Camping Adventures

Last month, Mason's soon to be 1st grade teacher sent a letter to introduce himself along with a summer challenge list. One of the items was to campout in your backyard.

Mason lit up with excitement and wanted to set up the tent immediately.  I quickly slowed him with the fact that the nighttime lows where still much too cold to be camping overnight.

I promised that as soon as the nightly low was 65 or more we would make it happen. Since then, every morning, Mason has asked Alexa to tell him the weather.

Last Wednesday was the day! Low of 68 degrees, no wind and no chance of rain. Perfect!

I set up the tent, blew up the air mattresses, dug out the sheets, put batteries in the flash lights and prayed that he would choose his father to sleep with him.

Prayers were answered and Nathan was the winner of the all inclusive one night sleepless stay in the buggy backyard. Surprisingly, Nathan showed quite a bit of excitement which is not the usual. They were going to make some father-son memories.

We grilled burgers, chatted around the firepit, and then Tuck and I said our goodnights. God speed!

Mason's makeshift headlights

Then the clouds grew darker and the wind whirled. At approximately 10 PM the unforecasted storm was upon us. I peeked out the back door to see if the crazy campers were still in the tent and found them safely waiting out the rain in the garage.

The lighting was relentless and nearly an inch of rain fell but it finally lifted and the campers came inside to continue their campout in the mancave.

Two days later, Mason finally got to sleep the entire night in the tent. He said, "It was awesome and I slept great!" Nathan said, "I slept like one would expect to sleep in a tent."