A few weekends ago, we went camping at Lake Hartwell State Park. Everything was perfect. Well, except for my mattress. This is the second Intex mattress I’ve bought that WILL NOT stay inflated. I woke up on the floor three and four times each night. NOT a happy camper – pun intended!

Ignore that and the weekend was perfect.

Laurie, Heather, Cassie, Preston, Colin (Preston’s friend), and I stayed all weekend. Papa, Nanny and JP came down Saturday evening for burgers and a little fishing on the pier. JP doesn’t think he’s ready to spend the night in a tent. Maybe one day. I am so glad he joined us for part of the day. We are seeing some improvements with his anxiety since starting medication. I’ll share more about that in another post!

Colin and Preston had their own tent (the blue one). This was the easiest tent to put up. The instructions said, “five minute set up.” We were like, yeah right. But it literally took five minutes. If you’re looking for a tent for the family, check this one out! I’m not being paid or compensated to write this. It was just that easy.

This next part is an ad, but I wouldn’t write about it if I didn’t love it.

The Duracell 2000 Lumen Tri-Power Lantern is EVERYTHING. One of the only complaints I have about tent camping is how dark it gets at night. I know, I know, nighttime is dark. Maybe it’s just in the state parks, but when the sun goes down, it’s every man for himself. Light is nowhere to be found. Multiple settings on this lantern put out so much light, it was like having a personal, portable light house.

The perfect size lantern can be plugged into any USB port. It uses D batteries and is solar powered, which was very convenient when we had too many things plugged in. This handy addition to our camping gear helped make our first trip of the season a success.

We can’t wait to go again!