Vacation Day 1--Driving

I mentioned to the kiddos in May that we were going to take a vacation to the beach this summer.  Of course they thought I meant we were leaving the next day.  They asked us every day for a week if we were going to the beach that day, before we realized that we needed to stage an intervention.  I had the kids make a paper chain so we could countdown the days to the beach.  It proved pretty effective and by the day that we left on vacation they were over the moon excited.Mack only had one week off after Boards and before he started rotations and so we took full advantage.  On the first day we drove to San Diego.  It is a five hour drive that took us over six hours.  The kids were pretty good in the car.  That is after I told them they had to stop hitting each other with the toys that they were given, "or else".  (I said it in my best elementary school teacher voice.)
I had been preparing for this trip for days (in total we spent over 28 hours in the car...according to Google Maps).  I went to the dollar store and bought little toys to keep them entertained.  My mom and I made puzzles out of some old animal cards I had and popscicle sticks.  We then put magnets on the backs so that the kids could put the puzzles together on metal baking sheets.  I sewed pockets that I suction cupped to the back windows by their carseats for them to keep their treasures in.  I bought little boxes that you hold odds and ends or beads in (the ones with ten little compartments) and put a little bit of a snack in each compartment.  I was up late in to the night and I am not yet sure if it was worth it.
The kids broke most of the dollar store toys, just for fun.  They hit each other with the new books I got them until they had to be confiscated.  They played with the items in their pockets and then threw them on the floor so they couldn't reach them anymore.  I suppose it was a success, since it kept them mostly entertained.  But certainly not how I envisioned.
The hardest part was keeping Brisbane entertained.  He is at the age where he wants to be on the move at all times (church is a joy).  Plus he has no concept of why we are in the car for hours on end.  Add to that, nap schedules were way off and we had Senor Grumpy Pants.  He was most entertained by the pinwheel I bought him.  If I had enough air to blow on that for five hours, he might have been happier.
As we pulled into the hotel Reese asked, "Is this the beach?"  We had already tried to explain to him that we wouldn't actually see the beach that day.  Oh well.  We told him it was the hotel (which he had no idea what that was).  We tried to explain to him that we were sleeping there tonight.  He then asked, "Are we going to go get Zippy?"  We had dropped Zippy off at the kennel the day before and the kids seemed a bit stressed about it the whole trip.  We tried to assure him that Zippy was fine.
Once he realized that there was a tv with cartoons at the hotel, he lost all care about the beach or Zippy.  Go figure.