles. The kids seemed intrigued, so after we arrived home I decided to try making our own (using the recipe provided by the village).

This turned out to be a fantastic project for cooking with kids - not too many ingredients and lots of "kneading", so everyone had a turn to do something. Plus, all the kids loved eating the results and they tasted better than store-bought pasta. Really.

Here's the scoop (from the Historic Sauder Village):

INGREDIENTS (for approximately 1 lb of noodles): 1.5 cups flour, a pinch of salt, and 2 eggs (beaten)

1. Put the flour and a pinch of salt in a bowl and make a well in the center.

2. Pour the beaten eggs into the well.

3. Mix as needed to form a dough ball that is not too sticky.

4. Remove the ball from the bowl to a floured surface. Knead the dough for 5-7 minutes (I let each child knead for 2 minutes). Add flour as needed to keep the dough from sticking to the surface.

5. Cover with a cloth and let the dough rest for 20-30 minutes.

6. Divide dough into four balls and roll each ball into a circle, as large and thin as possible.

7. Cut the circles into noodles (whatever shape you want).

8. Spread noodles on a towel to dry, then refrigerate.

I still haven't mastered how long to cook them for, but even slightly undercooked, everyone enjoyed the taste. Maybe I'll eventually invest in a pasta maker, in order to get them really thin. Any suggestions on brands or types?

Happy Tuesday!! The girls start school today, kindergarten for P and 1st grade for F. Wow. And the years keep flying by.

Places to Go (Vacation) - Lake Katherine (Palos Heights, IL)

A walk around the lake followed by huge ice cream cones = not a bad way to spend a morning, especially when the dog walks T and P plays Katy Perry on my iphone. Oh, the joys of nature.

Happy weekend everyone!! See you next week!!

*I love this "book art" (for lack of a better term).

*I want to make this. It looks yummy (if you like bananas).

*Albert Einstein in fuzzy slippers. Seriously.

*For local folks, KidFriendly DC has a great post about a rope course adventure for kids. Check it out here.

Places to Go (Vacation) - Millennium Park (Chicago, IL)

While visiting my mom in the southwest suburbs, we decided to spend an afternoon at downtown Chicago' newish Millennium Park (the park is almost ten years old, but since I no longer live in the Windy City, it still feels new to me). Apparently toddlers love the bean. T could have spent hours playing with his reflection. Hours.



Once we manged to pull T away from the bean, we visited Target's Family Fun tent, where F hoola hooped, P played with blocks, and T took it all in. Eventually all of us starting dancing to tunes sung by a woman named Miss Lori. F has some MOVES!



Finally, at the end of the afternoon, we checked out Millennium Park's gigantic, crowded, dangerously slippery spray park. I thought the kids would love it but they couldn't adjust to the "really really cold water" (outside temps were below 80 degrees). So we packed up and headed back to suburbia. A good day.

Things to Make and Do - Roadtrip Survival Kit

My usual solution for road trip boredom is to check out some new DVDs from Netflix and hope for the best. But as three children had to share the not-very-large backseat for over 700 miles, I figured we needed a better plan. First stop the library where I told the kids they could choose as many books and DVDs as they wanted - 10 DVDs and over 30 books later, they seemed happy enough. But how long would it last? So I also purchased the following activities for road trip survival:



F and P took turns "decorating" with this one. They really seemed to like it, though they had no desire to reuse the stickers, so it didn't last for as long as I hoped.



All three kids seemed to enjoy working on these together, I heard several cries of "let's make her look funny!!" as I drove.



F really loves this creative coloring book. I'm not sure how she managed to draw while in the car (of course, we stopped a lot, so she probably created during the breaks), but this was the biggest success of all the car activities, as she continues to bring it everywhere. The book contains several pictures with doodle suggestions - like "decorate the piggy bank"; "what can you see in the crystal ball?"; and "finish the dandelions." Fun.



A friend recommended these and they look awesome. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a place that would deliver them in time for our trip. But hopefully next vacation season we'll try them out.



I've written about car trips with this book before (click here for past post) and now that P's learning to read, we've been bringing it with us everywhere this summer. The dictionary matches THOUSANDS of pictures with thousands of words and really helps early readers learn.



We actually didn't use our travel bingo kit on this trip, but we have used it quite a bit on past car trips and we all really enjoy it (yes, even us adults). It really helps make the time fly by.
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What about everyone else? Any road trip tips?