This Is How We Roll

We did something the day after Christmas that completely spoiled us for pretty much everything else life has to offer, which was getting on a boat that is too big to fit in this picture:

Although we'd like to be able to tell you that this trip was made possible by our amazing blogging prowess, it was actually an amazing Christmas gift from some very generous relatives who took 15 folks, including our family of three, tooling around the Bahamas for a week.

What our amazing blogging prowess did do was help us prepare a little. Armed with the two travel bags discussed yesterday and the items below, we were ready for just about anything our temporarily charmed life had to throw at us.

Air/Sea/Landsickness, Begone!

This find is now a travel necessity in our family, so listen up if you're easily queased.

Queasy Drops come in a wide range of flavors including ginger, banana, sour apple, and more, and the company makes a preggers version for morning sickness and lollipops for kids. As excited as we were for our "boat adventure," as Z took to calling it, I had some apprehension because I get queasy easily, and I worried I'd feel sick the whole trip. So we contacted Three Lollies, makers of the Queasy Drops, and asked if they'd send us some of their Queasy Drops and Queasy Pops for the perfect field test.

There were a couple of times on the boat where different people felt a little green, and the Queasy Drops seemed to help. For me, the crucial test became the flight on an eight-person aircraft to and from our destination; based on its size and some weather, the flights were both pretty rocky. Here we are on the plane, where you can see me just off to the right, feeling ill, while Z sits at the feet of the new object of her eternal devotion, her teenage cousin Ronnie.

I am firmly convinced that the only thing that kept my lunch down was sucking on Queasy Drops. We broke our no-sugar rule and gave one to Z (she was bored, not sick) and she thought they were grand. Since then she has periodically told us that her stomach hurts in order to try to extract a Queasy Pop, and occasionally we relent. You can buy anything from their line direct from Three Lollies or you can buy Queasy Drops or Pops at Amazon.com.

Of course, I still feel sick when I look at pictures of where I was that week. Anyone know a cure for that?


I Like To Watch

We didn't bring our second travel sanity saver on this particular trip, but it has served us well on more than one flight: A portable DVD player. We got a Polaroid model for eighty-some bucks on clearance at Target (here's the closest comparable model I can find) and use it pretty much exclusively on commercial flights when there are limited options for play and confinement is an inescapable reality. The quality is not exceptional but in my opinion you should not ask too much of a device this small and this inexpensive that does something this complicated.

Our portable DVD player has resolved the problem of me wanting to watch something to keep my mind off my terror of flying while Jeremiah wants to calmly work on his novel. Now I can watch something with Z that we both like - on our November trip to Seattle, Pee-wee's Playhouse was in heavy rotation - while Jeremiah writes, and everybody's happy.