An honest account of our our first night in M/M Van…

We spent our first night in the van on May 24th, it was the Sunday night of Memorial Day weekend. We had just finished up the kids beds and a week later Jeremy was to take it to a race with a friend. I really wanted to spend the first night in the van. We spent 5 months building it I wanted to enjoy it first! So I decided we should do a dry run in our backyard. What could go wrong? A friend of mine said it best - I had Clark Griswold ideas of how this was going to go. And I think it ended about the same way any National Lampoons vacation would.

The day would start out with us excitedly finishing the beds, the kids would rejoice that the moment they have been waiting for is finally here. We would pull the van into the backyard, have dinner, make a fire, eat s’mores, play board games in the van, maybe enjoy the fire some more before the kids would excitedly put on pajamas, get ready for bed, and scurry up to their bunks to snuggle in with smiles on their faces and grateful hearts. ‘Mom and Dad built this for us, we are so very lucky to have parents as wonderful as them!’ they would think. We would all happily drift to sleep and wake up with the sun. In the morning we would grab some cereal from the house to eat it in the van then hang out in our pajamas. What a beautiful gift this van is to our family. All of the hard work was worth it, and we can finally just enjoy.

N O P E. Here’s how it actually went.

The day started just fine. On Saturday we had installed the first of our hanging / hinging beds, so we knew what to expect when installing the second on Sunday. The bed went in great, I messed around with the mattresses because we thought we could add a little more head room to the bunks by shaving the mattresses down. Turns out these mattresses really do need the full 6” to be comfortable, we abandoned that plan. I sewed up the cloth covers that go over the mattress and did a quick sew job on the sheets as well. We made the beds and the kids tested them both out. This is where it got a little complicated. Admittedly we had not considered the differences between the two beds. Because they were constructed the same and literal mirror images of each other it felt as though our kids were getting equal sleeping vessels. If you have kids, you know this is never possible. Our daughters’ bed is on the driver side nestled into a nook next to the bathroom which is 22” deep, thus taking up almost all of the bed width. Our sons is on the passenger side next to the upper cabinets which are only 12” deep, thus taking up only half the bed width. (Also with the door open he has a sliver of space he can see to the outside). With the beds complete, naturally they tried out each other’s sides. And naturally one of them was not happy. Our daughter insisted she would rather have the other bed (picture below was before there was a second bed option). But guess who already loved his bed? Figures. She made her case, gave us every reason why he would like her bed better, and finally declared she did not want to sleep in the van that night. We insisted she needed to try her bed before we go down the bed switching route, she finally agreed to spend one night if she gets to plead her case to her brother the next day. I assure you her debating skills will take her great places someday; I just wish she would practice a little less on me.

We move on from the beds, it’s time to make sure we can indeed pull the van into the backyard. As Jeremy and I are discussing this from the comfort of our deck our son enthusiastically pops up, runs to the backyard gate, and inspects the ground as well as the width of the gate as best an 8-year-old can. He runs back to declare we should have no issues and is it time to bring it back yet? This is what I wanted! Excitement! Joy! Jeremy double checks and agrees, he pulls the transit into the backyard and our son promptly takes up residence in his bed to play video games.  I head into the house to make dinner (I’m easing into the van, ok?) and Jeremy is tinkering around in the van because that’s what he does. While tinkering he discovers the refrigerator is no longer working. He tries everything he can think of with no luck. Of course we don’t actually need the refrigerator (because we are at home). But it was working last week! From this point on all he can think about is the refrigerator.

We eat dinner (which turned out terrible, thanks for asking), then started a fire. The kids were talking all about what games they want to play in the van and even hurriedly gathered about 15 different games then put them in any available cabinet they could find. Excitement!  This is fantastic! We enjoy the fire, break out the s’mores and before we know it we’re all ready to head to the van to play some games. OH NO. It’s now dark. We have left the side and rear doors completely open this whole time. BUGS. They are everywhere. Tiny little light loving bugs. Rookie move. We always worked in the van with the doors open, but that was in the driveway during the day. Now we’re in the backyard at night. We rush to get in, shut doors, and turn off as many lights as possible and get rid of as many bugs as we can. We play 1 game out of the 15 planned and we are ready for bed. We have to let the dog out, go put on pajamas (we’ve really got one foot in the van and one foot in the house at this point, I know). Naturally more bugs enter through the opening doors. Ruthless insects.

Finally we’re ready for bed. We briefly get distracted by the curtain we assembled to use as a changing area outside the bathroom. We put strong magnets in the ceiling before we upholstered them so that it’s undetectable when we are not using it. We proudly exclaim “Hey kids want to see how this works?” We try to put up the curtain. Not only do the magnets not hold, we’ve disguised them so well we can’t even find them. But when we do find them, as mentioned THEY DON’T EVEN HOLD. Cool. If you are keeping track – broken fridge, pointless changing curtain, bugs.  

