It’s what you give away (or get lopped off)…

That was my packing theme for this trip. In the frantic final days leading up to our adventure, I was hell bent on giving it all away. I wanted to unburden, simplify and clean. With growing children, it’s a given that nothing that fits them now will still fit when we return to Vermont in a year. So, I packed what we needed for the tropics, and gave everything else away. Honestly it was more therapeutic in nature than altruistic, but something rubbed off on the kids.

We found ourselves squeezing in hair appointments the day before we left so Brianna could donate her ponytail to Locks of Love, and the boys could embrace their own simplification method with maintenance free buzz cuts. Knowing our track record with lice in Vermont, I’m quite certain this was not a bad idea. Despite the serious mathematical effort that had gone into weighing every suitcase to insure we were within the weight requirements of the airline, I had to upset the equilibrium by squeezing in our favorite nit combs…just in case.