Hi guys. Welcome back to my channel. Today's video is an unpack with me. I thought I would
share with you our routine, as soon as we get home from vacation, and how I unpack and
wash everything. So, we've just been away for a week in Cyprus.
If you haven't seen that blog, I will link it down below, but I thought I'd share with
you the not so glamorous side of going away as well. What I do is, as soon as we get some
from holiday, I unpack, wash everything, and get it put away, all within 24 hours. That
is because, if I don't do it immediately, I don't do it for weeks, and it just sits
there, and it starts to smell, and it's a nightmare.
So I hope you enjoy this video. This is all the luggage that we took, and I'm just going
to start unpacking. So first things first, I'm going to get on
laundry load one, and this suitcase is full of dirty clothes. Whenever we go away, I take
these white mesh bags with us, so that as soon as we have dirty clothes, we can divide
them up into those. So I have one for colors, one for darks, and then I have one little
small pile of whites, and then I even have a pile of pinks as well.
So the first load that I'm going to put on is a color load. So I'm going to put in some
laundry detergent, I'm also going to put some Unstoppables in, because they make it smell
a lot better, and these clothes have been sat around for a whole week. I'm also going
to put in a color catcher as well. So that is load one. I also found my hotel room key
in this load, sorry hotel. But that is number one.
So while that first load of laundry is on, I'm going to start emptying out the boys'
carry-on cases. Depending on what is in here, I will actually keep it aside, and sometimes
just put it straight back in for the next time that we travel. So things like their
headphones for traveling, UNO, Double, games that they like to play, I will tend to just
put them straight back into the cases for the next time that we go away. Now that they're
empty, I'm going to put them into the garage. Next up, I'm going to tackle the other cases.
These are supposed to be clean cases, but inevitably a few dirty items will creep in.
Like those trousers need to be washed, so I chucked them into the pink pile of washing.
But mostly, I would just make piles for each child, also a pile of shoes that needs to
all go away. Then things like the pool toys, I will make sure they're completely dried
out, and then I'll actually just put them back into the suitcase again for the next
time we travel. Similarly, with the swimming nappies, I'll
probably just chuck them back in as well, because I know that we'll need them next time.
As you can see, I've got a little helper. He's super clingy and tired from our travels.
But once that's empty, I'm going to put that case into the other case, and that can all
go into the garage as well. There's a few bits like snacks and Cheerios that we've taken
away with us, that just needs to be put away, and then a bit of Tupperware and bowls that
needs to be washed as well. Now that that suitcase is in some kind of
order, and there's a pile for each person, I'm going to take these upstairs, and just
get them into the right room. This just frees up some space downstairs, I won't actually
put all this away until the end. But I'm putting a pile in Jackson's room, this is Caleb's
one, and then this is Fraser's as well. Of course, I will add to this, and I'm also going
to put all of the shoes away. Most of these can go straight into our storage, because
it actually is spring and summer now in the UK, so we are actually using these and wearing
these now. But if not, I would these up into storage.
But next up, that first load of laundry is done, so now I'm going to put on a load of
whites. I've actually grabbed the laundry basket from upstairs, because there were also
some sheets, and I'm sneakily stealing Jackson's precious blankets. This is so hard to get
off of him, but I definitely need to wash it. We haven't washed it for the whole week.
So I'm going to take all of the colors out, and separate them into what needs to go on
the line. There's just a few bits that go in the tumble dryer, but most of this is swim
wear and half tans, and really thin clothes that need to just be dried on the line.
But for the whites, I'm also using a little brilliant white sheet. These are similar to
the color catcher, but specifically for whites. So I'm going to put that in, I'm also going
to put in our laundry detergent, of course. Once that's on, I'm going to hang out the
clothes outside on this clothes horse. I would sometimes put it on the line, but the boys
have been outside playing football today. So, just so that it's out of the way, I'm
going to put it onto this. There is also quite a lot of laundry, as you can see, so it's
probably best that I put some on here, and then I can also use the line a bit later on.
Now that that second load of laundry is on, I'm going to move onto the last two suitcases.
So this one is full of quite random things. I'm adding quite a few things to the laundry
pile, so there's a few dirty bits in there. But we also weighed this one down with our
toiletries and our sun cream. There's random toys in there, as you can see, lots more bath
toys, football boots. Pretty random, but also not that full, so that one is done.
Then I'm going to take my suitcase upstairs to our bedroom, because it's full of things
that I didn't wear, or I only wore for a morning, and I feel like it's still clean enough to
just put straight away. So I'm just going to sort through putting some bits away, sorting
out my dresses, what needs to be hung up, what can actually go under our bed into storage,
and just put everything away. Once the white wash is done, I'm going to
shift things around in the laundry room, take anything out of the tumble dryer that is now
clean, sort through the whites of what needs to be hung out on the line, which is actually
pretty much everything. Then I'm also going to put on a load of darks. So for this, I'm
using the washing detergent, also a color catcher, and the Unstoppables. I'm going to
hang the whites out on the proper clothes line.
