We camp.  A lot.  I am a firm believer in the saying that goes: “A family that plays together, stays together.”  I love taking the boys to the desert for off road weekend’s and I love taking them to visit the beauty of National Monuments.  I mean, heck.  They are boys.  Anywhere that allows them to be outside in the dirt is a good thing!

Sometimes we even bring the spirit of a camping adventure to our own front yard.  Such as this past weekend when Anthony chose to have a camping adventure/sleepover to celebrate his sixth birthday.

Lucky for me, I had recently received a generous sampling of Coleman camping supplies!

If you are an outdoor enthusiast, you know that Coleman is the go-to name in camping gear.  And I LOVE their current television campaign that claims they are the original “social network.” (watch the video…it’s cute and clever!).  And I agree.  My entire extended family all get together to socialize around a good campfire eating grilled meat and enjoying cold drinks.  It’s the best!

You certainly can’t have a campout without something to camp in.  Coleman sent us their Sundome® 6 family tent.  This is a HUGE tent!  It’s big enough for our family of five and has a room divider for privacy (as if you can actually get “privacy” when camping).   It was 2 criss-cross poles and SO easy to set up.  Anthony pretty much did it by himself.

The tent has 2 doors which makes it nice for middle of the night potty runs…no trying to find your way out over sleeping bodies. There was even a little “doggie” door, but I think that’s for accessing your ice chest.  The center height is 72 inches so plenty of room for standing and dressing.  It was a super hot weekend here in Southern California, so we left the rain topper off and literally slept under the stars.  The entire top of the tent is mesh and it made for a fun conversation talking about the bright moon and beautiful stars.

The Sundome 6 retails for $149.99 and is a great and easy family tent.

The 2 Gallon Party Stacker Jug is a great way to have cold beverages easily available.  They are designed to stack together and come in two colors so it’s easy to differentiate “adult” beverage from “kids” beverage.  We used it for cherry lemonade at Anthony’s party.  I love that the spigot can be removed so it doesn’t get all crusty and gross.  These will be filled with margaritas come desert season!

The 2 Gallon Party Stacker Jug comes in red and blue and retails for $19.99 each.

The 50 Quart Wheeled Xtreme 5 Cooler did a great job keeping our drinks cold.  It’s supposed to keep your food/drinks cold for up to 5 days in 90 degree temperatures!  I didn’t test this claim, but I’ll certainly put it to this test come desert season.  I’ll let you know.  But I did love how easy it was to maneuver.  These coolers with wheels are the bomb!

The 50 Quart Wheeled Xtreme 5 cooler retails for $49.99.

Our Willow Creek Sleeping Bag kept Anthony nice and warm (not that he needed it since it was such a warm night).  I really liked how soft it was and it wasn’t made out of cold, slippery nylon like our other bags.  I hate nylon bags!  The Willow Creek Sleeping Bag has a contoured head rest that allows your pillow and head to stay on the bag without being suffocated.

The Willow Creek Sleeping Bag is great for temperatures between 40 and 60 degrees and retails for $34.99.

I hadn’t originally planned on sleeping with the kids in the tent this particular night, but in the end I decided to bust out the Extra High QuickBed airbed and sleep under the stars.  The queen size airbed has a built in air pump that inflated the bed quickly and easily.  It stayed inflated all night and because it was extra high, I didn’t end up on the dirt half way through the night.  The airbed was really comfortable!  The only problem I can say about it was that you need an outlet to blow it up.  So while it’s great as long as you are near home, it won’t do us much good in the desert where there is no electricity.

The Extra High Queen Size QuickBed retails for $77.99.

My very favorite item out of the whole bunch is the Quad Lantern.  This lantern was voted the 2009 Editor’s Choice for new gear award by Camping Life magazine.  And I understand why!

The lantern operates on 8D batteries.  It has four individual lights that can attach to the base to form one big bright light, or the sections can be removed and operated individually.  Each of the four sections recharges itself off the base.  This thing is brilliant! I have three boys and they are constantly fighting over the flashlights.  They are always losing the flashlights.  This lantern solved that whole problem.  Each boy had their own light and mommy still had one, too.  Everyone was happy.  And the individual panels are very bright, consisting of 6 LED lights.

This lantern came in especially handy this week when we had a power outage.  Each boy got a light, and the light was bright enough to light the entire room.  So the whole house was lit up.  I was even able to give one to my mom and dad to take to their house so they could see around, too.

The Quad Lantern is awesome and it retails for $69.99.

I would recommend any of these items as gifts to the outdoor enthusiasts on your holiday gift list this year.  Coleman produces some top-notch items.

FTC Disclosure:  I was provided camping equipment from Coleman so I could review the items and tell you about them.  My opinions are always my own.