Fathers and Sons

Thomas and I went on an adventure Friday night. Our stake had fathers and sons at Mastedon State Historic Site not too far from our house. It was basically a grassy field in a forested area. Thomas was ready and excited to go when I got home from work on Friday. He heard camping and found the closest thing to a cowboy hat he could. Unfortunately, all he could find was a beat up pink straw cowgirl hat his mom got in Mexico. Most of our stuff was ready Thursday night, so we gathered together the last of our things and had a quick dinner before we hit the road with our packs. I used my backpacking pack to carry all of my stuff because I knew that we had to walk a ways from our car to the campsite, and it was the easiest way we could think of of accomplishing that with Thomas in tow. It was really Aubree's idea to use the pack. Despite the campout being only one night, my pack was pretty full. Granted, our tent is a two person tent, but it's not really a lightweight backpacking tent. Also, I brought along an air mattress and a hand pump. Combined with my sleeping bag, some clothes and other small camping supplies, it was full. Thomas helped by carrying his own gear. He has a little backpack that came with a sleeping bag. We put some of his clothes and diapers and wipes in there, and he carried it to the campsite. Along with my pack, I also carried a camp chair. It was a little slow going, and Thomas eventually tired out (read: decided he wanted to be carried), so I ended up carrying him, the camp chair, and my pack for the last part of our walk. Fortunately, the walk wasn't too far, and we were able to make it in one trip.

We put our packs down and got to setting up our tent before it got dark. Thomas was very helpful. You can see him here putting some of the stakes in the ground. We finally got the tent set up and it was time to get everything put inside. After we were settled, Thomas enjoyed running around, throwing his ball around, playing with his friends, and finding new ones. He liked to take his ball up to some of the bigger boys and get them to play with him. It was interesting to see their reactions. Some of them were great, and some of them didn't really know what to do with Thomas.

After a campfire meeting, it was time for bed. Thomas had a really hard time going to sleep. There was lots of noise from a game of capture the flag and it was quite warm, plus Thomas just didn't want to go to sleep. He was really tired, though. He eventually fell asleep after midnight when I rocked him in my arms, standing in the middle of the field. He woke up again during the night when it started to rain pretty hard, but he went to sleep pretty quickly and slept in in the morning. We had some yummy breakfast of pancakes, eggs, sausage, and bacon and then cleaned up the campsite and headed home.

I think he enjoyed himself despite the troubles he had falling asleep. I set the tent up in our garage to let it dry out and Thomas saw it and kept saying "night," meaning that we needed to get inside to go to sleep. He's now sleeping in the tent in the back yard with his Aunt Mimi (Megan). Aubree just got off work early and is going to join them. Henry and I are going to stay inside in our beds.