Vater Kind Zelten

After quite a bit of dreaming and planning, the time was finally here: the Father / Child Camping weekend. Four fathers and sons from Quinn's kindergarten went together to the Fränkische Schweiz near Pottenstein for 2 nights of nature, fun, fire, and camping!

I had some T-Shirts made up for the event, which we wore the whole weekend (and they were pretty dirty after all was said and done).

Emily wanted to get in the action. I'm hoping she can join us next year. As we drove away, she cried like a stuck pig. Man, she was mad that we left without her.

Each of the fathers had some pretty decent equipment, so we were set with the basics ... as well as some luxury items. P.S. the American Flag chairs were not mine...odd seing one of the German fathers unpacking those chairs.

We went on two night hikes with torches. Boys - big and small - love fire.

The view from our tents.

Another great view from our tents. As you can imagine, it took about 5 minutes for the first soccer ball to land in the water.

On Saturday morning, we headed to a nearby ropes course (Kletterwald).

The four boys with their gear.

Quinn on the zip line. All in all, he did a great job, and he showed his climbing capabilities...he just needs to be a few inches taller in order to be able to clip and out himself. But, the fathers were around to help.

Quinn ran around with the camera taking pictures. I still find it amazing what he takes pics of ... somewhat defining what he sees as being important.

In the pic below, I doubt he was trying to take as self portrait...and frankly, I don't know what he was doing. Perhaps he wanted to see what the camera did from the other end when it took pics.

A view of the campground with the sunny skies. While the mornings were cool, we had great, hot, sunny weather.

The boys even had quiet time near the campfire...reading a new book together.

Of course, Eva tried to make sure that Emily had a good time while we were gone...by taking a trip to feed the pigs.

Emily has some great facial features these days...and our little girl isn't so little anymore.

Quinn, I, the other fathers and kids had a great weekend. We kinda spoiled them, but we also spent some great quality AND quantity with our sons. Hopefully, Quinn will begin to love the mountains and nature as much as Eva and I do.

Perhaps he'll always have a soft spot in his heart for camping (as I do).

As a small sidenote: I brought a pillow this time. The last few times I went camping, my neck was killing me the next day. Eva's comment: you're getting old ;-)