Camping, Sort of

Last night I went camping, sort of. It's not really camping when you do it in your backyard. Not for grownups anyway. For little boys it is and that's exactly who I had for company—two little boys named Nolan and Gerret.
Lindsay, as the leader of activities and ecclesiastical education of the girls in our church had organized an activity—or rather the girls organized an activity and Lindsay provided adult supervision with her friend Ashley Nyre and she provided all of the food. I clarified because Lindsay never would have come up with this activity herself: sleeping in the loft of a new barn, pampering one another, a campfire, and celebrating a birthday. That's what their plans were. They were all (7 of them) spending the night on cots and mats in the barn.
My boys and I were there to chop firewood, make a fire, and tend to the fire and breakfast in the morning for them (we'd volunteered). We were not, however, pampering ourselves or sleeping in a barn or doing any celebrating. Instead we had brought along our tent and sleeping bags and blankets and we were spending the night under the stars (we were until it started raining and I had to run at 11 pm and get the rainfly and throw it on the tent). The three of us piled into the tent after we'd got the fire going for them.
It was a bugger to get going. Nolan helped a lot, but the wood was all wet, even what I cut was damp. Finally, after using up all the dryer lint we had, and after only wet papers and boxes to try and help start it, I settled on cheating a little with lighter fluid. That got it going.
So the three of us piled into the tent and cocoa found room at the foot of the tent. So we were two boys, a dada, and a dog stuffed into our little tent. It was awesome and it stayed incredibly toasty, didn't even need a blanket—though my boys did, and Gerret took it upon himself to pee on all those blankets around 5:30am.
It was a beautiful dawn. The dew and fog hung thick around us, blanketing the pond and landing lightly on the grass. We got the fire going again today from coals that were still gloriously warm and then made yummy breakfast for everyone. We enjoyed kayaking and paddle boating before cleaning up and calling it a day. Not much of a campout for the truly devout, but a blessed occasion for a father and his two sons and, of course, my best friend Lindsay.
PS—Nolan took the picture of the fire.