The Typical Day Before Leaving On Tour

This post title is somewhat deceiving, because absolutely no two "day-before-leaving-on-tour" days are the same. It is quite crazy, the different things that come up every time and leave us shaking our heads wondering "and WHY did this have to happen today of ALL days?"

So no two days of these are alike. But I thought I'd still share with you what that "day before leaving" CAN look like. Since this is our last tour of the year and I was thinking about how it is also the last big packing day of the year, I thought it would be an appropriate time to do a post like this.

 I didn't include pictures of all of us gathered in the kitchen at lunchtime packing and eating simultaneously. 

Or each of us taking load after load after load to the bus.

Or making the bus bunks, loading the freezer/refridgerator, filling the water bay, cleaning out and restocking the front bays, cleaning the house, finishing the laundry, etc etc etc.

And now, I take you back to last Thursday...(we left on Friday)

Thursday started out with a messy bedroom, a messy ponytail, comfort clothes, and no makeup. 

(except for mascara. always mascara) 

When I went to apply my makeup I discovered that I had left some of it in the truck the night before (don't even ask why it was with me in the truck in the first place!) and since my dad and brother had taken the truck early that morning to deliver cattle, that makeup wasn't going to be an option. I was short on time anyways so I decided to just nix the whole process except of course for aforementioned mascara. Because KEEP CALM AND WEAR MASCARA.

Moving on....

 The bedroom. On packing days it always gets worse before it gets better. This picture was taken at some point in the process.
I love packing. Absolutely ADORE it. Even though at heart I am ultimately a homebody, still I have always had the love of travel in my bones.
Because traveling is adventure---heading out into the wide wide world. And I love adventure.

Packing can take anywhere from a certain number of hours to another certain number of hours.
No, I am not going to divulge the time it takes to pack. It varies quite a bit from time to time.
And besides. Certain information should stay personal, I think. =)

Packing for oneself is one thing. Packing five different coordinating outfits for a family of twelve is another. Whilest in the midst of the piles of dress clothes EVERYWHERE, I suddenly had a revelation.
"Why can't everyone pack THEIR OWN?"
It's not like we are back in the days when half of us were babies and couldn't pack for ourselves.
No. We have twelve responsible, law abiding citizens (ahem-most of the time!) that are all over eight years of age and SHOULD be able to pack their own concert clothes.
So I switched from plan a to plan B, which involved going to the computer and printing off the above chart.

I added certain stipulations with relish. =)

Because:

A) I think God placed me as the oldest to help the siblings learn to keep deadlines (ha!)

B) Something really needed to be done to change the system (or lack thereof)

C) I can always use more coffee $$ (yes please!)

Y'all. I just have the sweetest siblings ever. These gems had their clothes packed early but left some love for me anyway. 

Shipshewana Davis Mercantile Coffee Shop, coming right up this week! =)

Along with packing, and packing, and more packing...the day before leaving on tour is, as was previously mentioned, always filled with all sorts of extra projects that just "happen" to have to come up on that busiest of all days.
To name a few...
*The basil was beginning to go into seed, and there was a very good chance it might get hit with frost while we were gone. So I headed up my own personal pesto campaign, making pesto and drying additional basil in extremely large increments.
*The brotherhood went hunting. Which was probably not the wisest thing to do, since past studies have PROVEN time and time again that they can hunt for WEEKS before a tour and not get a thing, BUT if they go out on the day before leaving...they honestly get a deer every.single.time. It is positively uncanny how that works.
So sure enough, Denver got a deer. Which meant that now there was a deer to be butchered, and jerky to be made.
*The apple trees were producing in abundance, but unfortunately quite a few of the apples were spotty which meant they had to be frozen or canned immediately. Also the four cases of pears which had just arrived from our coop were not in good condition, which meant that they had to be put in the freezer immediately too!

And then there were all those little things like the fact that my washer wasn't working properly, which means that washing a load of laundry takes longer than the normal 55minutes. And several things in the bus were left unattended after our last tour so now the whole place smelled much less than desirable so there was extra cleaning and attention required to get everything back in the preferred state of livableness.

And that's a little inside peek of the craziness of "day before leaving". Hope you enjoyed! Would love to hear your thoughts in the comment box!

-Chels