Headlamps and Glow Sticks

For Christmas we bought the boys headlamps! Best stocking stuffers we've done in a long time. I think I will stitch their names in the bands so we can distinguish between the two. They've mostly been using them for looking at books after lights out but we were able to finally use them for something more this weekend. We went to Black Dragon in the San Rafael Swell. It's a beautiful deep slot canyon that runs for miles. It has ancient drawings and lot's of different mineral deposits. Damon took us into a deep cave, located in the canyon, that he had explored earlier last summer. The boys were so excited to go that they put their headlamps on a good two hours before we got there. As we entered the cave they were a bit timid, but once we were inside they were wide eyed! It seemed they were entranced more by the ray of light coming from their lamps, than the cave itself, however. Corbin was trying to grab the particles of dust floating through the beam of light. We started chanting, "Spiders and bats, bats and spiders" A little line from our favorite Little Einsteins movie. They had to go to the deepest darkest part of the cave before we retreated. I could tell their own personal lights made them feel like little adventurers.
Glow sticks are another favorite magic item for us when camping. Damon took the boys on a father and sons camp out with some other friends. One of the dads broke out a handful of glowsticks and automatically he was the man of the hour. Since then they've become a neccesity on all camp-outs that provide hours of fun for the kids and a comforting glow during the dark night.