So my mom and I will be heading across the country with 4 kids all piled into a minivan. We will be gone for 3 weeks, spending quite a bit of time in the car. If we are going to do this without losing what is left of our sanity, we have to be organized.
My mom and I spent some time last week just figuring out what will fit where in the car. We took the tent out (yes, we will be tent camping for part of our adventure) and put it in the car, as well as many other bulky items that we know will take up a lot of space. We just wanted to make sure that everything will fit, and if it didn't, what size car top carrier we needed.
It was practice packing.
I felt so weird. I know I'm kind of crazy with planning stuff, but being prepared is supposed to make this thing less crazy...right?
After packing all the bulky items in the car and figuring out where they will fit, we decided to start figuring out how we will organize the car entertainment. All of the things that I wanted to make sure that I had for the kids so they wouldn't be too bored have to be either accessible to them or me (depending on what it is, the electronics aren't going to be available to them constantly).
Okay, this is where I go in to commercial mode, but it's all true!
Clever Container has a lot of great products for organizing your car. I have a few of them that I plan on using this trip. The backseat entertainment thing is awesome because it holds a full size box of tissues, a baby wipes box (yes, I still use them even though my kids have been out of diapers for years...wow, I love saying that), a hand-held game system, games, crayons, and whatever else I want to fit in the pockets all on the back of one seat. I'm also going to be using the Swing Away to hold all of Micah's drawing papers and crayons and maps. The No Leak Litter Bag is also a must! It goes in the back with the twins. They are usually the worst offenders when it comes to garbage in the car.
Okay, I'm done with the commercial. :)
We also have 2 bags that will rotate that have a lot more entertaining activities. These will take up the space between the twins in the back seat. We have a lot of activities for them, and we want to keep each one fresh, so we will be rotating (with another bag that will hold stuff that will be surprises that come out when the bags rotate).
My mom and I have decided to take one of the storage areas for the Stow N Go seats in my van and make it into a drawer of sorts for all of our clothes instead of taking up space with luggage for everyone. Since we will be stopping at several different places along the way, we will have bags for the clothes at different stops. When we are at one of my mom's time share resorts, we will have a bag for clothes there (plus a laundry bag that we will bring in to do laundry there since many of the resorts have a washer/dryer in the rooms) and when we are in the tents we will just bring out the clothes for the next day and kind of live out of it like a drawer. This way we are eliminating the amount of bags that we bring in each stop and we don't waste space on the packaging. I'm hoping this works out well. If not, I have the food sorted in several bags and I have a collapsible bag that I'll be bringing just in case, and we will be able to reorganize if we end up hating it.
We have to bring Becca's stuff for her week with Teen Missions in a separate bag so that it's all prepared when she gets there. There are too many specific instructions about her stuff, so I don't want to mess with it until after her week there.
Sorry I didn't take pictures. I will take plenty of pictures when everything is actually packed. I'm so excited to get everything ready! I'm ready to go!
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