Our Busy Weekend - Picture Heavy (19)

This weekend has been busy for our family. Red Ant with Pincers, the three year old, went to his Grandmother's to stay Friday and Saturday night. Sweetheart flew out to Reagan Airport to visit my younger sister-in-law, and to run a half marathon. I had the pleasure of taking Row, the resident six year old, to his first Scouting camping trip, for the Father-Son Camping trip.

We had three rules this weekend...
1. We stay together.
2. No complaining/whining.
3. We have fun.

The long wait, probably around 500 people attended the event

Row wasn't bothered one bit, and the game system stayed in the car

The climbing tower that Row wanted to climb, even though he scared of heights.

The first look at the parade field.

 The gear was hauled to your camp site, and all the vehicles were parked at the entrance field. We did a lot of walking, and we enjoyed it. That night, we had a chance to talk about making sure you have a flashlight when outdoors. We turned off our flashlights, and got to see how dark it can really get. We also talked about getting lost, and what to do.

Opening flag ceremony.

 It was very nice to see people saying the Pledge of Allegiance, and showing respect for our flag and country.

The Archery Range

The instructional speech for the Archery belt loop.

Row, sad to have to wait for his turn, but excited to finally get on the range.

The BB gun belt loop speech

Pretty good shot huh?

Unfortunately, Row won't be my natural shooter. Those are my BB holes when I was showing him how to shoot. He got frustrated rather easy, and wanted to quit. I admit that I got frustrated too, he wasn't listening, which has been a reoccurring theme.

A not-so-friendly game of checkers.

I was schooled on a game of Mario checkers...as best as I can figure out, the lightning strike happens at the most advantageous time for Row. The Bowser checker was also a problem for me, as he seemed to kill all of my kings towards the end of the game. Row 3 - Dad 0.

Dinner, not bad, but didn't leave hungry either.

Row did a great job of playing dominoes. I was really surprised and learned something new about him. He won this round, but didn't offer a repeat challenge though.

Reading inside our tent after the rain started to fall at about 10pm.

 I have a tent review in the works. We had a lot of rain, maybe about 5 inches inches from about 10pm until 5 am. I got very little sleep, due to the cramped conditions. At about 1:30 in the morning, it occurred to me that the Chinese have a torture system where the prisoner cannot straighten completely out. The tent was made in China. I had a good laugh, and made a mental note to post it on the blog.

A little canopy at the apex of the tent to hold a light.

The morning walk to the mess hall.

A father and son walk for breakfast.

I had a great time, and got to bond with my oldest son. He earned 3 belt loops, and part of the hiking requirements. We will be doing more of these, and I pray that he continues to enjoy going camping with his old man.