Tent

Although we fight the urge to buy a bigger house, we certainly had to buy a bigger tent for camping. Our old tent (that we love) is a 3 season backpacking tent that was cozy and perfect for Casey, Jeff and I- but certainly no room for Lauren. This is our REI Taj:

Last year we bought a cheap tent that was large enough to fit her pack-and-play and it ripped when we were setting it up for the first time- we used duct tape to make it work for the weekend, and and promptly returned it to Bass Pro Shop. In our quest for another big tent it occurred to me that the Taj might be out of commission for quite some time- even when Lauren doesn't need the pack-and-play to sleep in, we are still going to need a bigger tent than the Taj. So, we decided to not cheap out on our next huge tent purchase.

This is our new tent- it is a Kelty and is also a 3-season tent, there is a rainfly that covers the full tent. We set it up in our yard last week and Lauren and I played in there for a while. It is certainly huge- you can stand upright in there! I just hope that doesn't mean it will be freezing cold- we will see. We plan to test it out in a few weeks camping in the mountains, I just hope the late-night howling is better than last year. Still wondering if my brother really has a conflict, or if he isn't coming camping because of Lauren's nighttime entertainment last year.