this hawks nest: come home from a vacay and remain relaxed

You know what it's like: you come home from a trip with suitcases and bags galore and three days later, there are still things left to unpack. You spend that transition time stepping over open cases, returning again and again to the same place to retrieve the items you know belong elsewhere.

Hawk, Callan and I joined our friends, the Conners (with their 12-week-old daughter!), for a four-day-weekend up north. It was lovely. And coming home was just as pleasant. I judge the quality of an experience by how contented I am to let it end. Then I know I got everything I could out of the experience.

It was the same for me in college. I've never been one to reminisce about the good ole days as if the past could ever be better than the present, and I'm convinced it is because I lived those experiences to their fill. Like how a delicious dessert leaves you satisfied rather than craving more when you just can't pack any more goodness into that potbelly.

Ah, I digress. Back to unpacking.

This is the first time we've returned from a trip, even a single overnighter, and felt settled, with the peacefulness of the experience still lingering in the air. I'm pretty sure the difference is three-fold:

We spent the day before departure cleaning the house and packing. We knew we wanted to come home to a clutter-free environment, clean sheets, clean clothes, clean counters, cleared floors.
We planned to return home hours before Callan's bedtime. Here in the great state of Wisconsin there was an inch of ice over every road on our 4 hour trip. We saw dozens of cars in the ditch and multiple accidents. But arriving home 90 minutes late still didn't disrupt our rhythm because we'd planned ahead.
We swapped playtime with Callan so that we could each unpack all our items before his bedtime.

So get this people: We were completely unpacked in 45 minutes. This includes all of Callan's items (which are a-plenty), my suitcase, Hawk's suitcase, snow gear, toys, food items (3 grocery bags full), baby monitors, etc. Everything was back in its place or down the laundry shoot in under an hour. It was amazing and so freeing, and we weren't even at a rush!

This is going to be our way of doing things from now on. Peace can be addicting, I tell ya.

So what is your vacation ritual? I'm very curious!

Happy Monday, friends.