Friday, April 3, 2015

Vacation, All I Ever Wanted...Vacation, Had to Get Away...

Why, yes, I am a child of the eighties, how did you guess?

By the time you are reading this, we will be close to home, probably with piles of laundry and some very tired and grubby children. At the moment, however, I am taking a quick break to pack for our first ever family vacation! We have had a weekend camping trip here and there, but this time we are actually packing suitcases, loading up the trailer, and arranging for a house sitter.

By "we", I mean "me", of course - Daddy is in charge of getting the camper ready, mainly because he had it long before we ever married, and I have been inside it maybe five times, so I wouldn't have a clue what to do with it. Packing, though? Food? Clothing (no, daddy, we are NOT wearing the same clothes all week)? Entertainment? That I can do!

If things go as planned, we will be spending most of our time outdoors, but Moms know not to put all our faith in Mother Nature. So, just in case...

I picked up this awesome tote box at a yard sale a million years ago, and it's great for small trips.



I restocked it with a lot of new things I picked up at the dollar store, or made myself, and I plan to dole things out sparingly rather than let the kids just dive in.


You can fit a TON of stuff in there! After I took this picture and re-packed the box, I added some busy bags, a few books I need to read and review (hooray for the Luck Uglies sequel!) and a bajillion batteries.


That red box has sidewalk chalk, the lid wouldn't stay open. Chalk works anywhere - on pavement, on trees, even on the sides of the trailer - and it won't harm a thing!


I picked up several paint-with-water books, easy no-mess fun for inside the trailer. The Fancy Nancy activity book came in a review package (great timing!), so I'll let you know later how that went over!

Oh, and the contents of the bag won't be the only surprise. Have you ever told your kids that you were going to do something exciting in "x" number of days? And when do they start asking you how much longer it will be - five minutes after you tell them? And, every five minutes after that, until you are ready to cancel the whole thing? Yeah. So, we haven't told the kids yet. We will tell them Sunday morning. We are leaving Sunday morning.

The Sunday that we are leaving is not Easter, but they won't know that. They will wake up to a good breakfast (eaten on paper plates), and their Easter baskets, which are already stuffed:


A SMALL amount of candy (I purposely got the hollow bunnies), plus sunglasses, mini Etch-a-Sketches, plastic tweezers, cool cups with lids, small games, binoculars, bubbles, etc.

"Gosh", we'll say, as they look through what the Easter Cat (don't ask) left them, "those things would all be great for a long car trip. Let's take one! Go get buckled."

I'll let you know how that goes. My goal (once I get off the computer, gimme a minute) is to have everything except the cold food packed today, so all we have to do then is throw the coolers into the camper, the confused kids into the car, and hit the road.

Again, I'll let you know how that goes. My next goal after that, depending a great deal on the availability of wi-fi and charging stations, is to have the kids write the next few blog posts, to share how the trip is going (sneaky-Mom-being-all-educational alert). So, hopefully, over the next few days, you will be reliving our adventures a few days after the fact!

Unless, of course, we have already made the nightly news, which - let's face it, with these kids on the loose, is a very real possibility.

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