Dominic’s first trip to Lake Mead

Friday night and Saturday morning Dominic and I attended our ward’s annual father and son’s campout in commemoration of the restoration of the Aaronic Priesthood to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery in May 1829.

We visit various campsites around Southern Nevada but usually end up at Lake Mead every other year.

Mark and Jared and Dominic and I drove out to the lake Friday night around 7 p.m., caught an 8 p.m. boat ride to our group’s campsite at Callville Bay, enjoyed a terrific dutch oven dinner (you should have seen the 6-foot long, 2-foot tall, 18” wide, $800 custom Dutch ovens; two of them), then pitched our tent and pretended to get some good sleep.

Dominic was so wound up that even though we were in the tent for the night by 10:30 or so, I don’t believe he calmed down and fell asleep until midnight. One of the boys at the campout asked me why I didn’t bring some Benadryl to help Dominic fall asleep. I figured he’d be very tired and would fall right off to sleep . . . boy was I wrong.

Saturday morning Dominic and I donned our swim suits and took a jet ski out for a 30-minute or so ride. That was very fun. Dominic loved it.

Then we had a hot breakfast of eggs, hash browns and bacon, plus some cold cereal.

After breakfast we headed out on a boat for some tubing. I won the award for scaring my kid to death. We were just passed the no-wake zone and the boat sped up a bit. I wasn’t paying attention to the waves coming in to the tube and the front end managed to be submerged, washing Dominic and I off the inner tube. I grabbed his life jacket and held him above the water while I doggie paddled until we managed to catch-up to the tube.

Then the little kids jumped in the boat and I got to ride on the tube with one of the teenagers in the ward. We each had our own tube. We tried switching tubes while we were being pulled. He jumped over me and onto my tube and I managed to roll onto his tube but lost my grip and ended up in the water. Me ending up in the water was a regular occurrence Saturday morning.

I also won the award for catching the most air of the day. The waves were just right and I ended up making two airborne trips. They said I was about five and seven feet up in the air. All I know is both times I landed I bit my lip: first my lower lip, then my upper lip. I still have a fat lip that’s bloody on the inside. I also have scabs on my elbows and knees from my skin rubbing on the fabric cover of the tube.

I was reminded that I’m not a teenager anymore. It was very fun, but I was pretty sore Sunday; just a little sore today.

Sunday morning, after my early meeting, I came home to Dominic throwing up. So, he and I ended up staying home from church. By afternoon though he was feeling better and was able to keep down his lunch.

We enjoyed dinner at with Coglianese’s at Amber’s dad’s home a few miles away. It turns out, Jared was throwing up on Sunday too. So the two boys must have caught some kind of bug.

At any rate, Dominic and I had a good father and son’s outing, even if it was followed by illness and sore muscles.

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