Roughing It

This weekend Preston and Steve accompanied Brian and William Tanner to their hunting camp about an hour outside of Birmingham.  They left Friday after work, and hit the grocery store on the way there.  Once they got there, they got the quick tour, and met some of the other guys and their children that were there as well.  Preston learned how to drive William's 4-wheeler and was instantly in heaven.

Supposedly the hunting camp is set up with small trailers along both sides of the road with a camp fire at the main cabin, and a large trail surrounding it where the kids can ride 4-wheelers and dirt bikes.  Since all of the riding toys have lights on them, the boys did this for hours that night.  The guys finally made the boys go to sleep around 11pm, but Steve and Brian stayed up WAY too late solving the world's problems.

You can tell he is smiling by his eyes!

Boys loved carrying the guns to the blind!

Sunset on Friday night

The next morning, they woke up the boys and got dressed to hunt.  Since it was a little cooler, they drove out to the blind where they sat for hours.  Sadly they didn't see anything but a few turkeys (which they couldn't shoot).  They came back for lunch and rested some before going back out later that afternoon.  During the down time, they made the boys chop some firewood. They also allowed them to shoot bb and pellet guns.  Once again, they enjoyed riding the 4-wheelers.

Round two of hunting wasn't any better than the first, but Preston didn't seem to mind.  He really just enjoyed hanging with the boys.  That evening, they did more of the same, and stayed up until 11pm.

Sunday morning, they were all exhausted after two late nights, but the guys got up with the alarm.  Since the boys were sleeping hard, they just enjoyed their coffee before waking them up.  They road the 4-wheelers out to the blind that morning and saw a doe and buck on their way, but they were too far away to shoot.  They waited patiently for more deer to show up, but none did.  During the wait, Preston took a nap (he doesn't sit still for long doing nothing without sleeping).

Brian finally called it, but set up a couple targets and taught Pres how to shoot the gun using the scope.  This was his first time actually firing a real gun, so he wanted him to have some instruction.  I don't know if it was beginner's luck, but he blew apart the can on his first try, and barely missed it on his second try.

They decided to leave on a high note, and left after they packed up everything.  Pres was on a high all afternoon from his experience, and claimed it was the "best weekend ever."  He said he would totally quit basketball if Steve would join the camp and take him every weekend!  He absolutely LOVED it, and his time with the Tanners.