Tent time

"Let's make a tent!"

This is something that I hear often. But how exactly do you keep making tents that are different to keep it fun, in a camper?

Well this is what I came up with for the last one.

I dropped the table down to make a little play area behind the blanket and then tacked the blanket to the top of our slide, making a "wall"!



We even did shadow puppets when the sun was shining in the windows!

The other night the kids were all piled in the boys' room making a mess (obviously!). Well one of the things that Ariella did was clean out the boys' drawer with all their underwear and socks in it. You can't really tell from the picture but on her head is a pair of Caedmon's underwear! Opening the door to this was extremely hilarious!! She just crawled right out of there with those little army undies on her head!

The Kitchen

Speaking of kitchen...I have really been enjoying cooking and baking lately and have found myself making stuff without measuring and adding things on the whim, which is something I wouldn't have done before! It's so fun!! I'll hafta include some recipes on here soon, or email me if you are interested! Veggies have been our #1 food lately! So yummy!!

So....Here is our kitchen!


Above the fridge is where I keep the electric griddle, cooling racks, ice cream maker, and a basket full of dehydrated blueberries and cherries (remember? I have a LOT of those!)

Above the microwave is where I keep my pie pan, bread pans, and some misc stuff. Speaking of microwave...they finally came and got it the other day so now we just have a big hole where the microwave used to be! The were supposed to replace it but the one they brought was too small for the space! Why did they have to replace it? Well, because this one had NO buttons on it! That's right...no way to operate it! Crazy huh? Even though we never use a microwave and haven't owned one in years, we wanted it there so we didn't have to deal with it later and it was sold to us with all the appliances 'working' so we wanted them to fix it.

Below the oven is where the hot water controls are. In the big cupboards above the sink is where my cookbooks are plus all the plates, bowls, glasses, pots, blender, food processor, and mixing bowls are. Under the sink you'll find the garbage (imagine that!), baking dishes and pans for the stove.

In the drawers I keep silverware, dish rags, cooking utensils, etc.

And way up on top I bought some valences and hemmed them and hung them on a tension rod to cover up my bigger appliances like my bosch, grain mill, and dehydrator.

Oh, and way on the side (behind our water filter) is a cupboard door that opens and that has all our rv controls behind it...Our slide buttons, our sensors to tell us how full our tanks (even though it doesn't work) and how charged our battery is, and the switch for the water heater...rememeber that??...yeah, that's where it is! It also has the switches for our awning outside and the lights switches for our outside lights as well!

This is our pantry.

On the very top we have a drawer with some misc stuff in it and a basket where I keep office type stuff--paper, tape, ruler, etc. In the top cupboards I have all our vitamins and suppliments, noodles, and a few baking things. in the big middle cupboard is where I keep canned goods, baking items, jars of homemade applesauce and jam, spices, and pretty much anything else that doesn't belong in the fridge :) In the bottom cupboards I have 2 baskets for onions and potatoes and then a basket that holds our central vac hose and attachments.

Next up?...."Dining Room"...as if it were a seperate room...ha!

Not Me! Monday & more!

I did not get woken up early by my husband the other morning saying "Dawn! Come here!" only to find that he needed my help to open the child-proof locks on our pantry. I guess they work well!

I also did not go to the fitness center in town and sign up for a family membership only to go in the next day and cancel it. I mean, a person should really have their mind made up before they sign up for anything and not try to surprise their husband with it, so I certainly didn't do that. And if I did do that, I certainly wouldn't have tried to keep all 4 kids corraled by me the whole time they were doing the 'new membership' process to me during sign up. Nope! Not me!

And I did not have to put flowers from my sweet husband yesterday in a blender because we don't own a vase. Nope! Not me!

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Speaking of the blender....it kind of gets overshadowed anyway by the beautiful 18 roses Nathan came home with last night for Valentines Day!! Dontcha think?! And they weren't exactly a surprise since Nathan called me on the way home and told me he needed to stop for gas....yeah, I know better. He did get gas, but it took him almost 45 mintues to get home when it should have only taken 30 at the most. He said he messed up and shouldn't have called at all :) That's okay, I'll take the flowers anyway. They smell amazing!


My gift to Nathan was supposed to be that membership to the fitness center but since we decided to cancel it..ahem..I made him a lemon meringue pie instead :) There's one piece left.

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Have I ever told you how much I LOVE my grocery store here?!? Well, I do! They have SO much variety and the store is big and clean and new and they have organic everything! But here is another reason I love it!

And that is how we roll!...through the grocery store that is! I can have all 3 boys strapped in and Ariella snug in the back. And when I say 'snug', I mean SNUG! She pretty much fills the back but once I get $150 worth of groceries in there, she's pretty much buried :)
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Brayan in time out....hehe

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Here is another pic of the snow amount that we got. This is Nathan's co-worker Matthew's car.