We have these retractable ones, which are really handy. But they can sometimes get in
the way when the kids want to play in the garden. So at the moment they're not, they're
just chilling, they're really tired from traveling. But sometimes they come out, and they get
involved, and they get things off the line, so it's not always ideal.
Right, so it's day two of unpacking. Yesterday we only really had half a day to get on with
laundry and unpacking, and we also had all the kids at home. Today, the kids are back
at school, so I'm going to tackle this, and I'm going to get it all done. Last night,
Matt as well, put on another load of laundry late at night, I think that was our fourth
load, and it was another dark wash. So today I'm hoping to get about three more loads done,
and lots of folding and putting away. Yeah, so this is the current situation. Today
there is laundry actually clean and hanging on every part that you could actually have
laundry, also outside, and on the clothes horse. But I need to get on and do a pink
wash, also need to do another light wash. I also need to do a wash of their brand new
pajamas, they're all striped, obviously brand new with dark stripes and white. So I'm going
to wash them on a really cool wash. So I'm going to do them separately.
So much folding and actually putting away to do, because this is all actually clean,
I just haven't got round to folding it. Yeah, so first thing this morning I'm going
to do the pink wash, as I mentioned. There's not loads of this, so I'm just going to use
a little bit of washing detergent for this. Then once that's on, I'm going to take a few
things out of the tumble dryer that were in our dark wash last night, and then I'm going
to get on with folding all of the clean clothes. Because the kids are all at school, I'm actually
going to really enjoy this. I'm just going to make a big pile of all the clean stuff,
have a cup of tea. I'm either going to listen to music, or I also love to listen to podcasts,
or motivational audio books while I do things like this. I actually find it quite therapeutic.
So, I'm going to fold the laundry, and I'm going to enjoy it.
I also thought I would show you this. This is the color catcher within the clean clothes.
So as you can see, there's a bit of maroon, a bit of gray. The idea of using these, is
that it catches the running colors and stops your clothes from graying. But once I've folded
most of the laundry, I tend to save the socks for the end. I don't know if anyone else does
this, but I'll just make a pile of socks, and then wait till the very end to pair them
all up. Even when I do that, there's a few strays.
But once the pink load of laundry is done, I'll just sort through that. Then in typical
UK style, it started to rain when some of the dark washing was outside, so I've just
quickly run out, and like panic, grabbed everything, and I'll have to find a place to hang that
inside. Then I've brought the clothes horse in to put all of the pinks on.
Now that I have everyone's clothes into their piles, one for each child, and me and Matt,
I'm going to take them all upstairs. I stupidly let film me, and I told him not to film my
butt. [inaudible 00:10:33]
Look at the side of that booty. At least Caleb made his bed.
That is making it for him. Honestly, you just can't get the help these
days. But now I'm just going to put their clothes into the right rooms, go back downstairs
and get mine, Matt's and Fraser's. I really need to get some kind of big washing basket,
because I always see how much I can carry, and sometimes I drop things. But I'm just
going to put this into my room, and then into Fraser's room as well. Then I'm actually going
to start putting things away. So, in Caleb's room, you can see he's got
a broken drawer, things are busting at the seams. He has so many hand-me-downs, I probably
do need to do a big sort out of his room, but I'm going to start putting his things
away. Then while I am, I notice that the color load downstairs is done, so I'm going to run
down, sort that out, and then put on load number seven, I think it must be. So these
are all whites, and there are some sheets within it, because before we go away, I like
to change the beds, so that when we come home, it's like we have all these lovely clean bed
clothes. So, now that that one is done, I'm going to
put on the final load of laundry. This is, I think is load eight. I've completely lost
count. But that sounds about right, because I normally do a load of laundry a day at home.
So if we had seven or eight loads while we're away, that would probably work out about right
to what we do at home anyway. Now I'm just going to get on with actually
putting everything away. This is actually where I fall down the most. I find it okay
getting things washed and getting things put into the right rooms, but the actual putting
away bit is probably where I slack a little bit. So I'm not doing that today, I'm just
going to go ahead and get it all put away into the right place as fast as I can.
Once most of the clothes have been put away, I'm going to start putting away our toiletries,
because I also find if I don't put these away straight away, they will just sit in their
[inaudible 00:13:44] cases for ages. Once all of that's done, it's time to just fold
up all of the last bits of laundry. So the boys' new little pajamas that I washed, they
came out really well, so I'm glad that I washed them on the cold wash.
Then the last of lot of colors as well. There are just a few other bits that are hanging
on the clothes horse, and they weren't actually dry until right at the end of the day. So
once they were, I just took that off, folded all of that, and that is it. I'm finally done.
I think that was just slightly over 24 hours. But, pretty much all the way within a day,
and I'm so glad that we could just go back to normal now.
I hope you enjoyed this video. I know it's a different one for me. But if you're new,
please subscribe, because I would love to have you as a viewer. Thanks so much for watching.