For anyone that knows our family, (and even those that have been reading this blog from the beginning), they know we don’t stay put. Ever. In the summers we spend our weekends at our family’s lake house in New Hampshire, and hell if we weren’t going to continue doing that after adding Milo to our family. We bought a bigger rig (Chevy Traverse… killer storage space, people!), rearranged our schedules a little bit, and stored up a lot of patience, because this is our JAM. After a whole summer of packing up our family every weekend to head to the lake, I have it down to a science. Without some of these tips, I would lose just a little bit more of my sanity.
- Pack in laundry baskets. I can’t take credit for this one, since I learned it from my mom, but the woman sure does know how to pack. Duffle bags make it easy for things to get jumbled and lost, and laundry baskets just fit way more stuff! It makes packing and unpacking super easy, and also fits nicely in the trunk as a bottom layer.
- if you have laundry machines where you’re staying, pack light, do the laundry and come home with a basket of clean and folded clothes! So many people I know cut their weekends short to prep for the coming week, which I am sure includes getting the laundry done from the weekend. Why not let the kids play a little longer in the lake while laundry is running, and make the most of summer Sundays?
- Grocery shop online. This is my saving grace week after week. I shop online for weekend groceries on Thursday evenings, and do the pickup on Friday before heading north. And then, in order to make the most of my Sundays (see point number 2 above), I do another online delivery or pickup on Monday afternoons for meals for the week. this requires some meal planning or, if you’re like us, eating the same things over and over, which makes adding to the online cart super simple. I cannot stress enough how this enables us to be more “on-the-go” on weekends. My two favorites are Hannaford-to-go and Whole Foods with Amazon Prime Now.
- Stock the car full of toys, books, snacks, waters and blankets (AND A LOT OF PATIENCE) for traffic filled rides. The non-traffic commute to the lake for us is about an hour and a half, but on a typical Friday I can always count on two hours. Kids are unpredictable and can be whiny at times (ok, a lot of times), but i try to always have at least three snack options, their water bottles, and some toys (the magnadoodle is a fan favorite). Our kids also really like to have blankets if we time the drive with nap or bedtime and they can fall asleep in the car. With a nursing baby and a potty trained preschooler we can always count on at least one stop for Zoe to use the potty (more on this in bullet 5), or for me to feed Milo, so I have had to completely change my mindset about getting to the lake as fast as humanly possible on Friday evenings. We will get there when we get there, and the calmer I am about it, the calmer the kids will be.
- Buy a little toddler potty for your trunk. THIS. IS. GOLD. Keith will tell you how I never used a port-a-potty until we met, and how I HATE using public bathrooms, so with a little one that loves to touch everything in sight, the idea of having Zoe go in a rest area bathroom makes me sick. We have a little potty in the trunk with some wipes and she can just hop up, do her business, and be on with our car ride. The bucket is easily dumped out in the woods or on the side of the road and wiped out with Lysol wipes, and then I don’t have to worry about whatever nastiness lurks in that public bathroom. Y.U.C.K.
What are your top car traveling tips? I’m always willing to try new things, because these kids are constantly throwing me curve balls.
