Testing My Packing Talents

As any wife in this life of overseas professional sports knows, you become pretty good at a number of odd and never-again-needed skills.  Things like figuring out weird ingredient substitutions for recipes so it sort of tastes like what your mom makes or navigating tiny European side walks with four kids in tow.  But no talent is refined in this lifestyle as much as the art of packing.  Most of us have it down to such a science that we can simply pick up a bag and guess it’s weight within a tenth of a pound!

But this talent has been tested in the past years.  I feel old when I talk about the “good old days” when airlines used to give us two bags per person at 70 pounds a bag.  It felt like you could pack half of your life with that kind of weight restriction.  Joe and I used to use all the extra weight for the essentials: like big jars of peanut butter (the Crispin family probably has half of our daily intake coming in the form of peanut butter when we are home in the U.S.).  Unfortunately a few years ago the airlines threw us for a loop: each bag was now reduced down to 50 pounds.  Thankfully we were able to take this change in stride because we pop out babies (ie. more pieces of luggage) quick enough to get us that poundage back quickly!

But over the past year we packers faced another challenge: we have no been reduced down to one bag a person at 50 pounds each.  This was a tough blow for me in my packing this year since 1 piece of luggage is a computer and printer for Abby’s school, while a second piece is taken up in weight of Abby’s school things.  Leaving a family of 6 to pack our things in 4 bags would take a small miracle (I kept hoping for an opposite effect of Jesus turning the twelve loaves of bread into enough to feed a multitude).

Thankfully the team Joe signed with this year agreed to a stipulation in the contract that had them paying for extra baggage fees.  I really didn’t want to take advantage of this too much though because there is plenty else we have to ask for in the year and you never want to start off the year as the high-maintenance Americans.  So when Joe left, he took 2 bags (1 extra piece) and I was left to pack things up the rest of our things.  I had 6 pieces of luggage to work with before going into extra baggage since Joe’s dad was flying with us and only staying for one full day.  I knew one piece would be the computer and printer, so I wasn’t sure if I could get the rest into 5 pieces.

I managed to fit the rest of our things in about 6 pieces of luggage, but Joe also made some orders for his teammates for some things, so I ended up with a total of 8 more pieces of luggage (putting our total of extra pieces at 3).  When we got to the airport though we had some issues with our tickets, so by the time the airline attendant got around to our baggage he didn’t even charge us for the extras!

So here are some changes we have made in order to try and cut down on baggage:

1. Rolling clothes. This really does save space.  I used to never do it because I always had plenty of space, just not enough poundage, but now space is limited as well.

2. Buying linens when we get overseas.  When it was just Joe and I (and even when we only had one child) I used to always bring our own sheets and towels.  But those days are long gone.  Now we either use what is provided for us or buy linens when we get there.

3. Take only paperback books.  We have greatly reduced the amount of books we bring as well.  Now that we have the Kindle, we bring probably 1/3 of what we used to bring, but we still bring paper books as well, especially children’s books.  But this year I made the rule that any book that was brought had to be a paperback.  This meant Abby carried two large hardcover books in her carry-on because she was so desperate to have them with her!

4. Reduced the amount of toys even more.  Living overseas has really taught me that kids do not need that many toys.  But this year I cut back even more.  Thankfully most of what Abby and Elijah like are relatively small.  And Naomi usually just wants to play with them.  I think I brought a total of 4 baby toys for Isaiah (poor guy).  But I know when the time comes for him to actually playing with toys that pots and pans and a wooden spoon will entertain him more anyway!  We usually pick out one item to buy them when we are over here and this year we chose some equipment that they can use on our large deck here (roller blades, scooter and tricycle), so that keeps them occupied as well.

5. Be thankful we are coming somewhere warm.  This year was so much easier packing for the simple fact that we were coming to Sicily where the coldest month has a low temperature of 49 degrees.  When you don’t have to pack a bunch of winter stuff you cut way down on what you have to bring.

6. Carry heavier items on as carry-ons. As Abby did, many of our heavier items make their way into our carry-ons.  They only have to be a certain size, not a certain weight.

Of course, there is always the option of shipping things, but that can get costly and for us we would rather try and figure out ways to live more simply.  Plus we have such great family and friends that send us packages throughout the year that bring in little items to freshen up our everyday lives!

Anyone else figuring out ways to meet the new airline weight limits?  Any tips to share?