So anyways, this weekend our stake had a Father Son campout. I had joked around with Katelyn about taking Lawson to it and surprisingly she was all for it (I think she just wanted to be able to have a girl's night with no Lawson/husband responsibilities). So I decided to be brave and take Lawson out into the rugged wilderness where we would fight for our survival and bond like fathers and sons are supposed to. I went ahead and got everything together about 1 hour beforehand (like every good prepared scout should do) and set off Friday evening. Now, for the rest of the world that lives in miserable weather locations in February and March, let me clarify that I was not taking Lawson out to dig a snow cave or make an igloo. No, we toughed it out in the frigid 70 degree weather and used a lot of bug spray (I actually wished that I had brought shorts!).
The place where we camped was actually a really nice place for Lawson's first campout. It was at a park along Galveston Bay and had a bunch of walking trails and a sweet pier that we could go out and fish on. So although we weren't fighting off bears and wolves we did have to watch out for the occasional ant pile (which was actually somewhat difficult given I was setting up our tent in the dark). There was also a playground and Lawson had a blast playing on it with the 50 or so other children running around while I got everything set up. That was pretty much the night's events (we had eaten dinner beforehand) although there was a legit fireside later in the evening. I took Lawson to it but since it was already 9 pm he pretty much sacked out in my lap. He was the star of the show for all of 15 secs though when he got the youngest camper award. There were a couple other 2 year old kids there but no 18 month olds! That makes a father proud!
The night went well for Lawson (he slept on his mattress for his crib), but lack of foresight on my part meant I was sleeping without a pad and also had set up our tent next to the playground. Seriously, what kids play on a playground till 12:30 am? Also it got super windy and in the morning our tent had scooted about 3 feet off of the tarp. Next time I'll make sure I peg the rain fly down, although now I know it could act as a good sail! Lawson was a trooper though. He would sometimes wake up because the tent would be flapping in the wind and I could tell he was confused at where he was. All I would have to do, though, is grab his hand and he would calm down and go back to sleep. I love that little guy!
This is what I woke up to at around 6:20 or so in the morning...
Somebody was pretty excited to wake up. Must have been all the new things going on! So we got up, I took the tent down, and we got to watch the sun rise.
As you can see it was a cool little park. We had breakfast and then went out on the pier you can see in the background. I hadn't realized that I had never taken Lawson fishing before (he has always played on the beach when I have gone before), and he had fun...for about 30 min.
It was pretty windy out there so he got a little cold, but he liked banging the pole up and down. All in all it was really windy, the fish weren't biting, and Lawson thought it would be more fun to run up and down the pier than stick with the fishing. So after dealing with that for a while I decided that was a good enough trip for a first campout. I was generally surprised how well he handled it, especially with it only being me and not having Katelyn there. It was pretty fun to spend all that time alone with my little guy. I kinda have the camping bug now though, so I'm going to have to look up some other places and we can do some family campouts! We'll see if Katelyn likes it as much as Lawson and I did.
3 comments:
Good job Travis! You are super dad!
Those are some great pictures!
Looks like he had lots of fun. You are brave. I am sure Katelyn appreciated a night off.
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