FYI- North Face Tigger on sale at REI

Plus, Tigger is pretty much the best life coach ever.

"If yer gunna pounce, ya gotta have some bounce!"

It is a good solid bag for kids. Maybe not the lightest but wow do they take abuse – and bed-wetting!

I'd like to second Sarah's opinion of TNF Tigger. It takes lots of abuse, lots of laundering (late bed-wetting is a big problem in my family) and is good for slumber parties, too!

Yeah, we are upgrading form craptastic car camping wallyworld bags, so they all should be happy…

But one thing I've found in all my shopping for kids' gear (I have six of them)is that gear manufacturers don't seem the understand the mind of a child.

I mean, specs mean nothing to a six, eight, or ten year old. They are pretty superficial- all they really care about is what color it is! Seriously- I go shopping and pick out a bunch of stuff I want to get for the kids and show it to my wife, and the first thing she says is so and so won't like that, it's the wrong color. What good is a gift for a kid if he/she won't like it because its the wrong color?

Anyway, for that reason, we got the REI Zonk (5oz heavier, REI Outlet for about the same price with the 20% coupon deal going right now) for my 4yr old boy, because it's red. He likes red right now. I want to get my older boys real backpacking packs, and I'm facing the same thing. I think the Deuter fox packs are great, but agian, the stupid color issue. I think (hope) they are old enough that maybe they won't care so much, as long as it means they get to go hiking with Daddy…

A month or so ago I tried to see if my older boys (11 and 9) would make like a quilt that I could make for them in about any color they want, but they want a zipper- lol. Makes it "feel" more like camping… At bedtime they like zipping all the way up and scooting into the foot end of their bags with they Nintendo DSi's (3ds's after this Christmas). It's fun for them…

Anyway, that's my $.02…

BM