Road Trip!!! and Bento Boxes

Thirty hours of driving, almost 2000 miles, from Arkansas to Northern California. We get to go visit our family in two weeks. I think that we are going to have some fun on this trip. Grandma is taking the boys for the whole time we are there and the hubs and I get a hotel room all to ourself. I am so excited!! This is the first time that I will be away from all the boys for more than a few nights without it being something I had no controll over. The only other time that they have stayed somewhere else was when I was in the hospital with a new baby. So Im looking foreward to this trip. Lots of planning to do!! I am soooo glad we have a DVD player in the car! I think I will put off the whole raw food thing for a while. There's no way I would be able to figure that out and deal with the trip at the same time. I can multi task but when it comes to major things like that, Im a one thing at a time kind of person.

One thing that I have come across that might be helpful to me (and anyone else wanting to save money on lunch) is a thing called Bento Boxes. Its basically a packed lunch that is in a box instead of a bag. The Japanese have been doing this for a very long time and its become fairly popular in the US (but not popular enough that you can find supplies in Walmart yet). I really like the idea because the hubs has been needing to take a lunch with him for work but ends up buying crappy food from convenience stores and the Walmart deli. Theres only so much he can handle that way and Id rather spend the money buying him food that he likes.

I would love to find some supplies that dont come from Japan (or at least something that I wouldnt have to have shipped from Japan) and are fairly cheap. I have gotten a few boxes (Lock and Lock brand boxes) and some of the silicone baking cups (for side items) but I would love to find the soy sauce bottles, containers for dipping sauces, or maybe even some onigiri molds (sticky rice). There's a lot of neat stuff out there for these types of lunches. (If I actually get this going I might even post a pic or two!) The best part is that I can pack a few for our road trip and save a ton on meals!!

One thing that was really cute (and I want one even if none of this works) is the hot dog shapers. They basically are a little mold that has raised parts in them that you press the hot dog into and when you cook the dog it poofs out where the marks were (kind of like when they explode in the microwave). Theres all kinds of shapes, octopus, penguin, faces, you name it. Too much fun.

Okay so now that you are curious you can go to the web and look up either Bento or Obento and find out more about it. There's plenty of blogs out there with more info and there's tons of pics (flickr has a bunch). Its a pretty cool way of saving money and having fun while you are at it. Some people make it a very artistic expression and I find those absolutely wonderful. I love looking at the cool bento's that people make.