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I love everything about my neighborhood: my house, the street I live on, the neighborhood pool, the dozens of playgrounds, walking trails, and lakes that fill the spaces between houses, and the downtown with coffee shops, restaurants, and a movie theater all in walking distance. Yes, I love my neighborhood. But the one thing I don’t love about my neighborhood is that when a summer storm comes sweeping through, our neighborhood is pretty much guaranteed to have no power. Sometimes its just for few hours, but with severe summer storms, the power outages can last a lot longer. When you’re a mom, you have to be prepared for everything, and I’ve gotten really good at being prepared for these storms. With a little help from Duracell batteries, I’ve found ways to turn a scary storm into a fun camping adventure.
Preparing for a storm for myself and preparing for a storm for my kids is very different. For me, I need to make sure we have lots of light, power for my cellphone, a radio to hear weather updates, and backup batteries for everything. So if I know a storm is coming, I check to make sure I have everything in my Mom’s Storm Safety Kit:
The kids are a different story. Storms can be really scary for little ones. Actually, they can be scary for all of us. So we turn power outages into camping adventures! Because I’m not really the “outdoorsy” type, the closest my kids will make it to camping is in our basement, and they are perfectly happy with their makeshift campsite (for now,at least!) Here is what they need for their camping adventure:
If the lights go out during a storm, we grab our Storm Kits and head to the basement. During those hot summer months, our basement stays nice and cool and is a perfect place to wait out the storm. With their little camping lanterns in hand, we put up the their tent and roll out their sleeping bags. Their silly little giggles crack me up, and even though they probably won’t stay in those sleeping bags too long, I can’t imagine two cuter campers.
Since we’re all a little uneasy with severe storms, we just skip the scary stories, and we try to make each other laugh with the silliest story
Inside the tent we play card games by the light of our lanterns. I wonder who is winning this round of “Go Fish”?
Now I might not be an expert camper, but I do know you can’t camp without S’mores! No power? No problem! Because I was sure to add a Sterno canister into the kid’s Storm Kit we have some yummy S’mores to devour. Now if I could just get the kids to stop touching each other’s marshmallows…
Once our bellies are full, we play a few rounds of hide-and-go-seek with our lanterns, make shadow puppets on the wall, and use that battery-powered radio for a dance party with our glow sticks and necklaces. If the power comes back on, great! If not, no big deal because we are having too much fun to care if we have power or not! Good thing Mommy stopped at Walmart and stocked up on Duracell batteries because we have a lot more “camping” ahead of us!
We went camping a couple of weekends ago and my son is now obsessed with flashlights. We’ll be keeping Duracell in business this summer. 😉
We are lucky here in the UK that we do not often have power outages,Saying that it is still always good to be prepared and looks like you are doing a great job.
An emergency storm kit is a brilliant idea. But I LOVE the way you have made yours fun. That is perfect.
You definitely saved the day! That is great! Duracell products are awesome!
It wasn’t until we had kids that we had a stockpile of batteries. We’re set for our next storm!
Sounds like you guys have a blast camping!! I haven’t been camping in years.
I love that you turned a normally scary storm into a camping event!! Looks like your kids had fun too!
What a great idea! We love to do indoor camping. It is fun and bug free 🙂
These are great ideas for things to keep on hand during storms, especially in the summer months! Such cute pics too! 🙂
Aww!
We are having a family sleepover in the living room tonight.
Will have to snag some of these great ideas.
Looks like you guys had a ton of fun.
How flippin cute! I love the idea of setting up a little camp out in the living room. We have plenty of bad weather here in FL and I will be using this idea for the next hurricane!
You know, I don’t have a storm kit prepared and it really is a good idea. Thanks for showing us what you have in yours. I’ll put one together this weekend.
These are great ideas! I also like to make things fun that may be scary or startling to my kiddos.
Oh the fun you can have with flashlights. We used to get a few storms when we lived in Arizona and my kids loved them. And putting up a tent in the family room is the best!
What a great way to keep kids from being frightened when the power goes out. We seem to lose power every time it gets the least bit windy. I really need to put together a storm preparedness kit of my own.
This is such a great idea! I wish I had thought of this when my daughter was younger. She is terrified of storms.
Great idea, and adorable pictures! We are always well-stocked with Duracell batteries!
This is such a fun idea. We will be having monsoons here soon. I’d love to do this with my boys.. I think they’d love it. Thanks for the ideas.
What a great idea to have a tent in the house too! Looks like they had the best time!
Great idea! Look how excited they are!
What a fun idea! Especially for those of us that don’t actually get to go camping outdoors {my husband is not a fan}. My children would love this.
My kids love using these lights when we are having a storm.
They are SO cute! I love that you made it a fun experience for them!
How fun is that! My kids would love this!
We have some pretty bad afternoon thunder and lightening storms here in Florida. We always have flashlights ready and my grandkids really love when the power goes out and we can turn them on with candles and tell stories in the dark!
What a super idea. I never thought of doing this. We love candles in the dark but with the little kids the flashlights are really a better idea and you can never have enough Duracell!
We just got a new Duracell flashlight for our emergency kit. I do need to make sure we have enough water jugs and shelf-stable food.
Aw the joys of childhood! I used to have under the cover parties all the time! I cant wait to have kids so we can do this…some things you just realize as adults that kids have the best worlds to live in. So much fun!
Love your pics. Indoor camping is so cute of an idea for kids. Who doesn’t love S’mores wherever they are made.
The kids are super cute! I love the ideas for a little fun!
If this is not what parenting is all about, I am not sure what is! Great tips on how to take a not so great situation and turn it into a fun night with the kids!
My kids love “camping” in the living room. 🙂 It is so much fun! 🙂 Great ideas and I love the added lanterns and marshmallows.
That is a really great idea. We used to do different things when the kids were little to make them at ease.
It’s so good to be able to distract the kids when something like a storm is out there! They look like they are having a blast!
Love this idea! I used to do something similar (much smaller scale) with my brother when were kids.
Glad you’re keeping it indoors! We’re stocked up for hurricane season!
How fun!! I think my 3 year old would totally love doing this! She’s obsessed with “camping” so it would totally be a blast for her.
How fun. Such a clever idea. We lost the power last night, but I don’t think any of us knew because we were sleeping (we wok up to blinking appliances).
Your kids are too cute! Looks like they had a ton of fun. This is a great idea.
That is such a great idea for keeping kids from getting scared during storms.I’m going to have to suggest that idea to my sister-in-law!
what a cute set up and great preparedness they looks so happy and safe
We just had a huge storm blow through last night. My girls would have loved one of these camping adventures!
We just had a scary storm last night. Thanks for these tips.
That’s the way to turn a bad thing into a fun thing. They’ll never forget this either!
We just had a terrible storm last night! So many people are without power – luckily we arent one of them but if we had, these would have been awesome.
I love those cool little lanterns. I need to get some of those. We have one big huge camping one but it would be nice to have those small ones too. Duracell batteries are the best.
This is a timely post, I know the Midwest has been hit hard with storm outages the past few days.
They look so cute in their sleeping bags! My girls are terrified of storms so they would love those little lanterns.
What a great kit! I really need to have one ready for the storms I know are coming soon!
You just made me realize that I need to update our storm safety kit. Gotta be prepared!
Love how you took a possibly scary situation and make it a fun family night! Great kit ideas – thanks for sharing! #client