A Dad and His Boy

Ty and Max have been talking about their next campout for about a year.  The time was right and they headed out early September for Max's first backpacking campout experience, their second father/son camping trip.  SO cute.  They packed Max's Batman backpack with some of the essentials, Tyler's with the rest, and headed for the Bark Shanty campsite.  It was about a 1-mile hike in.  To say that Max was excited would be the understatement of the year.  

Tyler told me that at the beginning of the trail he went ahead a bit because it looked kind of overgrown and he wanted to be sure they were on the right path...and he suddenly heard Max screaming.  Thinking Max was being overly dramatic about something, Ty made his way back to check on our boy.  There were bees swarming around his head and he had a sting on his hand, one on his ankle, and another on his head. :(  Poor fella.  But he got some medicine and they forged ahead.  From the looks of it - and by both accounts - they had an awesome time.  Ty is pretty sure he turned Max into a pyro.  Ty went to gather some more firewood and came back to find that Max had added every single piece of firewood they'd already collected.  There is a pretty funny video of the crazy fire boy.

 This (above) is one of my favorite pictures of the trip.  Ty said that he woke up a while before Max and just watched him sleep and felt warm, fatherly feelings toward his sweet boy and thought about how lucky we are that he's our son.

I love these two men in my life.  Kelly will either join them or go on her own campout with Dad next year.  This tradition is pretty awesome, says me.