Feeling Contemplative

Ok, so I had another kid turn 17 yesterday. Happy Birthday Princess!!!
We also had a mass overhaul on the livingroom. Sorry Princess!!!
We did our twice year thing. We changed over our 72 hour kits. I have had around 17 questions since yesterday since I posted this on facebook yesterday. So I am taking time to explain here.
First of all, I live in Iowa. That itself should explain a lot. We have tornadoes, thunderstorms, blizzards, ice storms, earthquakes now to add to the list. My family is quite large. Can you imagine getting an evacuation order and getting everyone assembled and out in less than 20 min and having everything you need to sustain you for at least three days? What if your house is gone and you can't go back? So we have kits that I make and we put in a retrievable place and stock with food, water, change of clothes, first aid and shelter needs. We have sleeping bags that attach. Everyone has a backpack that weighs about 20-30 lbs. Mom and Dad have huge duffel bags mine is concentrated in health and emergency needs to the physical body. Dad's is concentrated in tools to build and repair damages to your home or vehicle. It also has a cd collection of all our favorite pictures updated every 6 mon. approximatley. Facebook is my back up if I lose it. : ) The kids love this activity even though it causes lots of stress to me. I am always trying to find ways to lighten them up or make them taste better. I am not an eating out of a box kinda girl and my family isn't either, so I add numerous snacks they like, but I never buy. I add hard candies and gum that they like, we add card games like skip bo and all the crazy card games out there to keep them occupied when the side window blows out and you are hearing it crash against the staircase. You are able drown out the repeat announcements over the radio and weather alarm with a game of Let's go banana's! You can ignore the breaking of the livingroom bay window during a raucus rendetion of the little ones favorite musical soundtrack as winds reach 70-80 mph and you loose half of your deck. When the power goes out from the ice storms and you can't cook very well and it is freezing you have hot hands and toasty blankets and a bunson burner to heat up some hot cocoa., it even has little character marshmallows in it to mke you giggle. These are a pain at times to keep up on, but when disasters have happened around us, we have always been very safe, very secure and very grateful to know we have all our bases covered. Our kids are drilled with emergency first aid and where to go everytime we change over. Our next earliest thing that expires will be the end of Sept early October so if we haven't had to use them, we will go camping with them and see if we have everything we need to survive 3 days with no outside help. It is fun and they are excited to have fruit bars and rollups and salty snacks that are usually off limits and so it because a pseudo party that we are just fine and life is good. We come home and re-pack and take notes on what no one liked and replace with them with something we will like better. If we don't have to use them, we store it until the next time and just replace what is expired, which is what we did this time. It is pretty easy with a system and I love the sense of security that it leaves us all with. Even the little kids get excited when they hear PLEASE SEEK SHELTER IMMEDIATELY. Instead of constant dread, they feel a wee bit of adventure at the same time. Anyway, I am so grateful for these things and encourage you all to adopt, but if not, we will share if you are close. We always pack extra just in case. tee hee hee.