Family Fun!

Whoever said that weekends were for relaxing, hasn't been around my house lately!  Saturday, the boy's Cub Scout troop had a fishing derby at a supposedly stocked pond.  My husband and the twins headed off bright and early expecting to catch lots of fish...no such luck.  My husband didn't think that any of the several hundred scouts attending caught any fish at all.  They ended up weighing some of the few turtles that were caught in order to award prizes.  My boys ended up with just the patch for attending and nothing more.

So...being the nice (and fishing obsessed) daddy he is, Glen took the boys to a pond near our house.  Haley and I joined them and had a nice afternoon catching fish, observing nature and spending time together.  When I got home I realized that I had taken 62 pictures in one afternoon.  Yeah, I like taking pictures!  So, I thought I would share some of the highlights from our day.  First the fishing...

Adam with one of the many fish he caught and released.

Ryan made daddy hold his fish.

Haley and the boys got so completely muddy we had to change clothes and lose the shoes.  YUCK!  While the boys were fishing, Haley and I checked out the local flora and fauna...

Morning glory in bloom.

Great blue heron print in the mud.

Golden rod???

Dragonfly eating some sort of insect.

 

 

Giant dragonfly that was apparently dying.  He let us hold him forever and then eventually died.  We couldn't find anything wrong with him so I'm thinking it was maybe old age?  We took him home for further study.

Isn't he cool?

Ryan made friends with a fuzzy catterpillar.

Red tailed hawk that lives near the pond.

We had a great day, caught lots of fish, saw all kinds of critters, got nice and dirty and slept really good last night!  Its amazing how many different types of bugs and animals make the pond their home.  I don't think I've ever seen so many different types of spiders.  We had a friendly water turtle that followed us around for a time too.  Glen managed to catch a HUGE catfish at one point.  Just as he got it to shore the line broke!  It was a monster fish!  Luckily I saw it too so I can back up his story.  The funny thing was that the line broke with the little orange bobber attached.  So here's this huge fish swimming all over the pond with the line and bobber floating around behind him.  We knew where he was the whole time.  We tried and tried to catch him again, but no luck.  The bobber eventually came loose and we weren't able to see where he was anymore.  Bummer! 

How was your weekend?