how to travel well

as chad and i traveled to the caribbean we decided to only bring one suitcase. yes one suitcase, we were gone for ten days. that meant that we had to be very wise in what we packed and how we packed it. i left feeling pretty proud of ourselves. we manage to fit both formal(including a suit) and casual clothes, and the bag still weighed less then fifty pounds. with that i am going to be leaving you today with a couple of travel tips, packing, at the airport, and when you land.

packing

find lots of cute tops and bottoms that you can mix and match, allowed you to have several outfits and different looks, but not taking up that much more room in your suitcase

layer. this was my key to keeping my clothes at a variety, you couldn't tell that i had wore the same piece twice.

plan out your outfits before you go, this allows you not to be scrambling through your suitcase trying to figure out what to wear. if you plan, you already know what you are going to be wearing and how to mix and match the pieces you want to. it saves you SO much space.

put formal wear ontop

we had to fit chads suit and a few of my formal dresses into our bag.

the cruise line did not provide irons

so we had to make sure we could pack with out our clothes being completely wrinkled.

alas, we came up with putting our formal wear ontop. it worked great and very few winkles overall 

wear clothing on the airplane

we wore all of our bulky clothing on the flight there. layered up on a few pieces of clothing, wore our pants, shoes, sweaters, a tank, etc. this help avoid taking up extra space in the suitcase and also allowed us to be prepared if the flight was going to be warm or cold. 

 i think flying you should be comfortable in what you are wearing, but you shouldn't be completely grubby. it takes takes up more space in your suitcase, and you just don't look as crisp. i wore these simple jeans and a loose fitting shirt, it was the perfect solution for our long day of traveling. 

carry on bag 

find a large supportive bag. i love my strawfoot bag. it is the most supportive bag i own, that allows me to fit other bags inside. i was able to put my sweater, a water bottle, books, etc. all in this nice bag. highly recommend it! 

my carry on was packed with lots of snacks, candy, and a bottle for carrying water. airports have the craziest prices and as newlyweds on a budget we made sure to pre-pack our snacks so we wouldn't have to buy them there.

reading 

i am a big reader. i do not own a kindle.

so how did i afford/bring books onto the trip?

i rented from the lovely library! i packed most of these books in the checked bag, but carried a few with me. i swapped them out on our way home and it enabled me to read a lot, with out having the burden of physically carrying the bag. 

my favorite part of renting books was renting the magazines. i used to always buy magazines before leaving on a trip, you only read them a few times before throwing them out, but this little discovery saved me ten dollars. 

well those are just a couple of tips that i have come up with from my recent travels.

 what are your travel tips? how do you efficiently pack?

my tan is starting to fade

so when writing this post the only thing that came to my mind for a title was that corny saying "tan lines fades but the memories last forever" ha! but here i am, my tan is fading but i have these awesome memories, so i am going to just go with it. corny sayings inspire everyone from time to time. once again-i cannot get over how awesome honeymoons are. the ability to completely escape from the internet, to be alone with your one and only is an amazing thing.

but the only problem with honeymoons is that you have to come home, and then you have to come home with being absent from the country for ten days and have to catch up on life. and man is that catch up hard! this week has been a whirl wind of papers, presentations, cleaning, organizing, and working. it hasn't been an easy one. i look over at my to do list and cringe. i hate it being that long. but then i remember i just had the best week and a half with my husband and i smile. and then i look these photos again, and i really smile. 

with that, happy thoughts! these are some more photos of some of the fun things we did on our little trip. because the trip was so long and i am not sure if everyone wants to hear in-depth explanations of each island, i am going to write a few posts about the trip and give a small explaination on a few of my favorite photos of the post. this post has three. 

my first favorite photo from this collection would be with the parrot. we met a little friend named sweet pea on the island antigua after we went kayaking in the ocean (i know it is kinda like a dream). she was so sweet, singing and talking away! she got a little too interested in chad and decided to start nibbling at his ear ;)

 second favorite photo, chads snorkeling face. too hilarious. chad toke one of me but some how i look even more dorkier then him so i decided i'd keep that one to my self;) we got to go snorkeling twice on the trip, on antigua and barbados. it was pretty awesome. we love getting into nature, seeing all of god's creation in its natural state. 

 and my final favorite picture on this post is the last one, which is a view of old san juan. san juan is an amazing town, and is filled with delicious food! they are really big on plantations so one night for dinner i had mashed plantations with garlic butter and shrimp. did not know what to expect but it was excellent. highly recommend checking out puerto rican food if you are going to the island, it was amazingly different and i loved it. i also loved this cute coffee shop we found in san juan (you better believe it we found espresso in the caribbean) called cuatro sombras. it was a really neat place that used all local and fresh ingredients including the espresso! it is grown in puerto rico by a farmer and then is roasted at the coffee shop. 

so thats the wrap up today. i am slowly returning back to normal functionality and am really going to utilize this weekend to catch up on reading blogs, baking, and homework, can't all be fun and games ;) 

and i am propose a toast (am i allowed to do such things by myself, drinking bubbly water? i am not sure but i am) to a great week and normal blogging week of reading and writing. happy friday!

rainforest, beaches, oh my!

well friends, i am back to the arctic. 

honeymoons are amazing. we had so much fun traveling through the south caribbean, going to all of the different islands, playing in the ocean, going to the rain forest, and snorkeling through man groves. we went from wearing shorts and tanks for ten days straight, to boots and wool socks and experienced a 80 degree temp difference. yay ;)

but it is a good feeling to be home. now back to catching up with school, writing thank you cards, and trying to get our home organized. the joy of newlyweds! ps I will slowly be replying to all comments an start catching up with the blogging world!