Alternately titled: Just kill me now.
While we were waiting to get our RV (the previous owners were having the windshield replaced) the kids could hardly contain their excitement. Maybe the grownups too. In our pre-receiving joy, we promised the kids we could sleep in the RV the very first night we got it! What could be more fun? Yay!!! Well, as it turns out, lots of things.
We picked up the RV in the afternoon on the 3rd of July. For any of you not living in Utah, you will note that fireworks are permitted from the beginning of July, and people don’t take that lightly. So many fireworks. For hours. For days. I knew this would be a problem for sleeping in the RV that night, but figured we could survive.
Now I will point out our first fatal flaw in RV buying which will surely not be our last. We bought the RV from a nice older couple in a city near ours. Although we test drove it, tried the generator, and a saw the entire thing inside and out before buying it, we did not check EVERYTHING. One of those everythings was the thermostat. Entering our new motorhome with intention to sleep (read: every blanket and pillow the kids could possibly drag across the driveway) we realized the thermostat was not on. After checking a few things in the dark (it was late by the time we started this process, hoping to expedite falling asleep in children by extreme sleep deprivation) in an unfamiliar RV, not to mention the fact that neither of us has any semblance of RV experience, we determined we could not turn it on easily, and therefore we would not be enjoying any AC. We opened all the windows, but the air outside pretty much felt like boiling anyway, so it didn’t cool down much below 85. And call us wussies, but that is hot for trying to sleep. Especially if you are a warm bodied child. (Sammy is ALWAYS hot, so this was especially terrible for her.) We assumed that we would have to read the manual the next day and get it all figured out. That was not the case, but that will be addressed in the next post…
We did manage to learn the leveling/stabilizing system and the slide out system, so we at least had beds to sleep in and weren’t rocking every time someone breathed. Finally amid the heat and the explosions going on in every direction for hours we managed to get the kids to sleep. Mikey wins the prize for easiest to get to sleep, but maybe that is because he is a 3 month old, and had his own cozy makeshift bed in the shower. (He since upgraded to a small portable crib.) The couch turns into a queen sized bed, which could easily fit all three bigger kids (ages 6,5, 2) but the sleep deprivation made the 2-year-old unmanageable, rolling around and kicking her siblings, so she was soon moved to a crib mattress on the floor under the table. “It’s a cozy bed!” “It is your own special bunk!” She was not so easily persuaded, but eventually everyone went to sleep. To be fair, they don’t go to sleep very well in an air conditioned house in their own beds, so I don’t know how we could have expected otherwise in a new hot place…
The kids actually slept pretty well once they finally fell asleep, which was pretty awesome for being in a new unfamiliar place. I on the other hand was kind of paranoid about someone falling out in the middle of the night, but slept well considering. Aaron said he slept well too, probably because he hadn’t even thought about someone falling out…
All in all a successful first night. No one died, we all stayed in the RV all night, and everyone was happy in the morning!
And here are two ghetto nighttime phone camera pictures:
Excited getting ready for bed. (Pre Allison moving to the mattress on the floor.)
Baby Mikey enjoying his sweet pillow and blanket bed in the shower. He probably slept the best out of everyone.