Wednesday, March 31, 2010

We spent the first day of Spring fishing!

I bought my fishing license at work on March 16th, because I knew that as soon as it warmed up Mike would be eager to go fishing. Luckily I was not scheduled to work on Saturday (3-20), it was sunny and warm (in the low sixties) so we decided to spend the first day of Spring fishing at Prairie Oaks. We packed up the kids and the fishing gear and headed to Anderson's to get Mike's fishing license. We also grabbed a five dollar pizza at Little Caesars for a quick lunch on the run. Nothing worse than going fishing on an empty stomach. Especially with kids in tow.


Our first stop was at our old hangout over by the creek. We didn't have any luck..not a bite not a nibble....nothing at all. It was a little windy and it was blowing our way so we got a lot of practice casting out.







After fishing for a while without any luck...not even a nibble, the kids made their own fun by making boats out of leaves and sticks and launching them down the stream that flows into the Darby.




Megan and I hanging out on the foot bridge that goes across the creek. After a while we headed over to the "dog pond" and the only thing we caught there were some sticks and weeds.



Mike even had the girls cast into the "kid's pond" over by the parking lot and they still didn't catch anything.
Megan drew a cute fish picture with some art supplies from her backpack. I guess she was "visualizing" her catch of the day.



Around 5 o'clock we packed up and headed around the bend to "Beaver Pond" . This was the first place that we fished with Dave and Jie last year.
The girls wanted to rest in the Explorer for a bit, so Mike has some quiet time to fish by himself. After snacking and reading and resting in the car the girls wanted to go see if their dad was having any luck. Mike had just caught his second fish when we got there with the camera. This peaked the girls interest so I went back to the car and got the rest of our fishing poles. We ended up fishing until it got dark, it was almost 8 p.m. when we pulled out of the parking lot and headed to Steak and Shake for a yummy late dinner.




Paige was our "Official Fish Recorder". She made up a new chart to record our catch. She writes down the date, type of fish, size (she insisted on measuring each fish). if it was kept or released and who reeled it in.
She said she's going to design new fishing badges for the 2010 season.



This was my only keeper of the night a 10 inch Crappie. Of course Mike had to catch his big brother (it was a half inch bigger than mine).




Paige was also the photographer for the last part of the day. I guess that is why I am in so many of the pictures...and they are not arm length self portraits.





Megan caught a few fish and this decent sized Blue Gil.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

The days of March are flying by...getting longer, a little warmer and much busier. I have a ton of pictures to share so I will try and get them posted as time permits.



These first pictures are from March 14th, Joe Boxers 10th birthday celebration. Paige and Megan had not seen Joe since before his big back surgery in February. So it was important for them to see that he is recovering nicely and he's the same ol Joe, but with a slightly weaker back end. He started water therapy a few weeks ago and he is getting stronger each week.



Joe enjoyed all of the attention and the doggy treat cake. We enjoyed some scrumptious brownie cupcakes with rich chocolate frosting and fresh strawberries that Deb had whipped up.

Tuesday, March 09, 2010

Here are some random pictures from February that never made it onto my blog....enjoy!

Megan and I enjoying a quick dinner at Pei Wei. Paige and Megan enjoy the honey chicken and they love the brown rice. Oh and chopsticks are always fun too!





The boys next door. Evan is 10 months now and thinking about walking. Jake is 3..as you can tell by his fingers!



A nice picture of Aunt Deb and Joe Boxer.
I took the icicle pictures at Deb and Buds.



Paige being silly at Steak and Shake. The girls love these old cars, they put their stuffed animals in them. They also love the milkshakes! We went there after Megan's singing program at school one night.


Megan with some of her 3rd grade buddies after their singing show at the school. From left , Haley, Meghan, Abigail and Megan.


We also ran into Cameron in the hall too...Megan's B.F.F.



Here are some of the snowmen that were in our neighborhood during the last big snow. We referred to the one above as "The Wedding Cake Snowman". Give it a click to enlarge. It's pretty clever.


I think the one above looks like a princess version of "Mr. Bill".
This one below looks like Troy Polamalu of the Pittsburgh Steelers.


Hopefully this will be the last of the snowmen...for this season! As Paige said on Sunday when we had a high of 42 degrees "Forty's the new eighty!".