This morning as we loaded a tent and sleeping bag into the truck, we realized today will be the first Fathers and Sons Campout Wayne's attending without any of his boys. That's kind of sad. (Technically, this day should have come last year, but the date conflicted with our
family campout over Spring Break.)
So, after loading up his stuff - since he doesn't have any boys to pick up he's heading to the park right after work - I decided to come in and document some of the previous Fathers and Sons Campouts. Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures of those early ones, but the tradition was to start taking the boys once they turned three. This first picture is from a family campout in 1989. I can only imagine that this is what setting up camp looked like (minus one-year-old Brad) when the boys went that year as well.
Here's a fun "matching" picture from 1990. The two youngest would have stayed home with Mom for the Fathers and Sons that year as well.
A couple of years later, Brad would have joined them, but Jeff had to wait another year.
Here's the year Jeff got to go, and I imagine the activity took place just before this picture was taken on the day Steven was born.
One of the more memorable Fathers and Sons for me was Steven's first one. Apparently there were a lot of mosquitoes that year, and even though Dad put repellent on him as soon as they got out of the car, in the five minutes it took to do that poor Steven was bit over 100 times.
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| Family picnic - March 1995 |
Finally I started taking a picture before they left!
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| 1999 |
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| 2000 |
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| 2001 |
And then the boys started growing up and leaving home. Sad.
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| 2002 |
They may not have gone camping with the stake, but we still had them together every once in a while. I love this picture of all my Scouts (taken at Brad's Eagle Court of Honor in 2004).
In 2007 we were down to one father and two sons. I still think they had a great time!
They might have attended the Fathers and Sons the next couple of years, but I guess I'd stopped taking pictures by then. In 2010 it would have been just Steven, but that spring we also got together for a wedding and took another "father and sons" picture (missing Elder Jeff).
Later the next year we took advantage of the opportunity to all get together between Jeff's and Steven's missions to take a few more pictures.
Can you just imagine the fun they had together on these campouts throughout the years? I know on many of them the highlight of the night was setting off dry ice bombs. They'll have to tell you about that themselves, although since they couldn't do it for Fathers and Sons last year,
they shared their tradition with the rest of us on the Fourth of July.
Thank you for being wonderful sons and leaving us with many happy memories of your growing-up years. Have fun making your own memories now!
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