Last night Kaitlyn, Lydia, and I slept out on our deck.

Not particularly brave or crazy in and of itself,

except that it got down to 30 degrees last night.

The picture is of a certain lazy person who stayed in bed latest and in case you didn’t notice the pallet consists of a grand total of at least 14 blankets, and quilts. (3 comforters and 1 sleeping bag made the bottom layer, and the rest was 5 quilts, 2 throw blankets, and 3 fuzzy blankets.)

We wanted to sleep outside because the moon was shining brightly enough that you could have read by it (not that we did) and everything was silvery blue, so it was pretty exciting. As it turned out though the moonlight kept me awake for at least forty minutes after I would have been asleep in my bed.

Its always a bit of an adventure getting ready to sleep on the deck, for example:

1. You have to convince at least one other person to sleep outside with you because who wants to sleep out in the cold all alone, moonlight or not? Even if you freeze during the night you can have the comfort of knowing that the other person is just as miserable as you are. (unless of course the other person can’t hack it and deserts in which case you either stay outside and freeze alone to prove that the traitor is being a cotton headed ninnymuggins, or you follow inside and spend the rest of the night in your nice warm bed telling the traitor how much of a cotton headed ninnymuggins she/he is being.)

2. unless you have really thick, heavy duty sleeping bags then you will want to go through the whole house and gather the thickest and biggest blankets you can find. Even on humid summer nights you get cold without at least a comforter under and over you. Last night we swiped a comforter off two sleeping sisters and replaced it with quilts.

3. Next you lay out the pallet. We have learned through trial and error that what tends to work best is the comforters under you, and then one big blanket topped with all the smaller ones (throws, kid quilts, and fuzzy blankets.) on top of that with another large blanket on top to hold them down (the very top one should be the very heaviest one you have, especially if the night is windy. One night we had to go down and get rocks out of the yard to hold down the sides of the blankets because they kept blowing away while we slept.) Please believe me when I say this is the voice of experience speaking here.

4. Now you lie down and everyone takes a turn wriggling, and shifting, and complaining about how crowded they are, and how little blanket they have. This part can take anywhere from 5 minutes to 25 minutes.

5. Now that everyone’s settled in we all take turns jabbering, giggling, and yelling at everyone else to “shut up” because “we’re not out here to talk, and I’m trying to get some sleep!” at this point one or two people may or may not gather their pillow and blanket and go back inside complaining about how some people just don’t shut up. There may be a little bit of story telling if every one is restless. Although the stories don’t usually help get hyperactive people to sleep, it does shut the hyperactive people up so the tired people can get to sleep.

6. By this point whoever is still awake and can’t get to sleep either forces the hyperactive people inside or goes in herself leaving usually about 1 to 3 people on the deck to last the night snuggled up to stay warm. (Last night I kept thinking about the movie ELF when Will Ferrell says “…And then we’ll snuggle!” I momentarily considered starting a tickle fight but discarded the idea because some people have no sense of humor of which they are aware concerning tickling).

I usually doze off and on through the night and wake up cold. Last night though I put on a nice warm sweater, blue jeans, and thick fuzzy socks and I was extremely thankful for them before the night was over.

Sometimes we’ll sleep down on our trampoline but that’s a whole other story.

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Filed under: Everyday life, humor, kids stuff, photos