Men and Boys Campout

     Ok, its that time of year again. Half the men in the church strap on guns and go camp in the wild wastes of the desert, braving coyotes, scorpions, and rattlesnakes, just for the sake of learning more about God and sitting 'round the campfire cracking jokes, telling stories, and sharing testimonies with fellow brothers in arms. Needless to say, it was GREAT. I was dubbed chef this year by my parents, so I basically spent almost all my time under the kitchen tent rustling up some version of meals. In the rest of my time, I sword-fought teams of marauders twice my number, I talked (a LOT, what else do you do when you're cooking and have nothing else to do?) and from about 9:00 until 11:30, I sat up around the fire or over by the lantern in the kitchen, breaking plastic knives trying to chip off burned beans from the bottom of the camp pot. Josie said the count reached seven, and each knife broke at least three times, or more. :) Fun stuff!
     Everybody was carrying a gun, well at least almost everybody. and those who weren't carrying guns and were under the age of 13 were ALL carrying capguns, airsoft guns, old play flint-locks, or high-impact training swords. Needless to say, this was the safest set of campers ever! (Churchgoer's too for that matter, how's that for counter-cultural...)  Saturday morning after breakfast we all took a hike around the hills, and had a small devotional out on the top of a big old lava flow, all perched around on rocks, listening to Pastor cast a vision for us for the future. After returning back to camp and stuffing down a few sandwiches and chips, we retreated to the men and boys of Heritage's favorite pastime: shooting. :) We must have blasted off over 1000 rounds of ammunition, its rather hard to say how much .... but we enjoyed it.

     So, needless to say, I'm TIRED and so was the rest of our crew. Kaleb and Noah were sacked out in the car before we were even halfway home, and Josie joined them for the last fifteen minutes of the ride, and I'm not sure I blame them. I'm about ready to crash myself. :) 

The "kitchen"

The hike, with young and old alike armed and ready. 

Guns...

More guns.....
(sorry about the camera strap :( )

and more guns.....

The view from the hill

Pastor casting the vision

Yours truly, armed as well

The crowd on the hill

Mr. Melton at the range, firing Mr. Ciampi's .223 ADS (this is a NICE gun, I shot it as well)

Mr. Lindley firing his .357 Colt King Cobra (AWESOME pistol, I shot that as well and came as close as a Christian can to jealousy :) )