When life gives you 100 degree temps and severe drought conditions.....have a camp out?

Early Saturday morning, my soon-to-be six year old little boy decided he wanted to have a camp out that night. "A what?" I said. "You want to camp out in this heat? It's the middle of summer! Let's wait until fall when it's cooler, OK? " He looked less than thrilled, and as I started hearing the song, "every party has a pooper that's why we invited you!" in my head, I rethought my answer. Why put off until tomorrow what you can do today, right? Besides, if I put it off, we all know their ain't no camp-out happening over here. As my friend so eloquently put it, the act of following through means so much.

So, since we own zero camping supplies, we set out to Wallyworld and purchased a modest tent. Great White Hunter was pretty jazzed at this idea too, and my men spent a better portion of their Saturday setting up "camp."

According to my son, what's a camp-out if you can't include a cook-out, and he wanted nothing to do with our gas grill. Since we're in the midst of one of the worst droughts in Texas history, we nixed the idea of an authentic camp fire. Instead, we drug out our old fire pit, cleaned it up a bit and got it ready for cooking. We cooked the appropriate camping food: burgers, hot dogs and corn on the cob. Well, sort of. Mommy and Daddy enjoyed buffalo burgers with cotija cheese, guacamole and cilantro lime salsa, and grilled corn with ancho chili butter. I found these new buns today, which I LOVE because they're super thin so you don't feel like you're getting a mouthful of bread with your burger. (Orowheat Sandwich Thins, 100% Whole Wheat)

Grilling on our old fire pit produced very earthy, smokey burgers that were so good. A few roasted marshmallows for dessert and our meal was complete.

As soon as the sun set, a story was read and we were off to bed. OK, I'll admit that after a few hours, my back had enough camping so I snuck into the house and climbed into my bed (Daddy and son spent the entire night in the tent).

This morning when I asked my little camper how he liked his night in the tent, well, the look on his face said it all. What's the moral of my story? Never put off tomorrow what you can do today, and take some lessons from your kids every now and then. It seems they really do know how find pleasure in the simple things.