gone fishing

One of hubby's nephew loves to fish and has actually taken Big M to fish in NC. So they came with fishing poles and equipment. We took them to a pond 5 minutes away from home to fish. It was under a bridge where I had seen people fish many times. The spot worked well since the bridge provided a shade. The girls and Little M got to chase some ducks. The boys caught a couple of small fish.

Everyone had fun that the next day we wanted to take everyone to a lake 30 minutes away. I thought the girls might enjoy fishing too, so their Papaw bought them their very own fishing poles: K got the pink princess pole, and J got the purple Dora pole. They practiced casting and reeling in the living room.

K on the left, J on the right.

We stopped by a Bass Pro shop to get fishing licenses. While the adults were doing that, Cousin B took the 3 kiddos to the fish pond right outside the building to marvel and feed the huge goldfish. Daddy and I decided to go ahead and buy a 1 year fishing license. Papaw brought a couple of his fishing poles so even I had one. :)

After getting to the lake we had to find a fishing spot. Of course everyone else had gotten the nice spots, I guess, so we had to drive a bit to find a place. We decided on a spot. A rocky spot. The girls got set up to fish and got scared so we packed up and went to look for another one. There was a shady area where the girls (and Daddy) rested on. The sun beating down and the over 100 degree weather zapped everyone's energy.

Only Cousin B caught any fish. The people beside us caught a 35 lb catfish which got us all excited but alas I guess all the fish went home after the mama fish was caught. Cousin B caught a good sized catfish and a few small ones. Then a friendly neighbor gave us another good sized catfish. Someone someone decided  (NOT ME) that we bring home the fish we caught....to eat. I mentioned that I knew how to clean fish so it was left up to me. Can I say though that catfish is one UGLY fish! Here's the rule from now on though, CATCH and RELEASE ONLY!  But I think my elders in the Philippines would be proud of me. I even remembered the trick for making fish not taste or smell so fishy.

Big M was excited about the fish and said that would be his dinner. And so it was. For a picky boy who takes on after his Daddy, I was impressed. The girls chanted "I don't want fish, Mama!" all the way home.

So finally after we couldn't take the heat anymore we drove home. K and Big M were instantly catatonic back there.

gone fishing

Fishing was the big hit of the day on Saturday. The boys (Papaw, cousin B, Daddy, Big Brother) all had fishing rods and introduced Big Brother to his first fish ever. There was a rumor of a rule about baiting your own hook, but somehow I was able to cast without doing so and without a license!

Big Brother had a blast, and best of all no limbs got caught in the hook (Papaw has a story about an a hook on someone's ear when he was young? eww). But I think he probably got a little board waiting for a fish to bite, but he surely wanted to be told when cousin B caught one so he could touch it. Touch meaning poke the fish with one finger.

While the boys were fishing, Nana and I wore the girls and took a walk around the park and watched the geese. I had Thing 2 go with Nana, thinking that if she could see me, she wouldn't mind being carried by someone else. (She suffered from major separation anxiety during this trip.) But it didn't matter, she fussed a little bit, that is until Nana got moving.

We found geese that were hanging around people that were feeding them, so we took a look. The girls were fascinated. There were a couple that thought Thing 2's toes were yummy, but Nana wasn't going to let those pretty little toes get nipped at. Then came Big Brother to check out the geese, too. A lovely family gave us some of their bread to feed the geese, so Big Brother got busy. He thought it was all fun and games until the same one that thought Thing 1's toes looked yummy thought he looked yummy too. "Mommy, it's going to eat me!", he shouted as he hid behind me.

After an hour or so, the humidity was too much so we rested and had drinks. I guess Thing 1 was hungry, she started eating the string of my hat. Daddy found the whole thing amusing and very cute, so here we are. Daddy was present by the way. But I only got a picture of him looking lazy and playing with his cell phone. We don't want the kids looking at this blog 15 years from now thinking their Daddy is lazy, now do we. :-)