To Get Ready

It is no small feat to prepare a family of 8 for a roughly two week sojourn across the country.

The foundation of all good packing must begin with washing ALL the laundry.  Every single article of clothing in the entire house must be washed so you know what you have to work with.  This is tricky as people must continue to wear and dirty the clothes while I am trying to get a good strong packing foundation.  Laundry is a bit like a Hydra-- you wash one load and two more grow in its place.

Did I just make a Dungeons and Dragons simile?  Oh good heavens-- what has become of me?

First off I must conquer the clothing bags.  It is tough to decide how many days worth of clothes is optimum?  I don't want to do laundry every day, but I don't want 8 loads when I do have to do it.
Clothing bags are packed-- in the same order for each child so no one ends up sans underwear.  The magic order is underwear, socks, pajamas, pants, shirt, church clothes, shoes, swimsuit, jacket.

The kiddos' "fun back packs" are next.  They take a few of their most precious belongings (toys or books) plus new notebooks, coloring books and crayons.  This bag is to amuse them not only in the car, but at numerous hotels.  The older kids get to pack their own bags, but they are subject to a thorough inspection.  There are to be no live animals and the bags must be able to zip easily with room left for soon to be precious souvenirs.

The food coolers and bag does contain the staple foods of peanut butter and jelly, and ham and cheese sandwiches that will sustain life for many days.  But that is the boring part.  They are chuck full of "pogey-bate" that we never try not to eat regularly.  I won't name particulars because some of you may think our choice of travel food is disgusting.  I'll agree that some of it is-- normally-- but not on a long car ride. 

The entertainment bag is KEY to happy trails.  We've got travel games, masses of books on tape, pipe cleaners for making sculptures,  little bags of Lego sets for Clark to build for Cannon, CDs of music from Abe's and my youth to indoctrinate our children with.
We do bring our laptop to put on occasional movies for restless little (and not so little) people.

We are so very excited and glad we have a whole day of driving to decompress from life and shift to a vacation mindset.  I'll be sure to post pictures of our adventures.

GO TEAM PI POD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!