5 tips to survive Christmas on the road

Q:  What's the difference between a trip and a vacation?  A:  Simple, vacations don't involve children.

We are the only members of our family who live in Colorado.  It's kind of neat being on our own, but we do miss our families.  Every Christmas, we load the presents in the car and visit our families.  It's a long car ride, and once you get there, it's no guaranteed great time.  As you know, Christmas is so busy that if you're not careful when you get back you'll need a vacation from your vacation.  Here's some tips we have found to be very helpful as we make the trip each year.

1.  Presents in the car - Go to your local dollar store and pick up some little toys you think you're kids will enjoy.  These could be puzzles or little games (our kids favorites).  Wrap them up and put them in a basket.  Tell them that every hour they can open one of the presents and play with it.  They love it and the time goes by much faster without having to watch DVDs the entire time.

2.  Vocalize your expectations - Just like any vacation, even though you going to visit family, I think it helps for my wife and I to talk about our agenda before the trip.  What do you want to accomplish this trip?  See as much family as possible?  Relax and read a book?  Spend quality time with the kids?  Knowing this up front helps you both plan.

3.  Be flexible with your expectations - One of the quality pieces of advice we received when we got married was "almost all frustration comes from unmet expectations".  My wife wanted to catch up on some sleep this trip.  The day we arrive, the baby started coughing and wheezing.  We debated going to the doctor,  with out of state insurance the bill is painful.  Eventually we decided the piece of mind would be worth it.  Turns out the poor little guy had an ear infection in each ear and strep throat.  Needless to say we weren't catching up on our sleep.  Instead we changed our agenda to spending some quality time with our kids and especially the baby.    

(a side tip: my wife says to fill an anti-biotic prescription before you leave.  I don't think we've had a trip where we haven't used it)

4.  Don't be afraid to be the party planner - since we are the one's visiting sometimes we expect the "home team" to plan the fun activities and get togethers.  Although it is some trouble to plan activities - it's the best way to make sure they happen.

5.  Two words: free babysitting.  Take advantage of it!  Just because you're visiting family doesn't mean you have to be with them the entire time.  Take advantage of all the free babysitting and take time for yourself and each other.  This is one we haven't done so well on yet because of aforementioned baby in tip #3.

Do you do Christmas on the road?  What do you do to make it an enjoyable experience?

Personality Tests - worthwhile or worthless?

Since starting to interview at BlogFrog, I have started to think a lot about personalities and what makes someone a great performer.  I've learned a lot so far, and I look forward to posting even more after the process is over.

One fascinating (and not exactly scientific) thing is the measure of someone's personality.  One popular test is is the Myer-Briggs personality test (free tests are available all over the internet).

This test divides your personailty traits into four dichotomies:

• Introverted vs. Extroverted - This one is pretty self-explanatory and can be found out by answering the simple question - "Does speaking in a crowd get you amped up, or does it suck the life out of you?"
• Sensing vs. Intuition -  This is how new information is understood.  If you prefer sensing, you prefer information that is tangible, than can be understood by your 5 senses.  If you prefer intuition, you prefer information that is more abstract, like something that might come from your uncouncious mind.
• Thinking vs. Feeling - This is how you make rational decisions.  If you prefer feeling you like to get inside the decision and empathize with everyone involved.  If you prefer thinking you tend to detach from decisions and look at them very logically.  
• Judgement vs. Perception - This last trait kind of effects how you use the previous 3 traits.  Judging types prefer to have matters settled where perception types like to keep things open.  

I took a free test and scored a ENFJ.  Supposedly I'm an extroverted person who uses their intuition, trusts their feelings, and likes to have things settled.  Also (even more supposedly) I am in good company of other notable ENFJ's such as Barrack Obama, Ronald Reagen, and even David, biblical king of Israel.

I don't agree withe the "N" part and the "F" part.  I like to think of myself as a very logical person who makes rational decisions based on tangible information.  But the internet says otherwise, and when has the internet ever been wrong!  ;)

I think these tests are fun, but not very accurate and not extremely useful in deciding whether you will get along with someone or what type of performer they will be.

Decorating Ornaments

Yesterday, my business partner and co-founder of BlogFrog, Holly, invited our family to participate in one of their Christmas traditions- the decorating of Christmas tree ornaments.  These are not just any ornaments mind you, these are one of a kind "cloth pin" ornaments fashioned to look like real people.  Holly's family has been doing this for a long time, thus she has amassed a huge collection of craft supplies for the task.

My daughter made a ballerina (with help from Holly):

And what did I make?  Why a "Blog Frogger" of course!  (That white thing is his laptop in case you couldn't tell - apparently this Blog Frogger is a mac user).