First in a series of posts about our recent travels to New York
Setting the scene:
Our plans were to meet at Grandpa's house early Friday morning, to meet and caravan to New York...leaving by 9am. We would be celebrating Fathers Day at Niagara Falls with John's dad, and 7 other of John's siblings...some bringing kids, some not. Some families had extended travel plans before or after, but there would end up being 6 vehicles traveling together on Friday during some part of the trip, and 39 of us enjoying the weekend together.
Back track 24 hours...
~Laundry is in full swing, and it doesn't matter how full I stuff my washer, kids still seem to be dirtying clothes faster than I can get them clean. I may just have to stuff the kids (in dirty clothes) into the suitcases.
~Groceries (car snacks, breakfast foods to eat in our hotel room, picnic lunch for the drive, and other trip essentials like non-ginormous-size shampoo/conditioner bottles) have been purchased and hidden in the basement so that they might actually still be here when it's time to pack.
~Suitcases have been brought down from the storage closet and aired out (dusted) to get ready for packing (if I can get ahead on laundry.)
My plan is to pack for the twelve of us for a 3 day trip (leaving Fri, returning either Sun or Mon.)
That means 3 sets of clothing each(4 for the younger more accident prone), pajamas, swimsuits, jackets, shoes, and of course food. I usually try to pack games and small toys, but space in the van is at a premium...so we'd have to choose only necessities.
~By 11pm, I had the bags packed. We managed to fit all our things into 1 luggage set...the kids clothes in the largest case, John and I had our clothes in the smaller suitcase, jackets in a small duffle, all swimgear in a backpack, and a final bag for bathroom essentials, diapers, and pj's. And good news...it all fit in the 10 inch space in the back of our 15 passenger van. (these vans were definitely designed to haul people...not stuff.) A large cooler fit between the front seats (which meant I would be unable to climb to the back without gymnastics involved.) and a few small bags of snack/groceries fit under the front bench seat. The kids were allowed to pack games or books...only what they could fit into a small tote that remained in their seat. It would be tight.
I had everything packed into the van with the exception of the cooler by 1am. Kids clothes were laid out for morning, coffee pot set-up...planning to eat, load the cooler and head out. We'll see what Friday morning brings...
...more to come in another post.
