The Schandorff Family

little travelers in a big (and very full!) car

Many of you know that we are driving Tim’s parents Chevy Suburban to Quebec… I snapped a few pics of life in the car as we drive and thought I’d share them!

Here’s the trusty Suburban (at a gas station in Colorado, for those of you who are curious where the Gunsmoke Travel Plaza is located)!

As an MK, I’ve done my fair share of packing, but I may be prouder of this packing job than any I’ve done before! I failed to take photos of the packing process, and accordingly have been instructed that I must take some of the unpacking process, so you can fully appreciate how tightly things are packed in; I’ll plan to do that after our arrival in Sherbrooke.

 In the meantime, to give you an idea of how crazy I went: save for about 4 boxes, everything is packed loosely, so as to fit as much as possible… it took about 12 hours to pack the back of the car, and the result is that a fly would now have trouble breathing back there… there are (clean!) socks in the baby bottles, small candles in the coffee grinder, and all manner of other strange combinations of things packed together, based on space! Unpacking is going to be quite a process! To the right is a photo of the back of the Suburban:

The inside’s pretty full too! Here’s Ben in the back seat:

Note that his pacifier is tied on to a string… this is because if he throws it, we might not find it until we unpack in Canada! We’ve had to do the same with his sippee cup, since he’ll toss it inbetween his seat and the door, where we can’t reach it while driving.

Unfortunately, he does this with many of his toys, too, and then the pic below shows what happens when we stop to get him out!

Jacob has been an awesome little traveler; he has video games, coloring books, toys, dvds, snacks… everything a little boy could need while traveling!

He even enjoys the gas station stops, since he gets to help daddy pump the gas and clean the windows!

We’re so grateful to have such a comfy car that accommodates our family (and all our stuff) so well!

MAF fights disease in the Congo

Packing!

We’re down to less than two weeks before we head for Quebec, and our preparations are coming right along! There are piles all over the house that probably look rather chaotic to the unschooled eye, but represent hours of sorting and organization on our part… here’s a little of the mess that Tim’s parents have been so gracious about having around the house for the past few weeks!

This pile is headed to storage this weekend...

This pile will go to Canada with us...

Here's the (partial!) pile of kid toys/games/puzzles/books/craft items that will hopefully all fit in the car, to go to Quebec!

see below for explanation...

The last pic is my makeshift craft area, where I have spent several hours over the past few weeks. A missionary kid myself, it’s important to me that the kids transition well from life here in Idaho to life in Quebec. We have taken multiple (and long!) road trips with the kids before but never moved them away from home and family. One of the ways that I’m trying to ease the transition is by making lightweight, easily transported items that will be able to travel with us wherever we go in the world – Quebec, Haiti, etc! This means that they have to be both small (to fit in the car as we drive to Canada) and lightweight (to keep costs down to ship them to Haiti by air freight).

So what am I making? First I made several drawstring cloth bags for the kids’ toys (to replace toy boxes and baskets that are too big to take to Canada). I’m almost through making them some colorful and fun kids aprons (I figure that they can cook with me wherever we go!). And the last project I hope to finish before we go is a kids toy or two for Benjamin – I’ll be using scrap craft items, fabrics, and sewing notions to make an interactive kinetic toy he can play with while we travel. I hope to finish these up in the next week or so (probably late at night after the kiddos are in bed!), and will post pics when I’m done!