Winter has hit us in MI and I need to get an emergency car kit together. I am feeling very bad that I don't have one already in place. :eek: Looking for suggestions.

Our weather here is not nearly as severe as yours but I think that the emergency kit is always a good idea. My suggestions are all the obvious, blankets and maybe an extra set of clothes; water in sealed bottles, high protein food that does not spoil easily (peanut butter) and some crackers. Also something with sugar like hard candy (again something that doesn't spoil). Also since you have small children, a few toys, diapers, food for Alexandria and snacks for Zachery. Definately something bright that would catch someone's eye in case the car was in a ditch, and the usual flashlight and extra batteries. If there is any medicine you need on a daily basis, I would even include a small amount of that too. Oh yeah, and the usual first aid kit, bandaids, neosporine, etc. After you get all that in the car, I hope there is room for Gabe too.

We actually have 2 in our van which we purchased with points from getting our gas at ESSO.

In each case:

- a thermal blanket
- scissors
- waterproof matches
- candles (which can be eaten - yuck, but if worse comes to worse)
- bandaids of different sizes
- safety pins
- one of those burners (can't remember what they are called)
- a couple of bars
- a couple pkgs. of dehydrated soup
- tweezers
- rubbing alcohol
- disenfectant soap
- small bottle of aspirins
- flashlight and batteries

You might also want to have a shovel and some extra warm gloves in your vehicle. We also always have Kleenex and tp in our van!!

Its interesting, because we had just gotten our emergency kits and were out near a river. Dh happened to touch a weed and cut himself very badly and it all began to swell up. We were too far away from the hospital, so I immediately got out the emergency kit. I washed the cut with the soap, poured rubbing alcohol over it and covered it with a large bandage. By the time we got home, the swelling had gone down and it was fine. (We watched it closely for a couple of days though.) That emergency kit had really saved dh from lots of agony.

I forgot to add, if your a heart patience, I would make sure I always had some extra nitro in my emergency kit, or any medication that you might need to take on a regular basis.

we have:

space blankets
extra gloves, socks, hats
lighters
candles
hot cocoa mix and soup packets
buddy burners
packets of nuts, those string cheese/jerky packs, candy bars
extra battery for cell phones
hand crank for cell phone battery
magazines (for the main driver of the vehicle's interests)
hand powered flashlights
hand powered radio/light combo

Oooo I need to get ours together tomorrow or Saturday. I've put it off much too long. We've had such nice weather so far, but the forcast is for real winter weather arriving this weekend. :snowman: One of the things I have in the house that I need to get out to the van, too, are those hand warmer things that skiers use. I bought a bunch of them for .50 at a Meijer SuperSaturday sale. I used one at a ball game and they do get warm and stay warm for a long time (8 hours?). I saw them a couple of months ago at Aldi, too, but I don't know if they'd still have them in stock.