Cottonwood Christian Academy: Fall Family Campout with the Cub Scouts

This Fall's Family Camp Out with JSS's Cub Scout Pack was at Mineral Wells State Park and Trailway. As a family, we ALL would highly recommend this State Park to any family seeking adventure, beauty and a memory-making weekend. We spent a glorious 3-day weekend filled with conoeing (4 hours!), rock-climbing, rappelling, biking, walking, running, bouldering, geocaching and having a blast with the other families. Here are some pics, which CANNOT do justice to the weekend.

Our greeters were about 9 deer frolicking through
the 18 campsites we'd just secured for our group.
They didn't even seem alarmed when we got
out of the car to take photos of them!

Sweet ol' spot 65...the second best view,
though perfect for our little fisherman
to cast from all weekend long.
It also made for a most magnificent place to
"park" our conoe while we gathered some
refreshments and tackle before we
took on the rest of the lake.

Here is our castle, just after we erected
it and got the beds all set up inside.
We opted to put the "lid" on it for this
camp out. We couldn't see the stars through
the canopy of trees anyway, so we figured
we'd make the tent as cozy as possible
since the temps dipped low at night.

Just to get the feel of our campsite at night...
we loved it! I am a huge fan of the Christmas
lights. We truly had a ginormous spot, way
bigger than in AR. Sadly, the family with
which we were to share was unable to join us.

Our first night was a rowdy one...
these are evidence as to why when we
awoke the next morning -

In case you hadn't guessed, we had a racoon
visit us - as well as a peccary! The park interpreter
said that the peccaries get REALLY HUGE, which
was confirmed by a friend of ours who heard
noise in the night, got up and shined his light out
to see a "small bear." :)

Where's Waldo time....can you spy JSS?

Lukas, the WEBELOS 2 Den Chief,
showed our boys how to use a
standard compass before we headed
out with a Dad's iPhone (and app)
to go geocaching.

Careful! That's a long drop to
the bottom!

Simon arranged with another Dad
from JSS's den to help the boys
rock climb and rappel, which was
a definite highlight of the weekend!
I think there is nothing the Saroni
family has not attempted and accomplished!

JSS, who has an extreme aversion to heights,
was 2nd to scale the wall of rock and rappel
back down, which was met with thunderous
applause! We are so proud of him!

I love the below pic of his face while Mr. Saroni
is explaining it to the boys...you can almost
see his heart rate increasing!

He was a wee bit shakey, but
SUPER EXCITED with his accomplishment!
So was his Mom! :)

We took some friends for a hike
following their climbs.

Then, it was Dad's turn.
:)

This was AMS all weekend long -
a kid (and Boy Scout) magnet.
She was even invited to the little
girl on the right's birthday party. :)

JSS getting his badges, of which he has now
earned 17 out of the 20 total, and 9 belt loops.
The man presenting took an exaggerated breath
while he was rattling on all of JSS's accomplishments.