Cards and Packing

We are suddenly in to our final two weeks in Australia. Dave has been away on a camping trip with some of his students so I've been teaching the boys to play gin rummy.I took this opportunity to teach them the rules that I grew up on rather than the rules that Heather and my dad have invented over the last 15 years. This is my attempt to get things back on track.  We'll see if I am successful. 

 The boys did well. It's possible that I am winning by a solid margin...but time will tell how quickly they can close that gap.

With only two weeks to go we are packing up. This is not as complicated as when we came over here. Now we down own much and this house was already packed up when we arrived.  I am clearing out a few items like the weights and kettle bells that we've acquired. The rest of our belongings are clothes and such that are coming with us.

I am not worried about the weight of our bags. I am wrried about the volume of our bags for the driving time in NZ. All of our luggage needs to fit in the trunk of the car. I've been packing up clothes that we won't need again until we get to Canada and vacuuming them in to the luggage.  It's very effective! This:

Very easily becomes this:

I am really hoping that the NZ customs folks don't want to open the bags up! Than again, our first stop is in an air bnb home, so they will have a vacuum cleaner there if I need to re-do this.