Fall Traditions: Hiking and Fishing

Fall is my favorite season.   There's just something about the mild weather and the vibrant colors that makes me incredibly happy.  I love Spring too, but sometimes it gets too wrapped up in the winter for my taste and, given the choice, I'd choose the fall anytime!  My idea of a perfect autumn day is a long hike on a lovely day, followed by some great food.  The other Saturday, Glen was busy, the weather was gorgeous, and I decided to pack a bag with food and water and just walk along the Murdock Trail without a distance in mind.   I made it 10 miles and loved every minute of it!   Then I went home, ate some good food, worked on the program, and I decided that it  was *almost* a perfect day.  The only thing that would have made it better is if Glen had been able to come along too.   :)

So, that's MY idea of a perfect autumn day, and now here's a glimpse of what Glen's ideal day would be.    For the past six autumns, Glen has taken a Saturday away from home and rented a boat to embark on a day long fishing excursion on Strawberry Reservoir.   No, your math isn't off...this tradition actually began before we even lived in Utah, but was embraced with even more enthusiasm once we did!    Usually Adam and/or Spence join the adventure, along with his brother, Alex, and a couple of his boys, but this year, after several turned down invitations, it ended up only being Glen and Adam.    One of the downfalls of only having the two of them there, meant that it was sometimes difficult to manage the boat and fishing at the same, but together they still managed   to catch about 20 fish.   It was a beautiful day and they both came home feeling like it had been a successful day on the water. 

They brought home a few fish to eat and later that evening, Glen cleaned them up before storing them until we were ready to cook them.    As you probably know, cleaning a fish is not a pretty sight.  It involves chopping off the head and tail, splitting the fish in half, and cleaning out the guts.   I don't even like watching, but my little 6-year-old nephew, Jesus, was FASCINATED.  At first, I tried to keep him away, so as not to disturb him, but after a while I realized that he was very much viewing the whole process like a little scientist and I opted to just let him observe and ask all the questions he wanted.  It was very cute to see how inquisitive (and very much not disturbed) he was. 

In a few more years, Glen may even have a new fishing buddy to join him on his autumn excursions! 
 
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May the 4th Be With You!

I just thought I'd take this opportunity and say, "May the 4th be with you!" to all of you dear blog readers!     

And since Lucie might just make for the cutest "May the 4th" greeting ever, I think I shall inundate you with lots of pictures of our favorite {and only} grandbaby! 

Glen just spent the last week there and had an absolute blast getting to play with sweet Lucie all week while Mommy and Daddy went to work! 

He was basically Lucie's servant for the week and whatever Lucie wanted, Lucie got.  She wanted to go on a walk; Papa would take her on a walk.

  She wanted to read books; they would read books.

She wanted to see the animals;  they went to the zoo. 

Lucie wanted to try out a cheesy new hair-do; no problem!

Lucie wanted ice cream..er....actually that might have been Papa wanted ice cream, so Lucie got ice cream too!  

He  brought Cam and Lucie fishing....

and taught Lucie how to say, "fish".

It's hard to say who was more enamored at the end of the week..Glen or Lucie!   This is an actual picture of  Lucie when they dropped Glen off at the airport.  She'd been happy up until the moment when she realized Papa was walking away from them.   Glen is happy to be home, but felt the same way about leaving them behind.    

How did I celebrate my May the 4th?   I just bought Ellie and I tickets to visit Lucie {and her parents} next month!  Yay! 

For the record {in case it wasn't abundantly obvious}, I am rather fond of this grandparenting time of life. 💗

Alaska: Part 5

Letter to Cami: June 18, 2017

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Hi, Sweetie!

How's your week been? We can't wait to hear all about it! We are having a great time here in Alaska, but are starting to be ready to head home (on Monday evening).

Here are a few more random pictures for you, since I'm not sure if you can see the shared photos yet.

We've seen several moose while we've been here! No bears thank goodness though!

Some salmon swimming upstream at Russian Falls:

We are going to do an FHE lesson on life lessons we can learn from salmons.

At Russian Falls!

Lovely Homer, Alaska!

Some of the best food we've had on our whole trip was at this restaurant in Homer, Alaska!

We took a little hike down to the beach today near Homer. Gorgeous!

Dad and the boys caught some halibut today

and then cooked it up for dinner.

We miss you and love you! Hope you're having an amazing week!

Love,
Mom
Sent from my iPhone

Alaska: part 4

Letter to Cami:  June 19, 2017

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Hi, Sweetie!

Good morning!!! It's crazy that I'm writing this on Sunday night and you're already up for the day on Monday, since it's a 10-hour time difference from France to Alaska! And it's even weirder that it's 10:30pm here and still bright as day outside here. So, How was life this week? Are you back up and running with an iPad again? I haven't been sharing too many photos this week, because I've been unsure as to whether you can receive them or not.

We are winding down on our trip to Alaska and we leave Monday evening. We've taken a hike almost every day, seen lots of gorgeous scenery, and tonight finally saw a bear in the wild!!!! 🐻

It was across the river from us catching fish (while we were fishing on the other side), so we got to enjoy the view with zero chances of danger. In other words, it was absolutely perfect and I think it capped off an already cool vacation!

Today we went to church in Soldotna and had an interesting experience.

 

The bishopric member who was conducting and one of the speakers just seemed totally depressed. They spoke emotionlessly and completely without smiling. It was actually very sad. Then the husband of the one speaker got up and talked about how having joy is about choosing the right. I wanted to smack him. His wife was clearly depressed and if she is doing something wrong to cause the depression, being called out on it over the pulpit is completely inappropriate. And if she is depressed for whatever other reason, then being told that all she has to do is "be better" is shallow and stupid. Anyway, it did make me think that although Alaska is amazing to visit, I imagine living here is hard.

