Neither of us grew up camping. Chike grew up in Lagos and then Houston, and I grew up in a Chicago apartment where "the outdoors" was the space between the door and the bus. We are not outdoorsy people. We own one flashlight and it lives in the junk drawer.

But last spring Daniel came home from a friend's house having been camping for the first time and would not stop talking about it, and Adaeze wanted to do whatever Daniel did, and Sam wanted to do whatever Adaeze did, and at some point in April Chike looked at me across the dinner table and said, "How hard can it be?"

The answer is: not that hard, and we made every mistake anyway, and this page is here so you can make fewer. We went three times this summer, all to the same state park about two hours from home (we will call it Pine Hollow State Park, which is close enough), all car camping, meaning you drive right up to your site and sleep within sight of your minivan. That is the kind of camping this page is about. If you are looking for backpacking, we are not your people. Try High Country Outfitters, who do that for a living.

Here is everything we bought, from a big sporting-goods store and one trip to the discount store, with the actual prices off our receipts, because when we were figuring out whether we could afford this nobody would tell us a number. The total for a family of five, starting from nothing, was about $410. That's less than the three of us spent on one weekend at a motel and a water park last year, and this stuff we get to keep.

Things we brought from home and were glad of: a big blanket for the tent floor, pillows (yes, real pillows, we are not proud), a clothesline and clothespins, a deck of cards, a bucket, an old rug for outside the tent door to wipe feet on, the kids' bikes, and a big jug of water even though the campground has spigots.

Things we brought and didn't need: a hatchet (the wood comes split), a portable radio (the kids played outside until dark and then fell over), and the board games. Nobody ever wanted the board games.

We picked a state park because a friend told us that state parks are where families go, and that turned out to be true. Our park has a big lake with a swimming beach, a couple of easy hiking trails that a four-year-old can do, a little store for ice and firewood and the things you forgot, and a campground of about 120 sites in loops, each site with a picnic table, a fire ring with a grill on it, a flat spot for the tent and a place to park.

The bathrooms have flush toilets and hot showers (quarters for the showers, bring a roll). The sites cost $14 a night. We reserved by phone in May for our first trip and it was a good thing we did, because the park was full every weekend of July and August. September, when we went for the third time, was quieter, cooler, and the best of the three.

Things to ask about when you reserve: Is the site shaded? (Yes, please.) How far is it from the bathrooms? (Close enough for a four-year-old at night, far enough that you don't hear the door.) Is it on the lake loop or the woods loop? (We tried both. Lake loop for the view, woods loop for the sleep.)

Our number one piece of advice, and if you take nothing else from this page, take this: set the tent up in your backyard first. We did not. We arrived at Pine Hollow at 5 p.m. on a Friday in June with a tent still in the box, three hungry kids, and instructions printed in four languages in type the size of an ant. It took an hour and twenty minutes and one argument. The second trip, having practiced in the yard, it took twelve minutes and Daniel did most of it.

What we learned:

• Pick the flattest spot on the site and clear it of sticks and pine cones. You will feel every single one you miss.
• Tarp down first. Fold the edges under so the tarp is slightly smaller than the tent floor. If the tarp sticks out past the tent, rain runs down the tent walls, lands on the tarp, and pools under you. Ask us how we know.
• Lay the tent out, stake the corners loosely, then put the poles together and thread them through. The poles are color-coded. The colors matter.
• Rain fly on, always, even when the sky is clear. We learned this too.
• Stake it all down tight and put the guy lines out. Then walk around it and tie something bright on every line, because somebody will trip on one in the dark. That somebody was me.
• Shoes off outside the tent. This one rule kept the inside clean for three trips. The rug by the door helps.

• Quiet hours are real. Ours were 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. and the ranger does come around. Our kids were asleep by 9 every night anyway from sheer exhaustion, which is the best thing about camping.
• Don't walk through other people's sites. Your site is your living room. Go around by the road, even if it's longer. We had to teach the kids this on day one and after that they policed each other.
• Keep the food put away. Raccoons. Everything goes in the cooler or the van at night, and the cooler goes in the van too, because raccoons can open coolers. They opened ours. They took a whole package of hot dog buns and a stick of butter and left the wrapper folded neatly on the table, which felt like a comment.
• Put the fire out before bed. All the way out. Water, stir, water again, until it's cold to the touch. Do not leave it to burn down.
• Don't move firewood in from home. The park asks you to buy it there or gather dead wood on the ground, to keep from carrying in bugs. It's $4 a bundle. Just buy it.
• Say hello. Campground neighbors are the friendliest people we've met anywhere. The couple next door on our first trip lent us a mallet, showed Chike how to build a fire that actually stays lit, and gave the kids glow sticks. We now travel with extra glow sticks to pay it forward.

Plan every meal before you leave and write it on a card taped inside the cooler lid. This is the single thing that made trip two easier than trip one. Our two-night plan, which we have now used three times and will not be changing:

S'mores, for the two people reading this who have never had one: a roasted marshmallow and a piece of a chocolate bar squished between two graham crackers. Roast the marshmallow slow over coals, not in the flame, until it's golden, unless you are Sam, in which case set it on fire, blow it out, and eat it black. Budget one bag of marshmallows, two boxes of graham crackers and four chocolate bars per night for a family of five, and buy more than that.

Trip two, July, Saturday night. The forecast said thirty percent. Thirty percent, it turns out, means "yes."

It started about eleven, gently, and the kids slept through it and it was actually lovely, the sound of it on the fly. Then around one it stopped being gentle. Then Sam woke up and needed the bathroom. Then Adaeze woke up because Sam woke up. Then the lantern wouldn't come on because the batteries were in the van. Then Chike, going to the van for the batteries, discovered the thing about the tarp sticking out past the tent, because the corner where Daniel was sleeping had about an inch of water under the floor and Daniel was, in his words, "on a waterbed."

So at 1:30 in the morning, in the rain, by flashlight, Chike and I pulled up the corner stakes, tucked the tarp under, re-staked, moved Daniel to the middle, put the wet sleeping bag in the van and gave him the big blanket, and got back in. Everybody was back asleep by two. Except me. I lay there listening to it and waiting for the next thing, and there wasn't a next thing, and eventually I slept too.

In the morning it was clear and everything smelled like pine and we made bacon and the kids talked about the Great Flood all the way home like it was the best part. Which, for them, it was. For me it was the part where I learned we could handle it, which is a different kind of best.

What we do differently now: tarp tucked under, always. Lantern batteries in the tent. Rain fly guyed out tight. One extra blanket in the van. And we check the forecast and then we go anyway.

Three trips, six nights, one flood, two raccoon incidents, zero trips to the emergency room, and roughly nine hundred marshmallows. We came home from the September trip and Daniel asked when the next one was before we'd even unpacked the van.

Here's what we'd tell you: it costs less than you think, the kids will remember it more than anything you spend real money on, and the things that go wrong are the things they'll talk about for the rest of their lives. The rain night is already family legend. Sam tells it to strangers.

We have one more trip planned for the second weekend in October, when the leaves should be turning, and then we'll put the tent away for the winter and start planning for next year. We're thinking about a park with a river. Chike is thinking about a bigger tent. Daniel is thinking about a canoe. Sam is thinking about marshmallows.

If you've never done this and you're wondering whether you can: you can. Buy the tarp. Set the tent up in the yard. Put the cooler in the van at night. And go.

— The Kirkpatricks

P.S. We took two rolls of film and they're at the drugstore, so the photo section is coming. Chike says by Halloween.