Our original plan was to leave the day after Christmas to go camping for four nights in Big Bend National Park, which is about 8 hours away in the south of Texas.Then we found out that there are no campfires allowed in Big Bend, which kind of changed things. To our kids, camping = campfires. Also, it was forecasted to get down to around 30 degrees at night, and we realized that once the sun went down at 6:00 and we couldn't build a fire to warm us up, there'd be nothing to do except go sit in the tent with all the kids and try to keep warm, which didn't sound very fun.
We came up with a new plan to just go camping for one night at Buescher State Park, which is about an hour away. We knew it would be cold, but at least campfires are allowed there.
We decided to leave on the Friday after Christmas. Then that morning both Rachel and Elizabeth woke up sick, so our plans changed again. We did not want to deal with kids throwing up in the tent, so we decided to just have Daniel go with the boys and make it a little "Father and Sons" trip.
I think they had a lot of fun. That night they set up camp, hiked around, played catch, built a fire, cooked tinfoil dinners, built another fire, roasted marshmallows, and then tried to get some sleep despite the freezing weather. In the morning they made another fire and Daniel even cooked up a Dutch oven peach cobbler for breakfast (I had planned on making this originally, and had already bought all the stuff, but I was very surprised that Daniel went through with this plan once he was on his own). Oliver reported that they then made a fourth fire (like I said, to my boys, camping is all about the campfires) but Tristan says that maybe the fourth one shouldn't really count, because it was just Oliver throwing a bunch of pine needles and sticks in the first one that was almost dying out. Either way, they definitely viewed the trip as a success.
Before coming home on Saturday morning, Daniel took the boys to a dinosaur park nearby, which they loved.
My favorite thing about their camping trip was that Daniel remembered to take lots and lots of pictures for me, even though I'm sure he would have rathered leave the camera at home.
Tristan and Oliver at the campground:
The Dinosaur Park:
3 comments:
How much fun. I am not a fan of being cold, so I would have preferred a father/son trip!
That sounded like a blast, and I love how Ollie was very particular to mention how many fires the enjoyed. Ha, it's makes me kinda laugh to think of Daniel asking the boys to pose for all the pictures. They were just adorable in all of them! I wonder why Daniel didn't ask them to get one of him leaning against a tree or something?
What a fun father and son outing! Sorry the girls were sick! Hope everyones feeling better now!
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