The Epic Father and Sons Campout Post...

So about two weeks ago they announced in church that the Father and Sons campout was this weekend. (Personally I think that telling people about it only 2 weeks in advance is kind of ridiculous, especially since we later found out that it had been on the calendar for over a year.) Anyway...Owen was very excited about the idea of camping - even though he really didn't have any idea what camping was. (I shouldn't say that he did't have any idea, one of his favorite cartoons - Kick Buttowski - had an episode where Kick went camping in the wild. Needless to say Owen was probably expecting to have bears, rockslides, and numerous other adventures that thankfully didn't happen.) What really had Owen excited was that we were going with his best friend Dean. (What had me excited is that we were going in Dean's family's van, which had a DvD player.)

We haven't even left out street and they are already mezmorised by the DvD.

The campsite is only 22 miles from our house, but thanks to the joys of living in a metropolitan area it still took us an hour and a half to get there. You just take a right off of the main road through town and you are in what looks like a normal campground, until you walk along one of the paths and end up in someones back yard! The weather forecast had already warned us that there was a good possibility for a little rain, (don't worry, there will be a full blown angry rant about this later) so as soon as we showed up the Dads set to work getting the tent and fire set up, while the boys set to work exploring.

I took this picture right as I got out of the car. Notice that Owen and Dean made it out before any of us - they saw land to be explored!

So now we reach the part where I get to brag about my awesomeness and tell you how I saved the camp. I guess I can admit that I didn't save the camp, I just facilitated the saving of the camp. For some reason Beki and I have accumulated a lot of camping supplies. We have a giant tent and numerous sleeping bags, which is strange when you consider that we have never actually gone camping as a family, so we just took everything with us in case people needed a tent or sleeping bag to sleep in. But my most brilliant idea was the firewood.

I came to this same campout last year without Owen, and there is no good wood to make your fire out of. They have a "camp host" who will sell you firewood, but it is expensive and lame. Now I had a tree chopped down last summer, and the missionaries have been splitting it for me, so we have a lot of good firewood at my house. Learning from my experience last year, we took a load of kindling and a few good logs up with us. By doing this we were breaking the law mind you - outside firewood is not allowed because it might bring in "disease." Sure...if your "State Park" wasn't in the middle of the greater Baltimore area, maybe I would believe you. I am not bringing anything in that your trees aren't already exposed to. Why don't you just be honest and say, "Outside firewood is not permitted because we are cheap and want to gouge you with our overpriced inferior quality wood.

Back on topic: We got the tent set up quickly because Jared, one of the Young Men's Presidency who loves camping but doesn't have kids came with us and took charge. While I helped with the tent, Dean's dad Ryan got the fire going, and the kids all decided that they needed to check out the tent.

We ended up with these 5 kids in the tent. The 2 in the back are refugees from Bhutan - they were happy to be out of their house.

Right as we were putting the rain-fly on the tent, the first sprinkles began to fall. Again, we knew that there was going to be rain at some point, and we had been hearing thunder for a while, but the rain was minimal, so we let the kids play in it while we finished setting up camp.

What is it about camping and sticks? Everyone had to have a stick, and usually they all wanted the same stick. Luckily in the woods there is no shortage of sticks.

The rain finally started to pick up a bit, like to the point that puddles were starting to form, (and if there is a puddle, my son WILL jump in it...ALWAYS) so we decided to move the kids inside the tent so that they would stay damp instead of soaked. This next picture will show you how Owen felt about it.

Owen just looked at this picture while I was writing and said, "Papa, that's me. I'm sad." I asked him, "Why were you sad?" He responded, "I wanted to go outside." Yup, I've traumatized him for life. (Next on Oprah, juvenile delinquents whose fathers didn't let them splash in puddles as children.)

Shortly after that picture was taken the world just about ended, or at least that is what it sounded like. We had a cloudburst break on top of us. The lightning was blinding, and the thunder wasn't just loud, it was concussive and just about knocked your breath out. And they came together, not one after the other, because it was right on top of us. The adults were a little panicked and we looked up to see our terrified children, only to find that they were not bothered in the slightest. I guess not knowing that lighting could cook your innards makes it easier to not be bothered by it, but we still decided that Ryan would take all of the children into the van and have snacks while the rest of us tried to devise some sort of shelter over the picnic table, in case we were going to have to cook and eat in the rain. (You will notice a lack of pictures during this part of the narative. That is because our campsite was slowly washing away, and we were trying to save our fire, build shelter, avoid lightning, and stay dry all at the same time.)

We got a tarp tied up to some of the trees - well mostly tied up, we were working on that while also trying to keep the fire going, (remember how someone thought to bring a lot of good dry wood that we kept in the back of the van in case it started to rain we could still have fire?) trying to dig drainage ditches to stop the water from pooling up around the fire and putting it out, and also trying to stay mostly dry. The rain was falling so hard that rather than walking the 5 feet from the tarp shelter to the van to check on the children, I just called Ryan on my cell phone. (That's right...camping with cell phone service, welcome to Maryland!) The children were fine and having a great time eating snacks in the van.

!!!Warning...Angry Rant!!!

Like normal, if you are not interested in the angry ramblings of a middle-aged man, just skip the red text and move on to the rest of the narrative below. Today we are going to talk about tradition.....TRADITION! The question that I hope you have been asking yourself while you have been reading this is WHY ARE THEY HAVING A FATHER AND SONS CAMPOUT IN MAY? This is exactly what I thought when we got the announcement 2 weeks ago. Seeing as May 14th is before June 21, this campout was being planned for the season known as Spring. Spring is known for it's rain showers and unstable weather. So let's plan a campout where we subject our children to unstable weather, instead of planning our campout for June or July when the weather is better.

