Take a Break!

I often ask people I meet what their vacation plans include. I am passionately committed to vacations and would like to encourage you and your family to take one.

In the days when we were on missionary support (and grossly under-supported), we camped (something we still enjoy as a family). Because we were busy with Sonlight work, we often left town on the spur of the moment, when we had a break in the busy-ness.

Please let me share some of our strategies, and maybe you could post and comment and add your own to help other busy moms.

• We had a list of all camping supplies we would need that we stored in the glove compartment of our car. It specifically listed all the large things from tent(s) to sleeping bags to camp stove to lantern. --While on the camping trip, if we discovered we wished we had brought something that was not on the list, then we added it to the list.


• We had two tubs that we brought on every trip. They had a separate list, and I prepared these tubs for the next trip when we returned from camping. The tubs held salt (in baby food jars or smaller), dish towels, bath towels, dishes, silverware (which I bought at a garage sale so I didn't have to bring the house set), dishes, dish detergent, pot holders, etc. All of these things were washed, refilled, and checked before I put them back on the camping shelf in the garage.


• For dishes, we took rattan plate holders and used paper plates; I found the plates easy to burn in our nightly fire and (my opinion) less dishwashing is to be desired while in the wilderness!

The kids (from a very young age) pulled all the "stuff " from the “big” list, double checked that they had everything, and piled it all next to the car. I don't think I ever double checked their work, and I don't remember them missing anything from the list.

Dad packed the car.

While the kids found the supplies, I laid out my clothes on the bed to serve as a pattern of what I believed the children would need to pack. For example, I set out in a column one pair of jeans, two pairs of shorts, a bathing suit, sweatshirt, coat, jammies, and the "right number" of socks.

The kids went and found clothes of their own that matched the pattern and laid them on the bed in a column for me to double check.

We put our clothes in pillow cases (since a pillow case takes up way less room than a suitcase).

As the kids got older, I would set out the pattern of what to bring and the kids would pack on-their-own (and I didn't need to check).

For food, I'd think through what we would eat for each meal. I'd write it in three columns (a column for each one of the three daily meals). I'd plan all the parts (i.e. chips for taco salad plus green beans). Then I would make a second list with all the ingredients for each meal. The dry goods went into a box, and I'd list how many frozen packs of hamburger, hot dogs, juice, etc. I'd need. Just before we left the house, I'd pull the frozen food and put it in the cooler.

To keep the food cold, I froze gallon jugs of milk and used the frozen gallon instead of ice. By the time the milk thawed, we finally had room to buy ice; the frozen milk was much neater than melted ice.

I would prepare as much of the food as possible (i.e. put the spices on the chicken and freeze the whole thing in a freezer bag). Frozen meat also helped keep the cold foods cold.

We packed books to read by lantern light in the evening.

In all, we could pack up the entire family in about two hours and hit the road.

I hope this may stimulate you and empower you to stretch, to retreat, to refresh, and refuel with your family in the glorious outdoors!