5 travel must haves

Passport Wallet//

This is soooo convenient!! I purchased mine from Marine Parents on Instagram, it's custom made and super cute! When we travel, I'm the one who takes care of the booking and reservations.  So when we travel I handle the passports and paper work.  Before I got this wallet, I would just get a folder and put the paper work and passports in there.  Since I used a folder I would need to bring a backpack or a large purse.  When I travel on a plane I try to bring the least stuff I can on the actual plane.  After I got this, I could put my passports, paper work, and boarding passes all in one small wallet.  The back of the wallet has a place for all my paper work and inside the wallet can fit up to 6 passports.  This easily fits into my purse, so I don't have to carry a backpack.  Makes my life a whole lot easier!  Having all my important docs and passports in one place makes checking in a breeze!

Power Bank//

This is a lifesaver!  I brought the smaller one we own, its an Anker, has 1 usb slot and is good for about 3 charges.  I bought my from Amazon, one of the smartest buys ever! When we travel, we travel with 2 ipads and 2 iphones.  Depending on how long the flight lasts, layovers, hours driving, this baby comes in handy and has saved me from meltdowns. haha  When traveling, outlets aren't always readily available.  Weather its to recharge my kids' ipads to keep them calm on the plane or to give my phone a lil more juice for an emergency call....a power bank is a must have.  They are great just to carry for every day use.  Now they are small and slim and can fit into most purses.  Just know that it has to be in your carry on luggage and cannot be packed in your check bag. :)

Camera//

Duh!  When traveling you want to take pics of all your memories and sightseeing!  I use my Panasonic Lumix GF3, its user friendly, takes great pics and is light weight.  I alsobring 

my phone also, but I like to take better quality pics with my camera.  I use my phone pics for the quick uploads to FB and IG.

Hat//

Hats are so in style right now.  I'm wearing a fedora, got it from a local store.  Adding a fedora to any outfit definitely styles it up!  When traveling, especially to sunny places, it serves two purposes....looking stylish and keeping the sun out of your eyes.  I love wearing a hat when getting on a plane, I don't have to worry about my hair getting all messed up , I don't spend any time on it when getting ready and I get static while on the plane and the hat helps me cover my mop up.  Then I have a hat for pool/beach time.  Such a light and helpful accessory!

Cross body bag//

Out of all the types of bags I own, this is the most convenient for me when I travel.  This one is from Forever 21.  I find that it stays out of my way for the most part and since I carry a medium size one I'm able to bring a decent amount of stuff.  I used to carry a big travel bag {ie LV neverfull} but then after I arrive at my destination, I'm stuck with a big bag that gets in my way and barely has anything in it.  I would then pack other purses to use while on vacation, but that meant more stuff in my luggage.  Now a days I try to pack as light as possible, and I pack things that are multipurpose.  So I use a cross body when I travel.  It stays out of the way, is stylish, and convenient!

Since we just got back from vacay, I thought I'd share my 5 must haves while traveling.  All 5 have been a HUGE help

Staycation

Summer is well underway here.  A/C is on full blast and kids are out of school.  Now, I love traveling as much as the next person.  Especially going to a new country.  But, we aren't millionaires and I'm a SAHM.  We are fortune to travel off island, 1 or 2 times a year.  So we plan lots of stuff to do locally.  I mean, we aren't going to live here forever , so we gotta take advantage and see the sights.

One thing that we have done a lot of are staycations.  We not only have done them here, but we've done them in places back in the states.  When we were in WA, we would get a hotel room in downtown Seattle for the weekend and roam the city.  When we were in VA, we would get a hotel room in Northern VA and roam the city.  In CA, we would get a hotel room on the beach and roam the beach.  You get the idea.  But vacations don't always have to be to to new exotic places.  Plus, staycations are quick, fun, and cheap.

Luckily, we live on a beautiful tropical island, with an abundance of awesome hotels.  We booked a weekend at The Rizaan hotel.  Its literally 20 minutes away!  Not far at all.  We got together with 8 other families and planned a weekend there.  The hotel was awesome!  Right on the beach, indoor pool, outside pool, slides, restaurants, huge breakfast buffet included and the hotel room was reasonably priced.  We spent two days there, and we had a blast.  I swear, the kids became fish.  They didn't want to leave the pools or the beach.  Even though it was 20 minutes away from our house, I felt like I was on vacation somewhere else.  It was very easy to get into that vacation mind set.

Notable mentions:

Breakfast buffet::
When I booked our hotel our buffet was included.  I always love when this is included because breakfast is usually the only meal that I know for sure we will eat when we go on vacation. Throughout the day if we are sightseeing, beaching, pooling, we forget about time and we usually consume snacks rather then meals.  This buffet was huge,lots of selection and pretty good food.  They had traditional Japanese and American breakfast options.  There were also lots of fruit and veggies.  The options changed daily, which is nice!  So we started our days with a good hearty meal to keep us going for our long days.

Rooms:
The basic rooms, which is what we booked, was actually not too bad.  Especially in Japan!  We've been to a few Japanese hotels and most of the time the rooms are pretty tiny. Our room was small, but good enough.  We had 2 beds, a pull out bed, couch, coffee table, and mini fridge.  I was really surprised with the room.  I was thinking it would be tiny.  But it was a good enough size to fit all 4 of us comfortably.

Pools:
The hotel had 2 pools, one inside and one outside.  Both had areas for smaller children and water slides.  The outside pool did have a waterfall.  The kids loved going under it.  It was nice that there was the option of inside and outside.  Sometimes outside it was way too hot, Oki summers can be pretty brutal.  The kids thoroughly enjoyed themselves at both pools.

Memories:
I know this sounds cheesy, I dont care!!!  We made lots of memories that weekend.  I loved seeing the huge smiles from my kids.  I loved seeing M relaxed and enjoying himself.  It was so much fun going with all our friends. I honestly was afraid when we were planning it, I thought it was going to be a mad house.  In the end, it was the more the merrier.  We kicked off summer with a bang!  I'm so excited for all the fun stuff this summer has to come!

Sapporo {throwback thursday}

Since a lot of the news talk these days is about snow, I thought I'd throw it back to our trip to Sapporo Japan.  We went to the annual snow and ice festival in February 2011.  Amelia was 2 and I was 5 months pregnant with Nolan.  This was the first ever cold vacation that I've taken.  My idea of a vacation is somewhere warm and preferably by some body of water.  We heard so many great things about the festival and Sapporo, so we had to make the trip up there.

Sapporo is located on  Hokkaido , it's the most northern island in Japan.  We took two plane rides and a bus to get to Sapporo.  It was SUPER cold.  Maybe since being in Okinawa we weren't ready for the cold weather.  It was no joke.  I of course packed to look cute in the snow, but that all went out the window when I got there.  I practically layered all my clothes everyday!

We stayed there for 3 nights and 4 days.  It was pretty fun.  Our hotel was located in the heart of Sapporo so we would go see something then come back to our hotel and warm up.  The snow sculptures were amazing!  Theses things were gigantic and had so much detail.  I was literally in awe of every single one of them.  We went to see them during the day and at night.  I suggest going at night!  The way they are light up at night looks so magical.  I remember Amelia saying "wow" the whole time we were walking around looking at them.

My favorite part of the trip was when we went to this parking lot that was converted into a big snow playground.  There were slides, rides, ice sculptures, snow playgrounds.  It was super awesome.  I know Amelia had the time of her life there.  This was the first time she had seen snow and been old enough to play.

Another notable mention of this trip was the FOOD!  Hokkaido is famous for their seafood, crab in particular.  It was so good, I still dream about it to this day.  It was so good I didn't even get a picture of it.