let the packing commence!!

In what I'm sure is a shocking surprise to no one who reads this blog, I've been slowly building my packing list for the past few weeks.  Finally last week I crossed-referenced my handwritten "extended road trip car camping list" with my old backpacking list, and this past weekend I was finally ready to actually start packing! Woo-hoo!!

Mike, on the other hand, would happily "wing it" the day before we leave, so he was forced to grudgingly submit to my pre-packing planning. Let's just say it was not the highlight of his weekend to be carting up tubs of camping supplies from the basement for me to sort through!

The overwhelming beginning of the sorting process...

Nor was it his idea of a fun time to have to "play around" with how the bins could fit in the car, in order to see how we could best use the space in my small (read: fuel-efficient) hatchback.

our blank slate

And it definitely wasn't his favorite part of the weekend to see me lay out all my clothes so I could start thinking about what I could fit into my allotted space. 

But seriously. Two weeks is a long time! Plus the fact that we'll likely be in snow at Glacier and in 90+ degree weather at lower elevations. At least most of my clothes coordinate (yay for my generally purple, teal, gray and black color scheme!), as I once blogged about before.

What do you all think is reasonable for two weeks of car camping? I'm thinking two pants, one capri, two shorts, two long sleeves, two tanks, three tshirts, and three pairs of socks. Plus rain gear and a light winter coat with hat/mittens. Reasonable???? 

Also debating footwear. Definitely bringing my Keens. Also tennies? Or hiking boots? Both??? I can't decide!!! (And this is precisely why I like to give myself two or three days to mull it over!)

In addition to planning and packing, I also love to occupy myself with silly little projects like this:

Travel-size spices made from tic tac containers!!

 
So thankfully Mike is now at the "cabin" with Rose, which means I can fully indulge my love of organization, without fear of annoying him. 

Before he left this morning, he even chose to escape to the garden in order to eat his breakfast!

Here's where I'm at tonight:

Bin 1 (in back, directly in front of the fire place): tent, sleeping bags, sleeping pads, hiking poles, flashlights
Bin 2 (toward the front): food, cooking supplies, propane, TP, hand sanitizer, sunscreen, hiking backpack (with bear spray!!)
Steph's car bag (to the left of bin 2): guide books, maps, my kindle, my camera (with extra lens), charging cords
Pillows! (in front of bin 2) - one more is en route from amazon... they compress into tiny balls but are still fluffy and firm when unrolled! I'm ridiculously excited to actually have a pillow when camping, and not be forced to use a fleece in a stuff sack!!
New duffle bags (continuing counter-clockwise to the right of the pillows) - a medium for me and a small for Rose. (They happened to be 50% off at LLBean today!!) I think these will be spacious enough but not too large, and can be easily crammed into odd spaces in the car. Our toiletries will go in our respective bags.
Mike's bag- actually I'm not sure which bag he'll want, but I'm guessing it will be this backpack (which is about the same size as my new medium-sized duffel). (I think we'll skip the totes, Marsha, but thank you so much for giving us that option!)
Cooler - we're borrowing Jack and Marsha's 6L cooler so it can double as a seat, if necessary. So far it holds an unopened bottle of ketchup and a can of wine, but I'm sure it will be used to its fullest over the next few weeks! Also, it's flat on top (unlike ours of a similar size) which should make for better packing in the car. (Thanks again, J&M!)
New camp stove - we decided to splurge on a campstove with two burners and windguards, instead of relying just on our backpacking stove.
Nalgenes (center of the circle) - Mike likes to laugh at my love of Nalgenes, but I absolutely adore them and would buy a new one every week if it wasn't so wasteful. As it is, I'm still using my old one from college which still has its Wellstone sticker on it. Mike has a slightly newer one that I bought a few years ago. Rose has a little sippy Nalgene. We also have a big Nalgene water bladder in the camping bin, and a backpack bladder in our day hiking pack.

Can you think of anything we're missing???

Stay tuned for photos once it's all actually packed in the car!!! :)

Testing

Just making sure I'll be able to post updates from my phone when we're on vacation soon...   :)

Miscellaneous photos

A couple weekends ago we had a picnic for lunch, and I had asked Rose to pick out where we should have it in our (relatively large) backyard. When I came out with the food, I saw she had picked this scenic location directly in front of the compost pile. Ha!

A different day she and I walked to McDonald's for an ice cream cone. I think it's the first time she had ever been there. As we were sitting outside I was explaining what a "drive through" is, and she watched car after car get handed bags of food through the window. Then she turned to me and said, "Mommy, lots of people want ice cream today!"  Ah, she thinks McDonald's is a specialty ice cream cone store that only sells vanilla cones! :)

She was SO proud to have saved up her birthday money to get this super-special Rapunzel tower! [Thanks especially to her cousin Eleanor (and E's parents) for helping to make this present happen.]

Tomorrow is "bike day" at daycare. Previously she has always refused to participate. But tonight she was willing to (finally!!!) try her skuut bike -- a gift from when she turned two. She's already basically outgrown it, but she did a great job inching along. My brave girl!  She made some progress with balance and steering tonight, and now is looking forward to bringing her bike in to school tomorrow. Yay!

Memorial Day weekend

We had a lovely Memorial Day visiting my parents!  The weekend was replete with:

Cheese curds!

Neighborhood walks!

Delicious food and drinks!

And fun with little miss!

She's explaining the rules to her game of finding the "surprises" in the Easter eggs.

Hope you all had a relaxing long weekend!

Wacky hair day 2016

Rose was really excited about "wacky hair day today." She decided she didn't want any "ponies," but did want lots of barrettes. (I think the bangs are her pièce de résistance.)

As we were leaving the house this morning, she turned to me and said "but Mommy, you forgot to do your wacky hair!" :)

photos

I haven't posted many photos recently (perhaps due to the Burcusa pink eye epidemic of 2016?), so here's a few on this fine Sunday:

The Mothers Day present I got from Rose :)

Children First Ice Cream Social!

Rose, just being silly :)

 Hope you had a great weekend!

summer vacation countdown

Only a few more weeks until we head out for our massive two-week family road trip!!!!! I can't believe that, after about a year of planning, it's almost here. So excited!!!

You can see the interactive outline of our trip HERE.  (For some reason I can't figure out how to insert a screen shot or to embed the google map, so you'll just have to click on the link to see the details.)

Yellow pins show where we're sleeping, black pins are restaurants recommended from a "road trip foods" book I read awhile back, and the other pins are activities/hikes/sights in each general areas we're staying. (Restaurants near our campsites/hotels are all tagged in my guidebooks, in case we don't have cell service in the national parks.)  As you can imagine, I've read more than a couple guidebooks and read more website recommendations than you can shake a stick at. Hopefully I will have achieved my goal of having a "good enough" sense of what our options are in each area, without going overboard and micromanaging our schedule either. Knowing the three of us, we will need the chance to be a little spontaneous or we just might kill either other after 16 days crammed in my little Subaru and our 3-person pup tent! Besides, if we like it, we can always plan to go back again in a future year. :)


If you have any last-minute tips for us, please let me know!  I've already started a packing list, a to-do list for Mike the week before we leave, and a things-to-buy-with-our-dividends-during-the-Memorial-Day-sale-at-REI list...