Okay, so I saw this somewhere (& I'm thinking it must have been Pinterest) and I knew my kids would like it. You make a tent/fort/house (whatever you want it to be) outside by using rope and sheets or blankets & whatever trees you have available. Today was a hot summer day but it wasn't too hot this morning & there was a slight breeze which made it bearable outside. I went out with both kids to the backyard & took some rope (I reccomend rope that you use for towing or clothelines) that I keep in the garage. I bought mine at the Dollar Store (Is there anything you can't buy there?) and it is a long 65 feet of rope. I keep it for hanging stuff outside like when your decorating for an outdoor party & you need to hang stuff & for camping (hanging a tarp, as a clothesline etc.) or, for this idea..... You could use 3 short ropes but, I found it easy to use this 1 long rope. You tie one end to a tree & stretch it across to another tree (or in this case, my kids play-climber) at about chest-high level & tie it. You can tie a 2nd rope, ideally about 1-2 feett or so apart from that first one & slightly higher (maybe 6-10 inches) . Then, tie the third one the same distance apart but, about the same height as the 1st one. Once you drape the blankets over the ropes, it will have a tent or house effect since, the middle rope is higher to give it the peak in the middle. Of course, if you use 1 rope like I did, you just have to pull it over to the next place that you want it to be. In other words, tie it on the branch and then pull it over to another branch slightly higher to tie the 2nd line & then pull it over to another branch for the 3rd line. Hope this makes sense but, if not, looking at my pics should help. Then you drape 2 blankets or sheets (full or queen size work well) over the ropes (one lenghtwise & one widthwise) and you have a nice tent to play in. I reccomend using sheets instead of blankets because the weight of the sheets doess weigh down the ropes a good bit. I can imagine heavy blankets would really weigh them down. I also like the light, airy feeling of the white sheets because they kept the sun off of us but, we still enjoyed a lot of light. We put an outdoor blanket down for a "floor" and use little surf-floats (that came with our Slip-n-Slide) as beds & throw pillows from our outdoor patio set to make our fort comfy inside. We played in there for a good while this morning & then had snack under there this afternoon. It's also really easy to take down & we took it down at the end of the day. My kids really liked it & so did I! I do not have 2 trees close enough together to make this between 2 trees (which is really ideal) but, I improvised by substituting my kids play-climber for one of the trees. I wish I could have gotten the ropes a little farther apart to make a bigger fort but, I had them as far apart as I could with using the play-climber. Also, I wish I could have tied the middle rope higher to make the more house-like peak but, couldn't due to the height of the kid's climber that I had to use. I think I'll get more creative & do a much better tent next time but, it was still a lot of fun. Believe me, I wish I could've made it bigger because, I did spend a pretty good amount of time in there with my kids! Anytime, I wasn't in there with them, they called out to me to join them!
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