Box City, AZ

Check this out Sheriff Joe... Box City! 

 I have always loved making forts as a kid and remember when Dad would bring home huge computer boxes from  work and we would play with them for days.  Sometimes they were forts and sometimes they were torture chambers.  We would fill them with leaves and then climb down in while someone else shook us up like Shake-n-bake chicken!  I started swiping couch and refrigerator boxes from unsuspecting furniture companies when my kids were little and now it's become our summer tradition.  This year I crammed 8 huge refrigerator boxes into Russ's truck and 6 of them were used for the city.  Two each for Rustin, Chloe and Olivia. 

 As soon as the kid's staked their claims in the living room we started cutting windows and doors.  Then the fun of filling them with sleeping bags, blankets, bean bags, pillows, DVD players, karaoke machines, lamps, and of course- stuffed animals galore!

  They slept in them every night for almost a month. I'm not sure how they fit in there with all their stuff.  This year they decided to make them into little businesses.  We had a radio station where you could make song requests and "shout-outs" and a newspaper that really published a periodical called "Crawford's Daily."  Rustin mostly watched "The Office" in his and it was much less cluttered, except he kept cutting up the walls to make swords and daggers, then just shredded the walls because it was fun and looked scary.

After about a month I usually start going crazy with the house being taken over by cardboard and stuffed animals so we demolish the city.  As soon as the room is clean, Olivia starts asking how soon it will be until we get the boxes again!  Give me a few months at least!