Ready or not!

Over the past four days we stayed home most of the time. The only time we left our small town was when we went to church on Sunday and gym/art classes for the kids on Friday. I had toyed with going to Reptiland today, but since Oliver was having fun playing with the neighbors and I was busy packing, I decided we could go to Reptiland later this summer. Today's main focus was preparing for the vacation as we are hoping to be out the door by 6:30 tomorrow morning. My to do list today included cleaning the guinea pig cage, mowing and weed whacking, vacuuming, sweeping the porch and garage, packing, making our lunches to eat in the van tomorrow, filling the gas tank in the minivan, going to the bank, giving the neighbor our garage door opener so they can feed the guinea pigs while we're gone, etc. Paul was wanting a haircut, but he got home from work at 6pm and left again at 8pm. While he was home he packed his clothes for the trip and ate dinner. His commute is one hour (each way) so he'll have spent four hours driving to and from work today. We shall see if he gets any sleep tonight. I'm not waiting up for him that's for sure!

Last year we flew to San Diego for our vacation. Packing is definitely different when you are driving. I put boxes of oatmeal and cereal in the van as well as bottled water (got 32 bottles for $1.99 at the grocery store on Friday). I am hoping to get a family photo at the beach so I purposefully tried to find outfits that would look nice together for that photo. We're going with light blue, navy blue, and light pink as our colors for the photo. Nadia's dress has all of those colors. I brought a kite to fly at the beach, and a variety of games to play at the hotels and/or resort. I tried to pack carefully, but we can always run to the store if I forgot something we really need. I know we'll be going to the grocery store in North Myrtle Beach as I certainly didn't bring all the food we'll need. We have three travel days where we'll be driving at least six hours per day - the first day of the trip and the last two days of the trip. Here's to hoping those long travel days go as smoothly as possible. Ready or not, here we go!