Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Fathers and Sons Campout 2013


Starting the night off with the camp all set up.  Look how pumped Max is already
Max and I attended our 3rd annual fathers and sons camp out this past weekend and had a blast as always.  I seriously think Max looks forward to this overnight trip as much as anything!  For those of you not familiar with the Fathers and Sons, it is a camp out that most LDS (Mormon) congregations do once a year and is sort of a tradition to get all the boys and their dads out for a night in the wilderness.  It is an awesome chance to bond with your son(s) and others in the neighborhood (ward). 

Our campsite. 

We did end up sleeping in a tent though I had some doubts early on due to the rainy weather we had been having.  I went as far to suggest on my facebook wall that I may need to rent a pop up trailer and immediately got called out, so my pride kicked in and I went 100% tent.  The good news was that it only rained for about 5 mins around 3 am or so and we stayed completely dry.

Max insisted on helping me cook, but would not dare eat the squash.  I love that he enjoyed cooking so much with me. I did that all the time growing up with my dad and it was tons of fun.



As will all camp outs, I spent tons of time cooking and was known amongst the fathers as chef Kandell.  We had dutch oven chicken, steak, veggies.  We did hot dogs wrapped in crescent rolls then roasted over the fire that my mother in law Stacy Smoot taught me to make.  Max wanted to do nothing more than roast startbursts over the fire and he went through an entire bag on his own.  He even had them for breakfast saturday morning.

Max roasting starburst for breakfast.

The best thing we men love about camping is none other than FIRE!  I was known as a pyro growing up and am glad to say Max got every bit of that.  As soon as it was dark outside the fires were glowing and Max was jumping from one fire to the next trying to burn anything he could.  I actually witnessed him take a napkin off the lap of a guy he did not even know and attempt to throw it in the fire while this man was roasting a hot dog.  I stopped him just in time and made him apologize, but it was as if he just saw the first burnable thing and grabbed it.  Crazy!

Max and Tommy sporting some headlamps as it got dark

 
The Pyro Max
Max said he was going to stay up the entire night but at about 11pm or so he was ready to head to bed.  We were able to just barely fit two air mattresses in our little tent and we fell asleep really fast.

I love how pumped Max is in this picture.  Nothing better than a night in a tent with dad!  

So in the morning there was breakfast provided and it was sausage, bacon and pancake ice cream sundaes.  Max loaded up on chocolate syrup and a huge pancake and thought it was the best breakfast ever, well other than the fire melted starburst that is.

In the morning I  picked up camp and he played with other kids and we took off just before noon.  I had a blast and really feel I should do more of this camping stuff with Max and even get the ladies out there next time.  Cannot wait for the next year's Father and Sons!
Max canoeing

Max hiking and "hunting" as he put it

This is the beautiful view we had from where we were.


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