Hello everyone,
I know my blog is for fashion and I will get to the clothes part of this post soon enough… But first I wold like to mention a few tips for packing for a trip with your kids overseas.
Well, I am going to Germany with both my boys. It is for a full week and my oldest is a big kid so his clothes and shoes take a lot of room. At first I was hoping to just take 3 carry-on bags and our backpacks but as I kept checking the weather we will have while there, this idea quickly became just a dream. We are also visiting family while there so there are the gifts that we are taking that need room in the bag.
As far as my clothes went, I started with the shoes, after all, it will be raining and possibly snowing for most of the time we are visiting. So I decided on short boots that are comfortable for walking around, yet ok to get wet. With that in mind, I started choosing my clothes. At first I had considered taking all casual clothes such as sweat pants and leggings, then I talked to a friend who has gone to Germany often and she shared with me that Germans tend to dress a little more dressy and that I should probably not wear sweat pants. With this new knowledge I started over with my outfits.
What I have in my bag now are jeans and cute tops that go with the boots I am taking. I am also taking some scarves to help dress up some of the outfits if necessary. I hope I got this right but I can let you know when I get back from the trip.
The packing did not end there though, now I needed to have enough outfits for my boys. The younger one was fairly easy since his clothes don’t take nearly as much room. I had to do some shopping to make sure their clothes looked nice and had no stains or rips. This is where things got more complicated. My oldest is 6 feet tall already and only likes to wear sweat pants. One would think this should be easy, but I have to tell you, IT IS NOT! We visited many stores and finally found enough pants to take on the trip. The ones he had at home were all too short, stained or had seen better days. I think we went to at least 5 different stores to find enough pants. It is really hard to find sweat pants that are long enough for him…UGH…
After all the shopping for their clothes was done, it was time to decide on what souvenirs to take. Since I like to make crafts, I decided to make a quilt for them, then I found Harry Potter fabric and she loves Harry Potter so I made a second blanket and some bags with the fabrics I found. Well, as you can imagine blankets and quilts take up a lot of room.
(The picture above and below is of the earbud bag I made too. I thought it turned out really cute and it is the perfect size to through in any purse or backpack and no danger of your earbuds get ruined.)
Will all these things we ended up with 3 carry-ons, 1 medium size bag and 3 backpacks. The part I did not tell you is that 2 of the backpacks are full of chips since my youngest is an extreme picky eater and only eats specific things, he is even picky about the brand of the chips. On the picture above you can see that we have a blanket hanging from the backpack. This is a precaution because my son has some anxiety issues and I am hoping this will help throughout the trip, it is something familiar and cuddly that will keep him calm. (He also has a stuffed animal monkey in his bag.) Then you add the electronics each wants to have and books to read in the plane and airport and ‘voilá’ we have 7 pieces of luggage total…. It seems a bit insane for a 7 day trip but I believe that considering it is still cold and we need winter clothes it might be warranted.
Stay tuned for how correct I was in the choice of my clothes for this trip…
Thank you for reading,
Juliana