The answer to this question is, of course, tradition.....TRADITION. The Stake has always had the Father and Sons campout correspond with the anniversary of the restoration of the priesthood. That is all nice and sentimental, but just because something has always been done a certain way, that doesn't make it right. The demographics of this area are such that people have either lived in their homes for decades and are now retired with their children out of the house, or they are young families renting apartments while trying to finish school. The end result was that most of the people stuck in the middle of a huge rainstorm in the middle of spring were under six years old. Tradition.....TRADITION! /end rant

The downpour only lasted about 25 minutes, and then the rain stopped completely. Our little drainage ditch system worked to drain the water away, and our fire burned strong through the whole ordeal, and so it wasn't long until most of the campers around us started to attract to our campsite like moths to the flame. We had all sorts of food cooking on our fire - Owen and I had foil dinners cooking in the coals, but then Owen saw the hot dog sticks. I traded Owen's foil dinner for a hot dog, and the boy got to use the stick.

Think about how old you were when you cooked your first meal for yourself.

Owen put the hot dog on the stick himself and held it over the fire without letting it touch it. (Now if I would have told him how to put the hot dog on the stick and to not let it touch the flames he never would have been able to do it, but because he had watched all the other kids cook theirs he was super-pro.)

He did need me to open the bun for him, but that was it. He fed himself.

As I mentioned, I had made the boy and myself foil dinners. When Owen opted for the hot dog it created a little bit of an incident because the adults all wanted his foil dinner. They were just about the greatest campfire food ever prepared. They had hamburger, bacon, garlic, potatoes, carrots, red peppers, onions, mushrooms, and green onions.

Following dinner - actually I had to take my dinner with me to this - we had to go on a "5 minute" hike to go to a Stake fireside. It was supposed to start at 8:30pm, but didn't start until 9pm. (Remember that most of the people here are under the age of 6) There was no fire at this fireside, so it was more like a Stake "corral your kids and hope they don't make to much noise why some guys goes on about something that nobody really cares about" side. After the boring guy finished talking tradition.....TRADITION dictated that there be skits. So they handed out trash bags full of props and each ward put on a skit. (Have I made it clear that most of the people were under 6 years old? I have? Ok then.) We did it, but neither Owen or I were happy about it.

"Ok Owen, pretend to be happy."

After the "fireside" we all came back to make smores. The stake was supposed to be providing the materials, but I learned last year to not count on it, so we had brought our own Graham Crackers, Marshmellows, Chocolate bars, and the Renberg secret ingredient, Peanut Butter Cups. If you have never made a smore using peanut butter cup, it is a life changing experiance. You should go to the store right now and buy the materials and make one. No really, I'll wait...

...

...

...

...

...

...

Totally worth it huh? The funny thing about kids under the age of 6 is that they don't care much for smores. Owen just wanted to each a couple of marshmellows and he was good. This worked out in the end because no one knew where the state smore supplies were, so everyone just came and used our stuff. Finally about 10:30 the kids were pretty beat and ready to go to bed. We got them all changed and in their sleeping bags, and then realized that we had 5 kids who were all going to have to go to sleep at exactly the same time, or they would keep waking the others up. They were all soooooo tired, but still incredibly silly.

Owen and Dean in their sleeping bags ready to go to bed.

What happened next made me feel like the greatest parent ever. I laid down on my sleeping bag next to Owen, and he asked me why I wasn't inside my sleeping bag. I explained to him that I still had to go out and clean up the campsite, but that I was going to stay with him until he fell asleep. About 2 minutes later he rolled over and told me, "Papa, you can go clean up the camp, I'm going to sleep," and he rolled back over. I left the tent and helped Jared - who didn't have kids to put to sleep - clean up the camp, all the while listening to the other dads trying to get their kids to sleep. Finally around midnight they emerged, amazed that while they had barely managed to get their kids to sleep, Owen had been out for an hour and a half. When a Renberg is ready to sleep, we sleep!

The next morning the other kids started waking up at 5:30...then 6:00...then 6:30. By 7:00am there was only one child still sleeping. Owen was the first to go to sleep and the last to wake up!

Everyone else is awake but Owen!!

Breakfast was supposed to be provided the next morning, but Owen is a lot like me, in that we don't like breakfast. Before we left I had devised a way to get Owen to eat breakfast.

Yup, I'm cooking Bacon.

While I was cooking bacon the kids found a whiffle ball in the back of the van, and since there are sticks everywhere, a game of baseball ensued.

Owen with his stick waiting his turn to bat.

Once I had the giant plate of bacon finished, I still had to get Owen to sit down for breakfast. The conversation went something like this:

"Owen, it's time for Breakfast."

"That's ok Papa, I don't want breakfast."

"Ok Owen, I guess I will have to eat all this bacon by myself."

Owen throws his stick and is on the bench in about 3/10ths of a second

"Papa, let's eat breakfast!"

Never underestimate the power of Bacon!!!!!

This picture was to prove to Beki that we didn't just eat Bacon. We also had Strawberries, Orange Juice, and a Chocolate muffin.

After Breakfast we went for a little hike, complete with sticks of course!

As we were taking down camp, Jared had some rope, which led to the following conversation:

Jared: "Hey Dean, can I tie you up?"

Dean: "No way!"

Jared: "Hey Owen, can I tie You up?

Owen: "Ok!"

Owen wanted me to untie him, but I made him get out by himself.

The rest of the morning we spent at a little park where the kids got to play on a playground, and I got to play some soccer. After all that playing we were ready to have some lunch and to go home.

Owen and Dean being silly!

Owen owned this sandwich! Yum!

After a long 22 hours, we finally made it home and got showered and cleaned up. I was beat, but obviously Owen was still full of energy, because he took this:

Pretty good camera work if you ask me!