Father and Sons and 11-year old campout

I've been holding off posting about the boys' adventures because I thought they could tell you about it better but if I don't post their pictures, I'll soon forget about it. Last month Jerrod got to do his first boy scout overnight campout. Derek was able to go with him. They went to Elderado canyon which is near the Colorado river by Hoover Dam. They got to tour an old gold and quartz mine which they both said was really cool. Derek said the walls of the mine sparkled. The owner of it told them old mining stories and they had a testimony meeting up in the attic of his huge barn. The next day they headed to the river to pass off their canoeing merit badge. One kind of funny thing that they found out was that camping in the desert is a lot different than what they are used to. All of the boys kept stepping on cactus in the dark and getting it stuck to their shoes and pants. They said there were a ton of cacti everywhere!

This is a re-enactment of a miner who accidentally put a drill bit through his head and died in the mine. True story!

A couple of weekends ago our ward had it's annual father son campout. The boys left Friday afternoon and as soon as they got to the camp site and set up the dads all took their boys out to shoot guns. Derek didn't know that they would be doing it so he was bummed that he didn't bring his gun too but some of the other dads shared. That night Derek and Jerrod had a yummy steak dinner, and they watched some boys put on a program about Joseph Smith translating the Book of Mormon. After some visiting they went to bed, and then woke up early to help with breakfast and headed home. It seems like when you are getting ready to go camp, there is so much work for such a short time but they both had a lot of fun.



Now the girls want to go too so we might have to squeeze a quick camping trip in before school starts so if you know a good camping spot that is close by please let us know!