my boy and his best friend

I have a cousin who is just two weeks older than Nicholas.

Sammy is the reason Nicholas had so. much. fun. while we were camping.

These two boys are inseparable, always get along, and are just plain cute.

Sammy gives Nicholas some bravery (which my tender boy sure needs at times!) and Nicholas plays leader and they play and play and play.

We shared a campsite with my aunt and uncle last week, and these two boys hardly even stopped playing long enough to eat.

 You have no idea what it means to have Nicholas so willing to give me a real smile for the camera.  (Teresa and Heidi, you really do know what it means.) 
He did this readily every single time I turned my lens towards him the entire week.
He was having the time of his life.  

They insisted on holding hands while we walked around the lake.

 Tonka trucks are a long-standing tradition for the Murray family camping trip.  The kids sit in the back and slide down the hills in them. Crazy, dusty, fast, and maybe a little dangerous.
Sammy and Nicholas pushed those trucks around hour after hour after hour, filling them up with dirt and rocks and pinecones and dumping them out somewhere else.  

Only, Nicholas, because he is Kent's son,
was convinced they were actually called "taco trucks."
Of course.

They also spent equal time pulling toy boats with strings around in the dirt, pretending to shoot off fireworks by throwing pinecones into the air, making their own "parades" around the campsites and requiring us to throw pretend candy at them,
riding the bike (and taking turns with no problem at all!) and hunting for "mice" (chipmunks).

A conversation from the first day we were there:

The two boys ran up the hillside in the weeds, then came back very excited.

"We saw a mouse!  We found a mouse!"
Sammy:  "It was gray!"
Nicholas: "It was purple!"
Sammy: "It had a tail."
Nicholas: "It had a bandaid."

Nicholas: (with his fists in the air) "I'M SO LUCKY!!!"

I think I know which boy I'll be listening to when they come to report some trouble-making they've done...Nicholas just didn't quite get those facts straight.

Although, I didn't see the squirrel/mouse, so who knows?