Real Men Go Camping

A few weeks ago Chris and Nathan left us girls here at home to have a little bit of "man time." They headed down to Brazos Bend State Park for our stake's men and boys camp out.  I don't know if Nathan really understood where he was going, but Chris was excited enough for the both of them. There is a pretty serious drought here in Texas so there was a fire ban; we were pretty disappointed because that meant no smores! But we found out last minute they were allowed to have a charcoal fire, so really last minute I threw in some hot dogs, graham crackers, and some Nathan approved chocolate.  Thankfully other people had charcoal and marshmallows!
Nathan had a blast running around chasing all the other boys.  He was the youngest one there and loved it- he really thinks he's a 3 or 4 year old. Nathan stayed up way too late- 10:30, but loved every minute of it.  They roasted hot dogs and marshmallows, played games, soccer, and just had fun being with friends. Nathan was a little inpatient so he ate some graham crackers, then some marshmallows, then some chocolate...it takes way too long to get them all together.
The next day they ate breakfast, cleaned up camp, and went on a bike ride.  The park is home to lots of alligators, so they were able to go to the nature center and see some fun things and then ride around looking for alligators in the water. They ended up getting really close to some of the alligators- scary!

 Nathan kept wanting to get the alligators, he spent the whole time saying "catch 'em" and "I seen 'em".

 

Nathan was so exhausted he feel asleep on the bike even though the paths were super bumpy.  Poor kid :)

Then they headed home- they were both tired and dirty but they made some great memories.

Other funny things that happened were:
*Nathan getting smacked in the face so hard with a soccer ball it lifted him up off the ground before he fell backwards- within a minute he was back to being his happy self again:)

*Nathan running around and another boy completely ran into and over him with a bike...poor kid hasn't learned how to use the brakes yet.
*Nathan's love for the "amimals" in the nature center.

*Nathan playing in the fire pit and getting soot all over his face- Chris felt like he went through about 30 or more wipes an hour just to keep the kid semi-clean.

*Nathan spent a ton of time running back and forth giving hugs to all the boys.

I'm so glad that my boys got to go have some man time so they could spend time together (also so I could have girls night out with some of my friends!) Nathan had so much fun, we definitely need to go camping again!

Thanks Kevin for letting Chris use your camera!