Sunday, September 5, 2010

A post-vacation post

Our 5th Annual Holden Beach trip with friends

Some people do famous cities. Some do the mountains. Some do the beach. Others do the road trip across the country thing. My family spent the last week at Holden Beach. Hence, the no posts for this past week.

And since I'm diving back into the real world, here comes my post-vacation post. About what? You guessed it: vacations.

While my husband is in charge of the big picture things regarding our vacation (reserving the house and most importantly, loading up the van), I'm First-in-Command when in comes to packing. I learned a long time ago to make lists for what to bring. Here's what I've learned in the past few years:

Keep that list in a word document, google document, or whatever other computer document that you use. That way, you don't have to rewrite the same list over and over again every year. And it can end up saving money. It's sad and frustrating to forget to bring sandwich bags to the beach and have to buy them there...especially if you have a million of them at home because you shop at Costco. Not that it's ever happened to me.

My list has three columns and fits onto one page. Try to keep your list to one page. Saves on trees when you print it out and more importantly, saves your sanity because you don't end up losing one of the pages midpacking. My column headings are: General, Julie, Matt, Kids, and To Do Before Leaving. Remember to revise your list as soon as you get home while it's still fresh on your mind. I didn't have a chef knife on the list, but we all know how beach house knives are. So, on the list it goes. Now. And not the week before we leave for Holden Beach 2011.


Are you one of the lucky ones who takes multiple vacations a year? Make a list for what to take when you go to the in-laws and make a separate one for when you go to the beach. And yet another one for when you go to Paris (threw that in for those who are falling asleep). Make as many of these documents as you need.

And just because I love vacation pictures, I'm ending the post with some more.

Morgan, age 5

Ava, age 3
Kennedy, age 16 months

3 comments:

  1. I have a packing list and a grocery list saved on my computer, but good idea to combine as one list. Added knives to my list this year, too -- the ones at our house were terrible.

    Good thing we're already booked for next year -- might be the only way I make it through the next 357 days.

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  2. Thanks Julie... I to have that list, it is just all in my head! From someone who travels often with my three children in tow back in forth overseas... my best advice is to travel light. You should never need more than a small suitcase for all of your personal items when you travel. And children's clothes are much smaller so my three kids always share one suitcase.

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  3. Good advice Shanna! And many places you can do laundry...so I pack even less clothes knowing I'll just wash them.

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