If the youth pack will fit the 8 year old I'd say hand it down. As for you and your teen, you might want to start looking at craigslist and eBay to see what you can find there.

There's nothing wrong with grabbing an old Kelty or other pack to get started off with. In fact, I have an old Coleman Peak1 pack I'll send you if you want it. It's still in good shape and I'd love to see it get some more use. It should work for either you or your teen.

As far as a tent goes, you might find one or two of those on craigslist and eBay too. You might look into using hammocks and tarps instead of a tent. I've made tarps out of disposable plastic table clothes and used a $30 hammock and that works darn pretty good. If you like the tarp/hammock setup you can get a good silnylon tarp and a quality hammock for about the same price as a good tent.

If you're going for new stuff we'd need a budget to try and recommend anything, but the general rule of thumb is to spend as much as you can on a good sleeping bag and when you have all the gear you're going to carry and know how much room it will take, then go look at packs.

Uwharrie huh? Looks like a great spot. My wife just watched a "Finding Bigfoot" episode made there. I watched a bit of it because they have a big Suzuki Samurai 4x4 gathering there every year and I'd love to attend that. Of course getting a good picture of a Bigfoot would be fun too