In May the church hosted a father son camp out at their camp ground in Cloudcroft, NM. I came home from work a little bit early, loaded up the truck with Andrew, and drove the almost two hours up to the camp site. Andrew must have had a big day at school, or was planning to stay up late during the camp out because he slept almost the entire drive up!
We saw some very cool sights once we were up in the mountains, like a group of elk walking across the road and laying down in the trees just a short distance away! They didn't seem very startled by the sound of the truck of the sight of us humans. Maybe they knew it wasn't hunting season so they were safe?
We got very close to them and they were curious, but not worried at all!
We got to the camp site and chose a spot to set up our tent.
Andrew was very excited and a huge help!
We had practiced setting up the tent in our back yard prior to the camping trip, so he remembered most of how to set up the tent.
Selfie of the camping boys!
We didn't bring a hammer to put the stakes in the ground, but there were plenty of rocks around that did the trick.
Once our tent was set up we gathered some fire wood, started the fire, and cooked up some dinner.
Andrew liked poking around with the fire, he takes after his dad!
We ate hot dogs for dinner and cooked up s'mores for dessert.
It started cool down a lot as the sun was setting. We were glad to have a roaring fire to keep us warm!
There was a large building on the grounds that served as a gathering place for meals, events, and even a chapel for church services on Sunday. The stake leadership hosted a short devotional with all the people who came up for the camp out.
It was a very large and nice facility. They had bathrooms with running water, a full kitchen, and storage for camping/scouting gear.
It got pretty cold in the night and the early morning. When we woke up Andrew was so cold that we snuggled up under the covers and watched some shows on my phone until we worked up the energy to get the fire going again and have breakfast.
We shared the fire pit with another family from the ward, that family had two teenage boys and they were good about talking with Andrew and he felt cool hanging out with the older boys.
We had our own light breakfast as we warmed up around the fire, Andrew wanted marshmallows for breakfast and I figured why not?
Camping boys selfie take two!
The church also provided a large pancake, waffle, bacon, egg, and sausage breakfast at the main building. It was a good way to start off the day and get out of the cold.
After breakfast we did some service projects for a few hours. Activities included cutting up fallen trees for firewood using a chainsaw, setting up canvas tents for the Young Women to use for the girls camp which was scheduled to take place in a couple weeks, re-stacking fire wood, and general clean up of the camp ground area.
Andrew had lots of fun playing with some other boys his age. They helped out also of course, but they spent a good amount of time just being boys and having fun playing outside.
Andrew was the king of the tree stump!
Once we were done with the chores it was time to pack up camp and go back home. Andrew was once again a big help in packing up his bags, rolling up the sleeping bags, and taking down the tent.
Before we left we walked around to look at some of the other parts of the camp. They had lots of open land, trees, and even a rappelling tower.
It was so much fun to go camping with Andrew and spend some special one on one time with my oldest boy. He was a great outdoorsman and I look forward to more experiences like this in the future!
