Gummy bears, bouncing here and there and everywhere

We have been receiving little gifts as we make our way on this road trip, courtesy of Jamie's mom. One per state. So far, we have a kids' road atlas from Colorado, a book of mad libs from Utah, stickers for Idaho, and gummy bears for Oregon. Gummy bears are fun for more than just eating. If you lick them just a bit, you can get them to stick to things, like steering wheels.

The other fun surprise we get to experience along the way is our endless assortment of mix cds. It's interesting and exciting to see what the next one we pop in the cd player is going to be. We haven't had a bad one yet. So let's see what we have added to our list of listening enjoyment:

--Matt (we have several Matts...this is the English teacher one) had a fun mix to get us started on the way out of Idaho

--Adam's included a track listing with his own personal comments. It was like having a version of Adam on the trip along with us. This was actually a good thing. One of the best written commentaries thus far.

--Adam's wife Jen provided us with some enjoyment, both audio and visual. She put together a mix of children's songs. You know, like I Like Potatoes and Going on a Bear Hunt. Holly wanted something she could sing along to, so this is what she got. It also included quality illustrations by Jen's first graders of what our vacation is going to look like. I don't think I could do these justice by describing them here, there's some funny stuff!

--Kate's parents had a good themed mix of Roads, Routes, Highways, and Streets!

--Kate created Kiki's Club mix...we were impressed by the creativity of the mix and the story that went along with it :)

--Heather's fun mix was all female singers

--We ended the day with David's mix, which can only be described as eclectic, I think. What else could you call a mix that starts with 80s, has a few Whitney tunes, and closes out with an oompah loompah song and a little ditty called Being Jewish Is Fun. Nicely done, David.

--Today we started with Sailing Matt's mash-up mix, which we greatly enjoyed. Happy Birthday, Matt! (he does have a last name, but Holly almost always refers to him as Sailing Matt)

--We tried Megan's mix, but couldn't get it to work in the cd player :( We'll try it in the laptop to see if will work elsewhere

--Since Megan's didn't work, we went with another Grafton submission and listened to Laura's mix, made with the help of her daughter Hailey. Or maybe she just told us Hailey helped in order to justify the inclusion of Miley Cyrus and Hannah Montana songs. Is it weird if I say that I think I preferred the Miley Cyrus songs? It was a great mix though--stuck with the summer traveling theme all the way through.

--Brother Bob's mix was next...perfect for the drive leaving Crater Lake. Lots of good songs on there, especially Red Slurpee.

--Then we finished out the day with Aly's cd. I think Aly's warning to us was that it was really random, but it was great. We really enjoyed the Handlebars song. But I actually can't say that there was a song on there we didn't enjoy. Many thanks!

We haven't listened to either one of our iPods or a book on cd yet. I think the mixes will keep us going the whole way. If yours hasn't been listened to yet, don't worry. It will be. We have more time.