DISCLOSURE: This post is sponsored by Clorox®.

The great outdoors. Crystal clear lakes, night skies filled with shimmering stars, the crackling of a roaring fire and a slight mildew smell coming from your tent.

Wait, something seems out of place.

If you are like me, you are gearing up for a summer of outdoor adventures like camping. However, your actual camping gear may not be so ready having spent the off-season growing funky in your basement or closet. And nothing, other than pouring rain, can take the fun out of camping like gross gear.

Like most years, my family will be heading to a campground in the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York. Sure, there’s a pool at the campgrounds and bouncy house, and – yes – that is a local brewery nearby that will help you match a beer to whatever you are planning on cooking, but I swear: IT’S STILL CAMPING! We still will be setting up our own tent, sleeping in sleeping bags, and roasting marshmallows over an open fire that most would describe as way too big. All that fosters a love of the outdoors in my kids like the one I have. It’s totally worth it.

A few days ago, I took out my camping gear from the basement to give it a quick check and I found out that last year I was not following the 11th point of the Scout Law – A Scout Is Clean. Yikes. My old Scoutmaster is slowly shaking his head in disapproval somewhere.

Not only was my tent, which I never aired out before packing it up last summer, rather funky smelling, but my portable stove was even more of a disaster. It was stained with a combination of burnt coffee residue and grounds from my first attempts at making so-called “Cowboy Coffee.” (Pro-tip: Don’t dump your coffee grounds quickly into the boiling water. It will fizz over like a science fair volcano.) I know how finicky my 7- and 10-year-olds can be when it comes to eating, so cleaning up this piece of camping gear would be Job One.

I used Clorox^® Clean-Up^® Cleaner + Bleach kind of in the same way that you would clean up your bathroom or countertop, like in this video:

The tent, on the other hand, needed more delicate care. It had seen many nights under the stars, having been places as diverse as the camp where the original “Friday the Thirteenth” movie was filmed and dead center field of a minor league baseball park, so it could have been on its last trip if I wasn’t careful. I found bunches of brown spots, indicating mold. Luckily, it wasn’t as bad as I feared. If it was black mold or if it had half-eaten through the tent’s nylon-like material, it would have been time to get a new one. But this was mild and it could be salvaged, thanks to Clorox power.

Following a solution one of my old Scoutmasters swore by, the process was simple and similar to a manual version of cleaning a shower curtain, like in this video:

With all of our camping gear ready now, we can go make some more awesome family memories this summer. I am also going to teach the kids how to safely start and care for a campfire. Fingers crossed.

DISCLOSURE: This post is sponsored by Clorox®.

Imagination knows no bounds. You give a kid a box, and the possibilities are endless. You give a child a toy, and you’ve just put their imagination in high definition (HD).

During the summer, that HD imagination usually involves some outdoor terrain. Tree branches become forests. Mud becomes molten lava. And dirt becomes, well, it’s usually just dirt, but dirt by itself is fun for most children.

And there is your summer dilemma: Who are you, as a parent, to say “no” to the inclusion of natural elements in your child’s story? I know my parents didn’t, and I’m thankful.

As a younger sibling, I traveled to many of my older sister’s softball games when I was little. You know what kept me occupied during those long hours? Just a few toys, a pile of dirt and my imagination. I would find the biggest mounds to climb and suddenly the stories in my head would race into reality. I buried action figures, poured water to make swimming pools, then poured pop to make lakes of acid rain, and even built fortresses out of mud. My playtime was filthy.

As a parent, I encourage my kids to do the same kind of imaginative play to keep boredom away. In fact, it’s been rumored I occasionally get in on the mess myself. I mean, someone has to show them an adventure with dinosaurs cannot be the same without the mud lava. And how can they know just how heroic their heroes are if they don’t allow them to be buried alive in the sand? After all, did a story really happen or a child really play if his or her toys aren’t inundated with all the dirt, grime and – well, icky-ness — of the outdoors?

I think not.

Imagination is not real but germs are

Imagination, combined with the great outdoors, is a dirty sport, and our children’s toys often bear the brunt of that creativity. Playthings require a cleaning afterward because germs, like villains, should never get away clean – they should just get away when you clean. And for our disinfecting and cleaning, we use Clorox® Regular-Bleach₂ with CLOROMAX®.

Want to see how it’s done? Check out this video about how Clorox can keep those hard, nonporous toys clean, germ-free and ready for repeat performances:

To review, it’s as easy as this to clean and disinfect toys:

Start by wiping excessive gunk off the item with a wet sponge. Then, pour 1/2 cup of Clorox^® Regular Bleach₂ with CLOROMAX^® into one gallon of water. Once you have your bleach solution, thoroughly wet the toy’s surface with solution or let it soak in the solution. Then, allow the item to stay in contact with the solution for five minutes. After the soak, rinse with clean water and let air dry. Then let the imaginative play begin … again!

