Men in Trees (or suburban fences)

Jason and Nate had their first official "guys weekend" this weekend--they went camping! We started with a trial run in the backyard before moving on to the wild. First, the boys set up the red tent--Nate loved using the mallet to pound in the stakes. After they set up camp, Jason played campfire songs on the guitar around the "campfire" (charcoal grill) and Nate played his Little Tikes piano. Amelia and I were invited out to the patio for dinner--hotdogs on the grill, beans and smores! Nate roasted his own marshmallow over the coals. After dinner and clean up, it was almost dark so the boys set off on their scavenger hunt. Nate broke our camera earlier this week, so I don't have any photos of the campsite, but I took a picture of the scavenger list at a later date to jog our memory. Jason reported that Nate thought walking through the neighborhood in the dark with a flashlight, a list and a collection bag was pretty darn cool. BTW, his "something funny" was a fuzzy piece of blue pillow stuffing or insulation (some sort of trash).

Upon their return, I set up an "animal find." I took Nate's plastic animals (I tried to stick with the one's found in nature--like the wolf, deer, spider, snake, etc.) and hid them around the yard. Nate was told was there were 10 wild animals hiding in the backyard. He had to use his flashlight to find them (like an Easter egg hunt). Nate enjoyed this game so much, Jason had to hide the animals for about 5 more iterations. The boys finally got their jammies on, then read some "camping bedtime books" ("Berenstain Bears Get Lost in a Cave", "Richard Scary: The Camp Out" "Mercer Mayer: Just Me and My Dad"). After they shut the lights out, they looked at teh stars and told spooky stories. I told Jason the guidelines for 3-year-olds are usually "keep it benign, don't leave too much to the imagination, don't talk about death, etc. So, the next morning I find out Jason story went something like this...these people went somewhere they shouldn't have and they died, so now they haunt this place and scare the people away so they don't make the same mistake. They're nice ghosts!" We'll see how long before the nightmares kick in! It actually didn't seem to phase Nate. He ended up sleeping through the night and waking up past 7:00!

As a perfect cap to the weekend, Jason took Nate on his errand to Home Depot Saturday morning. Not only did Nate get to jump on and off the tractors, but they were conducting a Kid's Project Workshop while they were there--a fire truck! Jason got to help Nate assemble the pre-cut firetruck pieces with a real hammer & nails. The truck even came with a whistle and Nate got to keep his personalized Home Depot apron! Nate thought he was quite the big boy!

I think both boys had a blast. I see more guy weekends in the future!