How to deal with the things that go bump in the night!

Happy Granddaughters mean a Happy Grandparents

and as we all know if children do not get enough sleep at night.... OK I'm going to be totally honest, if Grandma and Grandpa do not get a good nights sleep things do not go well the next day.  On this camping trip things went very well because Grandpa came up with a brilliant idea.

Our Granddaughters both sleep with nightlights on.  Grandpa and I do not and light disturbs our sleep.  We needed to find a way to meet Emily and Ruth's desire for a nightlight and our tolerance of ambient light when we are sleeping.  Grandpa found small flashlights but they were bright and would run out of batteries too soon, so what were we going to do?

At our local Canadian Tire we found solar night lights on sale for .99 cents.  The price was right and we purchased five.  We were going to use the lights and solar collectors to make Mason Jar nightlights an idea we  found on Pinterest.

However back at home we began to worry about the potential for the jars to break, either during the day when they would be charging or at night as we stumbled in the search for the port-a-potty.  Paul is also a very practical man and he just could not bring himself to break perfectly good solar lights.   It was at this point he started looking around the house for an alternative and he found it in the recycle box.

We drink Pom Pomegranate Juice at  home, we enjoy it mixed with water or ginger and so  in our recycle box Paul found five 1 liter bottles.

 The Pom bottles are plastic (note: I found the old glass bottles to make wonderful drinking glasses) so would not break - one problem solved.  Thinking back on the mason jar idea Paul looked to the plastic lids and his/our problem was solved.

Paul cut a hole in the plastic top just large enough to insert the stake.  Next he filled the bottle with sand to stabilize the stake and to weigh the bottle down. 

A Portable Unbreakable Solar Nightlight was created.  Also should we want to stake the nightlight at some future point in time we just take it out of the sand.

Our problem was solved and everyone had a good nights sleep.

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2015 twosnydergirls

Church Camping Weekend

July 12^th to 14^th 2013

I had lofty ideas of to how I would organize our first tenting experience with our Granddaughters.

1.     Meals:

a.     I would plan each meal with the girls

                      i.      We would shop for the necessary groceries

                      ii.      Place all dry ingredients with unique cooking utilizes in a plastic bag together

                      iii.      We would pack only those cooking items necessary to prepare the meals

2.     Sleeping/Personal Care

a.     The girls had their sleeping bags

b.     Solar powered lights to be used as night lights

c.     Fans just in case the weather remained too hot (which it did)

d.     A port-a-potty so we did not have to walk children to the bathroom in the dead of night (Ok so Grandpa and Grandma did not have make that trip in the dark)

Everything was going to have its own container, labelled and easily accessible to allow Grandma and Grandpa more time to spend with Emily and Ruth.

And as always the best laid plans (well you know the rest)

So I will talk about what worked.....

The Tent

 Here is what the manufacturer has to say...

The Rightline Gear SUV Tents let you camp without leaving all the luxuries of home behind. The adjustable nature of the “alligator clamping sleeve” allows the tents to connect to the back of any SUV, minivan, crossover, wagon, or pick-up truck with cap.

The tents for SUVs easily disconnect from your vehicle, allowing you to go about the day’s adventures. The tents will attach to vehicles WITH or WITHOUT roof rack cross bars and vehicles with rear hatch or rear barn doors.

Use the back of your vehicle as a sleeping location, for storage, or for the powering of electronic devices. Use the main room of the SUV Tent as a changing room or as another sleeping location for family or friends. These tents have room to spare, so invite everyone along on your next camping outing. Remember, both of the Rightline Gear SUV Tents come at a fraction of the cost of any camper!  Here is the website if you are interested  http://www.rightlinegear.com/suv-tent.html

As promised the tent goes together from the outside and on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being I could have done it on my own and 1 being two adults needed help it was a 7.5.

The centre pole is long and at times difficult to keep in the right position.  In fairness to the company it was our first time and I will know better after we have done it a few times.

Once all of the poles are in place the tent moves easily up and into place.  Emily and Ruth in this picture are helping us hold up the centre pole.

The grey side has a floor and is the sleeping area while the orange area does not have a floor and is intended as an eat-in screened room.

Ruth had a great time helping Grandpa hammer in the tent stakes.  The tent comes with metal stakes and the owner of the private camp ground had a bad experience that involved a forgotten metal stake and his riding lawnmower so only plastic stakes in this Camp Ground.

This is the sleeping area of the tent.  All of the openings are round and the tent quickly became known as the Hobbit Home.

As you can see there was plenty of room for the girls to sleep and spread out in. 

Here is a picture of the front door and the screened in eating area.  Again there was room to hold a small table and chairs or a preparation table.

At night this is where we put the port-a-potty and with the solar lighting it worked very well.

And finally here is the Van attached to the tent.  Paul put a double bed futon mattress in the van it was brilliant.  

And we both slept well.

Our overall rating of the of the 

Rightline SUV Tent is 

9/10 and gets our recommendation.

The two picture above are off the website and is an accurate representation of what we looked like.

So at the end of the day with Grandpa off working Grandma caved and brought out the computer so the girls could watch a movie while I caught my breath and relaxed.

I will post more about our camping trip over the next few weeks. 

Grandma Snyder