New tent(s)

We have decided to do some family camping. I grew up camping and always loved it. For Mike though, it is an entirely new thing. I dragged him out tent camping once with my parents when we were dating, and once in a small campground cabin when Miles was under 2. So he has a bit of an idea, enough to give me the green light to stock up on camping supplies. During my research for a family tent, I hit the jackpot one day walking through Sears and found a decent brand-name tent for more than 90% off. It wasn't exactly what I had thought I wanted, but it seemed to be pretty close. This weekend we set it up and planned a family campout in the backyard.

Well, it is big, but it is a non-rectangular dome tent, so much of the size is taken up in mostly unusable small corners. The four of us, including an air mattress for Mike & I and the pack-n-play for Quincy didn't really fit in the tent, even without the pack-n-play it was tight. We could fit, but it meant things being pushed against the walls and Miles curled up in a corner. We tried for the night, and failed. Quincy and I were inside by 9:30pm, Mike and Miles were in by 10pm. Both kids crying and screaming since by now they were extremely overtired.

Ahh, so we decided since the tent was so inexpensive it wouldn't hurt for it to be a back-up and probably a good idea for us to get something we would all fit in more comfortably. Mike and I looked at some tents in stores around town, as well as online and each had narrowed down to one tent. Since Mike's choice was in stock locally we decided to try it out so it would be easier to return if we didn't like it once set up. Alas we got it home and set up and realized it was the older model of the one we had chosen. Since it was already set up, Miles and I decided to try camping out again last night. It is huge.

Miles on his air mattress, not sleeping:

Then he tried mine with me:

Still not sleeping:

Then to the floor:

Back to his:

He ended up sleeping on mine, I never fully realized how much room a small 4 year old can take up on a queen size bed. I nearly fell off (was pushed off) several times during the night. But we made it through, Miles had fun and is once again looking forward to camping.

Still not sure if we will keep this tent or return it to get the newer model we thought we were getting. One of the bigger complaints of this model was lots of rain leaking, which of course is a big issue. Rain is forecasted for today, so we will leave it up and see how it fares. Tune in, perhaps later this week we will be setting up yet another new tent...