Home away from Home

So while camping Mark once again let me know how he hates the tent we have.

Now it is a great tent, nothing really wrong with it, but it isn't up to Mark's standard of camp living.

I know I always complain about Mark being such a stinge but really he's only a stinge when it comes to things he doesn't understand, like sewing or shopping for clothes.

He is SOOO not a stinge when it comes to pretty much anything REI has to offer.

He hated putting up and taking down our tent and since we had to do it so much on our last camping trip he started looking for new tents at night while in our crappy tent and got really serious looking the day we came home.

He wanted a better 4 man tent.
 I said if we were going to buy a new tent it should be bigger since our family will eventually get bigger and cause this tent was going to last us a long time.

Somehow we compromised with buying a 4 man tent...

How does that work?

Look for yourself.

(We couldn't wait to go camping before setting it up.)

 This thing says 4 man but it is bigger.

It is more then 6 feet tall and not just in the center.

We also bought the garage for it too.

What is a garage for a tent?

Well it's an extension off the front to put your belongings in so they don't have to be in the tent taking up space.

He originally just wanted a vestibule (really he just liked saying vestibule:)) which extends from the entrance just a foot or two.

But when he saw the garage he decided he needed it instead and that's how he got me to change my mind.

The picture above shows an orange pole on the right.

That is the edge of the garage and the white fabric on top that is hanging is the top of the garage.

Why is it hanging?

Because the tent and the garage were too big to fit in our living room together.

We moved furniture out of the way and it still was too tight.

But the garage is going to be so nice.

We can have the sides up like so and set up our camping chairs under it for shaded sitting, put all our bags including a few bikes under there and protect them from the elements, we can even lay a tarp down and use it as additional sleeping space.

Mark is so good at coming up with the best compromises.  

 All camping long Scott played pirate dice.

It's amazing that we didn't loose any.

But right when he saw the tent he asked for the dice.

Our last 4 man tent couldn't fit the queen size and the twin size air mattresses in together.

This one, as mentioned before, is no normal size 4 man tent. 

Problem is, it being an extra large four man tent I still don't see any room for mom.