Have You Heard About the Browns?: Owen's First Camping Trip

2 weeks ago Ryan and I took Owen and our little brother (from Big Brothers Big Sisters) camping for the first time. We drove 2.5 hours (1 extra hour due to missing the turn) into rural Missouri and camped at the Johnson Shut-In's State Park. We did tent camping, however it definitely was not "roughing it" camping. There were real bathrooms within walking distance, a concrete slab to park on, a metal fire pit in the ground, a picnic table, and a nice flat mulch pad for our tents. Thanks to many generous families in our ward we were able to borrow all of the came necessities. We set up 2 tents but each was so small that we put a pack-n-play in one for Owen (if he slept with us, no one would sleep), and one for our little brother, and Ryan and I opted to "sleep out under the stars". It was my first time doing so, but it was quite nice--though our pillows and blankets were wet on top by the morning because of all the dew. It's good for my soul to get out of the city and be a part of nature every couple of months and this trip was just that!

In the morning we went to the Shut-In's, a shallow river that runs through a patch of rocks which make pools and rock slides to play in and rocks to climb over. It was so much fun! Owen loved it too. This is the perfect place to take young adventurous kids!!!

As sad as this sounds....I'm pretty sure it was the first time my child has ever seen/noticed the stars! We live in the middle of the city and there are way too many lights to be able to see the stars at night, and he was way to young to notice or care last summer when we were at the beach. Once they started coming out he immediately pointed to them and made some pretty excited sounds. He loved it. Tonight he saw the moon at dusk....very cool.
I wish I had more pictures of our trip, but we were so worried about getting the fire going, heating up the yummy dinner I made the night before and getting the tents set up before the sun went down that I forgot to take pictures. BUT.....I did take pictures of he most important aspect of camping.......