We each settle into our respective nooks and turn on our cute little book lights. Bugs immediately swarm our heads. All lights go off, we place one night light at the very front of the van to lure any bugs up there as well as appease our night-light loving children. Lucky for us, our dog Klaus excels at extermination. He hilariously takes up residence on the front seat and chomps any flying creature that approaches him. Such a good boy. Eventually he finds a nice cool spot under our bed. Double good boy. Thank God for good pups.

It’s time for the sleeping. Did I mention it was 90 degrees that day? I didn’t did I. Probably because I’m really trying to forget that part. We did not build the van to have air conditioning. From our research it looked like the combination of the Maxx Air Fan and windows should produce enough air circulation. Adding an AC unit added onto our electrical needs/costs and it did not feel like something that we would need given the wonderful combination of Maxx Air and windows. Maybe we just had a perfect storm of humidity and no wind outside to speak of. Maybe we’re just idiots that didn’t put AC in our van. Maybe it’s both. But it was so hot inside that van. Humid, sticky, no air flow. HOT. Our bed was hot, the kids beds were hot. It was like being in our tent again. Except this was way more work to build and way more expensive. Sleeping when hot is not a comfortable situation but if your mindset is that you are delighted to be trying out this new sleeping situation one can get past the heat, lay still, and fall asleep (for example our son fell asleep in about 5 minutes). However, if your mindset is one of “I want to have my brothers bed not this bed” then you may find yourself constantly rolling around and eventually crying (sobbing) because you don’t want to be in the van anymore (I don’t want to name any names but for example our daughter, who did this). I don’t want to paint her in a negative light, because she is a great kid. Incredibly smart, mature for her age, typically an absolute delight to be around. But I also want to show a realistic picture of sleeping in a van with kids. It’s not all joy and happiness and excitement. And can you believe no one once said “We are so very lucky to have parents like you!” Rude. After I tried several times to console her, having the entire van shake every single time she turned and shifted (didn’t see that coming), and eventually having the winning combination of shaking and sobbing. I gracefully climbed over a sleeping (how?!) Jeremy onto our countertop and to our daughter where I finally called it. Her, Klaus, and I went back into the house to sleep. Jeremy and our son stayed in the van, since he was already fast asleep and leaving an 8 year old to sleep in a van in the backyard alone sounds like a recipe for child services to come visit. So much for experiencing the first night together.

The mind plays tricks on you in the middle of the night. Jeremy was no longer asleep and was researhing air conditioning and bug screens. I was wide awake (but no longer hot) and basically stewing in my thoughts. I was very much over it. Not enthusiastic about where we would go next, not dreaming of how fun it would be to travel across country like I had been. I was so over this stupid van. When we decided to do this it was between updating our kitchen or building the van. We should have built the kitchen I decided. What did we just waste 5 months of our lives on? A hot bug box with a broken fridge and no changing curtain. So dumb. (Can’t imagine where our daughter gets her dramatic flair from, right?)

The boys awoke with the sun in a much cooler van. I awoke to a dog eating my hair in a air conditioned house. The morning brought clarity. Jeremy climbed into bed for a very early design meeting. We promptly made two purchases – a portable air conditioning unit (this will run off a generator or shore power if we have access to it) and bug screens. We decided we will find a way to give our daughter a comfortable 3” mattress to give her 3” more head space and help her feel less closed in. Should our son want the same thing, we can always provide the same solution for him. Looking at the owner’s manual Jeremy was able to determine that our fridge was not working because when we tested the hot water heater it caused our Goal Zero power to dip down to 10.5 Volts (it’s a 12V power unit) as it turns out when it dips below 11.7 Volts the fridge does not work and you have to reset it. We have already got the fridge running again, and come up with a long term solution to this problem. We’re just waiting on the parts to come in.

Ok, so it’s not a just a hot bug box with a broken fridge and no changing curtain after all. And no, we shouldn’t have built the kitchen. We made the right choice. I think because we were camping in our backyard and had our home right there it was too easy to give up. It was easy for our daughter to allow herself to be upset because there’s an alternative 50 feet away. It was too easy for me to give in instead of help her power through. Was camping in our backyard a good idea? No! But also yes because no one wants to learn these things when you are not at home. So fine yes it was. Will we be camping in our backyard again? Not a freaking chance. Will we be camping in our van again? Absolutely, and I can’t wait to experience it for real because I’m sure it will be the most magical mess we’ve ever experienced.