Mother's going GREEN Day 77 - Light Shade of Green Vacation

Well our family is back safe and sound from our vacation. Very tiring but very enjoyable at the same time. A nice break.

Attempted as much as possible to stay on my green track but I will admit being on a vacation away from home does present many challenges. I am sad to admit that I did succumb to many of the not so green activities.....

I did pick up a plastic bag or 2 - those Disney bags - I felt I needed one as a souvenir - why I am not sure.

Although we took our Klean Kanteen water bottles with us we still used some plastic bottles - boy is it ever hot in California, and we needed lots of cool drinking water. We purchased some cold bottles of water the first day but did reuse them (not recommended because of the plastic) but it was only for a few days... I came up with a great way to keep the refilled bottles cooled - I packed them into a soft sided cooler - filled it with ice and kept it in the bottom of the stroller - we had cold water all day. The melted ice (water) I then sprinkled in one of the many flower beds thus reusing the water.

Food was another source of a challenge of staying green. We did pack several organic snacks from home which we ate as snacks and for breakfast had cereal which we purchased there but for lunch and dinner we had fast food or either ate at restaurants. But I can say at least we put in the effort.

Staying in the hotel room was the easiest - I managed to do everything I set out to do in an earlier blog - so that's one good green thing.

Souvenirs - now that was a real challenge especially for the kids - so many toys and paraphernalia with lots of packaging but we did let them get a couple of things. For myself I managed to pick up a 100% cotton dress and a beautiful paper sun hat. It says it is paper but it looks like a straw hat. Both natural and zero packaging. The biggest souvenir will be all the pictures we took and ticket stubs, maps etc. I will be making each of my kids a "memory" book of their vacation.

Lessons learned: It is tough to maintain your green status on a holiday, especially when you are fairly new to the green thing. But we learn from experience and next time I know I will be better prepared especially when it comes to the food - I would say that was our biggest downfall.