It took a little while to get it shoveled out.

Hurdles

I thought I'd give you a glimpse as to how we entertain the kids in the camper and how these very active boys get some of their energy out living in such confined spaces. Well, this is one way...

Seriously.

The kids love it and it wears them out a little! All I (or Nathan) need to do is sit on the couch and hold our leg up. They start at one end of their bedroom and run across, hurdling over our leg, and then continue to run (when they don't fall!) to the other end of our kitchen, and back again. It is really quite hilarious when they start to get tired and can't quite jump high enough :) We end up lowering our leg for the little boys :)

Whatever works!!

Bumpers

Since we can't have typical bed rails on the bunk beds because the bed attaches to the walls and you can't have the safety strap wrap around the bottom of the bed, and because no where else sells rails for camper bunks, this is how we keep the boys from falling out of bed at night....

It is called a bed bumper and it's super cool! You can order them at gobedbug.com. Bascially it's just a piece of foam that goes directly on top of the mattress, under the sheets* and acts as a 'bumper' or wall, keeping them from falling out! I have one like this on each side of the lower bunk for the little boys and then one on the top bunk for Biggie. Easy Peasy!

*Dontcha just love our sheets?! :) They were made especially for our bunks from Gma Barb! Since I didn't want to spend a katrillion dollars on sheets made specifically for camper bunks (they are very long and narrow), I gave my mom my idea and she made them! What was my idea?? Well, after taking the measurements, I thought that they came close to being as wide as a toddler bed/crib mattress. So I measured...and guess what?? They were exactly the same width AND depth!!! So all we needed to do was to cut the crib sheet down the middle and add length to the center so that way we could keep the elastic on the corners! Nice and simple!

3 days

Instead of doing a "not me" monday post, I'm doing a "i did this" friday-monday post :)

In the last 3 days I have:

-made supper by candlelight
-heated water on the stove to use to wash my hair
-watched my diry clothes pile up
-scrubbed the floor over and over after lots of glass shattered and no vacuum
-had 3 seperate incidents with toddlers and peeing in clothes or on bed
-had 1 incident of baby tipping over potty that was just used
-been really tempted to buckle my kids in the car for awhile so they could watch a movie and sit still
-been really cold at night
-listened to the neighbors generator
-listened to our vehicle run to charge our rv
-learned that you can still use lights and propane if connected to car's battery
-learned that we have an outlet that works like a cirgarette lighter in the car does and will run off battery and doesn't need electricity, meaning I could charge my phone and even watch tv with an inverter!
-not been able to vacuum (HUGE when I usually do it several times a day!)
-listened to trees falling down and branches breaking off due to the heavy snow
-listened to icicles fall
-learned a LOT about what 'real' camping is all about
-bonded more with our neighbors/nathan's co-workers since we all had nothing else to do!
-watched nathan get stuck and unstuck in our driveway
-watched several people get stuck in the campground
-let the kids wear their winter coats inside because they were cold
-watched as my kids each sat on their own vent when the heat turned on
-used water from gallon water jugs to brush teeth, do dishes, flush the toilet..pretty much everything
-tried to explain to my kids over and over why we can't turn lights on, watch tv, flush the toilet normally or turn up the heat
-automatically tried turning on the faucet only about a gazillon times
-was reminded how blessed we are and how easily we can take things for granted
-was worried I wouldn't make it out of the campground today
-was surprised when I actually did
-got all my laundry done by my sweet and generous sister in law who had us over today

And the best thing that has happened in the last 3 days is that our electricity came back on tonight!!! YAY!!! And to top it off...our water works too!! Praise God! THAT was getting real old, real fast!

The not-so-good part? We are supposed to be getting 6-11 more inches of snow tomorrow and tomorrow night....UGH! Does it look like we need more snow?!?


This is the same picnic table I took a picture of before....not too recognizable!

This is NOT a snow drift by the van...that's the actual amount of snow we were getting!


For now, I'm off to sleep in my nice, warm, quiet (no more noisy neighbor generators), bed!!

Imagine

Imagine you live in a camper, in a campgroud, a few miles away from major roads. Imagine it's snowing HARD and has been snowing going on 2 days. Imagine having 18-24inches of snow on the ground and it's still snowing. Imagine not having a truck. Imagine not owning a shovel. Imagine not having any electricity or running water. Imagine having 5 of your 6 people in your camper needing to use the toilet...which has no water. Imagine only having your furnace and stove run off your battery which will only last 4 hours. Imagine being told you will be without electricity for a couple/few days.

Welcome to our world.

:)



I cleared the snow off the picnic table yesterday morning...




This is what we have to rely on to get us unplowed...yeah...he was trying to get it started and unstuck. And remember, he doesn't use the bucket in front, he just pulls a blade behind him that basically rides on top of the snow...