Other great outdoor cleaning, disinfecting tips

And don’t forget outdoor play equipment, like plastic jungle gyms and slides, too! To remove heavy stains and soiling, like bird poop, from these items, try Clorox^® Clean-Up^® Cleaner + Bleach: Just hold the bottle about four to six inches from the mess, spray until thoroughly wet, let stand for 30 seconds and rinse or wipe clean. Poof – clean and disinfected!

Even a child’s wading pool (or is this your kid’s roaring ocean?) could use a dose of Clorox clean – just add 5 teaspoons of Clorox® Regular-Bleach₂ with CLOROMAX® per 100 gallons of water to help sanitize before the splashing starts. Remember, empty the pools daily and then refill and repeat your chlorination.

While some of this might seem only to be appeasing our parental paranoia about germs, the bigger part of the equation is this: clean toys and play equipment invites more play. It opens the door to future creativity. Maybe the toy encounters the same challenge, or maybe, just maybe, the story shifts and a new setting is selected — this time to a muddy swamp instead of a dusty desert. Either way, Clorox’s cleaning power and disinfecting ease has you covered.

Whatever the case may be, know that you can watch endless episodes of these shows without the worry that their stories will be canceled because of icky, germy toys. What comes next is everything.

DISCLOSURE: This post is sponsored by Clorox®.

Summer gets a lot of press. It’s full of sunshine and backyard shenanigans, days at the beach and family vacations. There are more songs written about summer than all the other seasons combined (give or take). Summer is doing OK for itself, I’d say or — better yet —  write.

However, when you live in Southern California, which I do, summer is often times more of a lifestyle than a specific stretch of calendar. For example, according to the internet, people in some regions of the country actually store their patio furniture for the winter (it’s true!), whereas our tables and chairs stay outdoors year round. That isn’t to say that we use them during those months, but they’re there. We can see them through the window, a steady invitation slowly covered by twigs, cobwebs and the assorted winter visitors who drop by.

The visitors are bird and they often drop by with their droppings. Yuck.

It turns out, the longer we stay away from the patio furniture the more inviting it becomes to our fine, feathered friends, not to mention lizards, squirrels and all the creepy-crawlies of the rainbow.

I like to think, generally speaking, that I run a tidy patio, weather permitting. But weather is a funny thing here and it wasn’t that long ago that we had a sudden weekend of sweltering heat interrupt our regularly scheduled sweater session (during which time the patio furniture was still being rented out as roost along popular migratory lines). It was also the weekend that we had house guests, the kind of people that don’t see the sun for months at a time in their respective homelands of the Pacific Northwest, and, as such, they saw a sliver of golden warmth and longed to bask in it. Their kids were in our backyard before mine were even awake.

I admit, I was embarrassed. I hadn’t really given the patio a lot of thought, what with the sightseeing and the season, but there it was, mocking me. Also, a kid’s elbow was dangerously close to fowl territory. I quickly assembled the group for a spontaneous hiking trip, and checked the weather to make sure there wouldn’t be any future surprises. It was cold again the next morning, and the furniture moved down several spots on the to-do list. All the spots, if I’m being honest.

Clean patio furniture with Clorox power, ease

So when that time of the year when I more or less ignore the patio furniture fades and cleaning becomes a part of my custodial chores, I reach for Clorox® Regular-Bleach₂ with CLOROMAX®. Also, a hose.

Check out this video on how to clean patio furniture with Clorox confidence:

In a nutshell (but never on a nutshell), here’s the secret formula:

• Just mix 1/2 cup of Clorox® Regular Bleach₂ with CLOROMAX® in 1 gallon of water.
• Thoroughly wet the surface with the solution. Allow it to remain on the surface for five minutes to kill all those nasty germs.
• Rinse with clean water and air dry. That simple.
• Finally, sit on the now-clean surface and yell inside for someone to bring you a beverage, repeat as needed.

Some might complain about having to clean an extra space, but sitting outside on a weekend morning, listening to nature hum, buzz and tweet around me while drinking coffee, reading the paper or watching the kids chase the dog around — that’s worth any bit of elbow grease (which, thanks to the power and ease of Clorox, isn’t much).

However.

HOWEVER.

If one was searching for a downside to this tranquil life outside, it would be that a nice clean patio lends itself to friends hanging out (that’s not the downside), and those friends, eventually will have to go inside to use the facilities (see Step 4 above). When you have two boys, that inside stinks. It stinks really bad.

Luckily, Clorox works there, too. In the video below you’ll find a great way to keep the stink-bowl clean, but for the counters, doorknobs and other areas they might touch on the way to and fro, I prefer to keep Clorox® Clean-Up® Cleaner + Bleach on hand. It’s the fastest, easiest way to keep surfaces as clean humanly possible (although I’m not sure the stench of said bathroom could be quantified as human). Seriously, what’s the deal, guys?

Just watch this how-to video for creating a sparkling clean toilet bowl:

When I think of summer I image blue, sunny skies and clean, crisp scents. I think of bare feet in the grass and smiles on the faces of my children. And then we sit a spell and let the days get away from us. Our now clean patio furniture shines with anticipation, and down the hall our bathroom is spotless, at least for the moment.