Speaking of hard, we went on another cool hike today. It wasn't near as hard as PooPoo point or Mount Marathon, but it was challenging enough to make Spence and Ellie complain. The view at the top was stunning!

We've had a wonderful time in general here in Alaska. Yesterday was a bit of a dud with dad getting a speeding ticket and super seasick on his fishing charter, which cut the day way short, but it ended up being an okay day in the end.

Here's a little update on everyone:

Dad-other than the speeding ticket and extreme seasickness, he's been having a a great time on this trip. He caught a bunch of halibut (on the boat when he got sick), but otherwise hasn't caught anything, so that's a bit of a disappointment.

 

 The halibut is good though!  

Me-I've loved it here, but am ready to go home now. I love traveling in general, but start feeling a bit disjointed when I'm not busy. I'm ready to cook dinner again, do some work on the house, and get ready for YW camp! I also need to whip myself back into gear with eating healthier and running. We did lots of hiking, but I missed my running days (usually 2 days a week).

Spence-I think he's really enjoyed this trip overall. He hasn't loved all of our hiking, but he's tolerated it reasonably well. I really, really, really hope that he'll go home and get a job and start getting ready to go back to school.

Emma-Emma has seemed to enjoy the trip too. She's always the first to bed and first to wake up, out front on all the hikes, and has still been sticking with her super healthy eating.

Adam-Alaska is right up Adam's alley. He loves the outdoors, loves hiking, loves fishing, etc. I think that out of all you kids, he thoroughly enjoys it the most. I envision him being a big outdoorsy guy when he's grown up. He also has been teasing Ellie too much and collecting his keychains.

Ellie- Alaska is absolutely NOT up Ellie's alley. All this hiking and outdoors time seems to annoy her and we've had to do more than a bit of dragging and cajoling her on some of our hikes. Spencer's complaining doesn't help matters with her, but seems to give her license to complain more. Her appetite has been ravenous lately and I imagine that she's due for a big growth spurt soon. She's currently reading Divergent and talks about it all the time. Literally.

Well, we love you and can't wait to hear all about your week!

Love,
Mom ❤️

Sent from my iPhone

Every Fish's Worst Nightmare

Meet Adam.

You may know him as the eleven-year-old Lego building, bird-watching, appliance deconstructing, math whiz kid... 

but did you also know that with his dad's help that he is turning into quite the avid fisherman as well? 

Last year Adam's scout troop signed up for a fishing derby.   Glen's always loved to fish and the idea of a contest got him and Adam rather excited.   Despite never having participated in an event like that  before, they ended up finishing 6th place (out of over 100 participants) overall!    

They had such a good time and were tantalized by their strong finish, so Glen immediately marked the 2014 fishing derbies on his calendar and started taking the kids fishing more often!   The kids loved the fun outdoor activity and were immediately hooked (pun totally intended) on the newfound ways to spend  beautiful evenings!   We usually end up fishing at Burke Lake or Lake Fairfax, but a few weeks ago we even went out towards Luray and fished in the Shenandoah (where the above pictures were taken) just to practice for the derby! 

Then on Saturday morning while Emma and I were still at girls' camp, Adam, Ellie, and Glen headed to the lake early and staked out their spot for the July 2014 Derby.    34 fish later (mostly bluegill), Adam was named grand champion of the day (and Ellie was 41st)!    

They were a tiny bit disappointed that the grand prize wasn't an all-expense paid fishing trip in the Chesapeake Bay like it was last year, but he got over $500 worth of fishing gear and lures, so no one at our house is complaining!  

Way to go, Adam!  

Surprise Fish and Advice

If you ever need a great idea, our little Ellie is the one to call.  Her mind naturally thinks very creatively and it is an unusual day that she does not have a grand idea she's cooking up!  She excitedly plans menus, cooks up plans to start her own preschool, plans her birthday parties months in advance, eagerly offers to teach FHE lessons on a weekly basis, and happily dispenses advice to anyone who may find themselves needing wisdom.

Most recently, Ellie got the brilliant idea that Adam needed a fish for his birthday and she was going to be the one to give it to him.  I wasn't so sure how I felt about the whole new pet thing, but she was insistent and Glen was enamored enough with her enthusiasm that he happily took her to the pet store the night before his birthday to help her gift-giving dream come true.

She woke Adam up early on the morning of his birthday and led him down the hall to his first birthday present of the day...

Luckily Adam was as excited to have a fish as Ellie was to give it and Adam has turned out to be quite the fish guardian.  For instance, when the floor company came last week to install the hardwoods in our kitchen, he became quite worried that the vibrations of the work would disturb his fish, so he has transplanted it to a quieter locale until the kitchen work is done.  Additionally, when he is going to be out of the house during his fish's feeding time, he makes sure to assign someone to fish-sit him while he is away.  

Speaking of enthusiasm, Adam's birthday cake was planned for weeks in advance by a certain sibling of his.  It didn't turn out quite the way the cake maker hoped (I'm not allowed to mention any names), but despite its appearances, I do have to say that it was quite tasty.  I'm a lucky, albeit chunky, mom to have such good cooks in the house. 

Now, I hate to brag too much, but Ellie certainly is showing some predilection to becoming an advice columnist someday,  so if any of you seem to find yourself lacking wisdom in any area of your life, I invite you to leave a comment here on the blog or on Facebook with a question for Ellie.  She will answer the questions for you in a future "Dear Ellie," style blogpost.

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