Fathers and Sons (By Dan)

My lords, My ladies (sorry, couldn't resist)...

I'm a bit late in posting this, but I have been meaning to get to it for 2 weeks now, slacker that I am. Hopefully this will make sense and portray the trip, we had a great time.

Toby and I went on the Fathers and Sons campout about 2 weeks ago, his first with me and, funny enough, my first with him. It was loads of fun!

We had a great drive up the mountain, it was only about 10 miles from home to camping area so really not too much of a drive, but we made the most of it by singing and planning our evening activities.

Toby was a real trooper, he helped me set up the tent (his first time setting up a tent) and then helped to carry everything to our site from the truck.

With our camp established, we jumped right in to the whole reason we drove up to that place. We started relaxing and just having a good time, with no rules and nothing to interrupt.

We played frisbee soccer for a while, Toby has an amazing ability to throw the frisbee and get it past you no matter what, I don't think there was ever a risk of me catching his throws. Good job Tobster!

Once we had enough of the frisbee soccer game, we started racing up and down the hillside behind our tent. Toby is a great climber and always got to the top first, that was some serious climbing for a not so physically prepared 32 year old guy!

A few times up and down the mountain and I was done with that! In hopes of some more relaxing fun, I suggested we take a walk to the river nearby. Toby was all for that so I grabbed a bag of sunflower seeds and off we went.

There was a bridge over the water, so we walked out to the middle over the water and sat with our legs dangling in the air and had a sunflower seed spitting contest that evolved into a sunflower seed spitting war pretty quick! We had loads of fun and Toby loved spitting the seeds on one side of the bridge and running to the other to see them floating by like little boats.

   

Of course, water being water, and Toby being Toby, only seconds later he was down the hill by the bridge and trompsing all around in the water and just having a blast! That boy loves the water!

Once done with his evening wade, that was one wet and cold Toberiffic, so we hustled back to the tent were he could find some nice dry clothes, although he did spend the rest of the trip in his bare feet or socks, the psycho child!

The sun was beginning to go down at this point, so we headed to the pavilion (I know... a pavilion and camping.. just doesn't seem right eh?!) to play some serious card games like Old Maid and Go Fish. All this while we were eating Steak! Yep, you heard right, Pam made us some amazing steaks and we had those with chips and mini-Sprite cans for dinner, all the while mocking all the sandwich and hot dog eaters around! Okay, not really, but yeah! :p. We had a nice dinner and actually won a game of Solitaire together, Toby was just really good luck at cards.

After dinner we played flashlight tag for a while, Toby had these awesome finger flashlights that were like $2.00 for a whole set at Albertsons and if you don't already know it, he is one fast runner, so that was a great game!

Pretty soon they called everyone to the pavilion for repeat after me songs and some good youth skits etc. This was fun, but Toby didn't really feel like joining in, I think I may have embarrased him with all my... getting into it'ness.... yeah, so anyway, we sang and laughed and had good times!

Next up was bedtime, but when you go camping with Dad you can't just have a normal bedtime, right? I had packed my laptop up there and we got all comfy in our sleeping bags and watched Balto in bed while munching on snacks! How cool are we?!

I woke up before Toby and was immediately smacked with a quandary...

I had to pee soooooo bad! But Toby was asleep, I didn't want to wake him up and I didn't want him to wake up without me in the tent there, so what to do?! I began playing solitaire on my phone with my vision gradually turning more and more yellow, I really had to go!

An eternity later Toby starts to stir, so I help him along with a "Good Morning Buddy!" and he starts to look around all foggy eyed and confused, really confused. "Whats up Buddy? I'm here." I said. "Um... Dad?... Did..." looking around really confused. "Did you turn the tent around while I was sleeping?¿" Hahahahhaha I couldn't help it, I busted up laughing really hard, and so did he. "No, no, I'm pretty sure you would have known it had I moved the whole entire tent buddy." Unzips the window and looks out. "Are you sure Dad?". Heheheh "Toby, I love you buddy."

I made a beeline for the potty (yeah, I know, a potty while camping...). Relief at last!! Boy that felt great!

We had some ward prepared pancakes for breakfast and headed home to our Ladies, singing camp songs from the night before the whole way home.

Thanks for the great memories Toby, I can't wait for next year!