For the love of fish.....and Grandpas!

This is my Grandpa! I have heard stories several times in my life about how much this man scared me when I was a baby. I was the happiest, smiling kid until he came into the room or I saw him. I would cry and scream until he was gone. No one knows why he scared me so much, but I think that it was his big bushy eyebrows, he has always had big eyebrows. But over the years the man that scared me so much became one of my best friends. We have done so much together. The most memorable being hunting and fishing. He would take us fishing all over the place and he was always patient with us and helped us learn the sport and took the time to teach us how to do things. He would let us reel in a fish every now and then if we weren't catching anything. I was happy just to be outside and I earned my official title as net girl as I was very good with the net. Nothing made him more frustrated than one trip to Devils Lake that we took to catch white bass. I must have caught 15-20 and he didn't have such good luck, despite using the same lure and dropping the hook in the exact same spot. Oh I can tell stories for hours about my grandpa but I wouldn't want to bore any of you.
This last monday Grandpa, Uncle Jeff (from Rapid City, SD) Jamie, Sean and I went fishing for a few hours in the afternoon. It was a beautiful day, the sun was shining and there was a little breeze just enough to keep the bugs away. I had the opportunity to get some great pictures of him fishing. He is 89 years old and his legs are not the best as they give him lots of pain, but he was able to walk down through the rocks to get to this spot. He didn't actually catch anything by himself but Jeff let him reel in 3 northerns.



This is my Aunt Diane. They are visiting from SD this week. I haven't seen her since the wedding and when I wanted to take her pict she was a little reluctant as she didn't think that she looked nice enough. I told her that I looked like crap so don't worry about it. So we went and stood by Grandmas pretty flowers and she hopes that you look at them instead of at her!

Here is uncle Jeff casting with the rod that Sean kind of messed up. But thats ok cause in one cast he was able to fix the tangled up line.

Here he is with the fish that grandpa just reeled in. Looks like he has everything under control!

Or does he~~ the fish got the best of him with one hook still in the fish and one in his pant leg. That was easy to fix tho, at least there wasn't any blood.

If any of my nursing friends happen to read this.....Yes he is sitting on a shower chair and it worked very well for your information!!!!

One last shot of Grandpa casting. I kind of got in trouble by one of my cousins who lives far away for not putting a picture of him on the last blog so here you go Melissa:) Enjoy!
And finally here is a video that I took with my digital camera. It is grandpa being so calm getting his fish to the shore. Not even a smile until the fish was on land flopping around.

Hopefully I can get in a few more fishing and hunting trips in with my Grandpa before he is too weak to enjoy these activities. There is nothing better than spending a day with my Grandpa!

Here we go again!

Here we go again with the fishing experience. This time we had a lot more people. Dad, Jamie, Grandpa (yes my 89 yo Gpa came along and sat through the rain) Sean, Amber, Dave, Angel, Ian, Mandy, Kayla, and Buddy, Elvis and Duke. We had a great time even tho it rained almost the whole time. Only once did we have to run to the vehicles to stay dry from a down pour. Despite the nasty weather we managed to catch 8 fish. It was a great time until I got a hook stuck in my thumb. It bled and bled and It hurt and hurt. For a while my thumb had its own heartbeat!

Here are the 8 fish we caught. This picture was taken right before Dad and Sean cleaned and fillet them. I used the timer on the camera to take this one. Again we had smelly hands all day and night. We are saving all of this fish for a fish fry some day when we can get a bunch of people together. Should be fun!

Saturday date night!

Sean and I decided that we needed to go out on a date last Saturday. We went out to a restaurant called the "Spitfire". It smelled wonderful in there as they slow cook there ribs and bbq over an open fire in the middle of the restaurant. I had a half slab of the ribs and they were mmmm good. Sean had a brisket sandwich that was also tasty. We then rolled our full tummies out of the building and decided to go play mini gold at Thunder Road in Fargo. We played both courses (36 holes) and it took 3 hours as we had some slow people in front of us. It was a beautiful night and we had a great time. Sean brought the camera and snapped a few pics of us on the course. The holes were not all that difficult and I did pretty well on most of them, but Sean prevailed and kicked my butt. The funniest thing was half way through the course I wondered why Seans putter was blue and mine was black. He had taken a kids putter and didn't even know it. It was significantly smaller than mine and we had a good laugh about that one. After golf we went out for dessert at Old Chicago. It was a great time and hope to do it again soon.

Fishing, Family, Fun and FIRE!

OK so this is the end of the day. We had a bon fire at Mom and Dads house after we went fishing. The pics that I put on here ended up back words so we will start at the end of the day instead of the beginning. The above pic is really not that flattering of me. It was taken after my beloved Sean threw my favorite fire-poking stick into the fire. I was not happy with him and he thought it was funny. Sean however looks really cute I think.

Notice said stick in fire. We also put this huge/gigantic old piece of wood on the fire that happended to be covered with ants. Which brought on a bunch of really lame jokes about ants screaming for help and little tiny ant ambulances coming to rescue them and a bunch of other jokes that just don't need to be repeated.......ever again. Notice the look on Jamies face. Not to sure what he was contemplating, maybe he was trying to think of a song to sing as we went around the campfire and sang old silly songs from days gone by. It was alot of fun. We also had fun listening to the coyotes as they were all howling and it sounded like they were really close. Angel and Dave had their 3 dogs with so we had a time trying to keep them in the yard.

I thought that this was a cute pic. We have a calf at the farm who doesn't have a mommy so they give him a bottle twice a day and he is always waiting for them to come. It doesn't take him long to suck down that bottle.

Ok so here is Sean's very first time actually holding a fish. He didn't really like it since it was very slimy and smelly. Yes, we had to hear all about the smell of his hands the rest of the day. At one point it almost made him puke! to which I laughed :) I actually like to hold fish and mess around with things like that. I did grow up in the country and I used to walk around bare foot in the cow pasture so this really didn't bother me. He didn't actually catch any fish that day, but he will try, try again.

Ok so this is the fish that I caught, (the really big one that is hanging down). Dad caught the next one and the stringer was getting so heavy with all of those fish on it. The weather was beautiful and sunny and just enough breeze to keep the may flies away. The water was very cold. Jamie got his lure stuck about 6 feet off of the shore and couldn't bear to cut the line so I volunteered to walk out in the water and get it. The water was up to my knees and it was very chilly!

Here is Jamie with his fish, the first catch of the day! He was very excited and so were we that there were actually fish in the lake! Dad was teaching Sean how to do something with his pole. Sean loves to learn from him as he doesn't really know a lot about fishing and it is probably best if he learns from dad instead of me as I think that dad has more patience! It also makes Dad feel good when he can feel smart....... right Dad:) I love to see the two of them bonding, making a lasting relationship and to actually have some interests in common. Sean doesn't really know a lot about farming so anything that the two of them can do together is great. I hear that the next thing on the agenda is GOPHER hunting.... Sean is exciting to hold a gun!

This is a pic that was taken after we grilled our lunch at Dave and Angels house. Isn't Sean cute in that shirt. He doesn't wear it very often. It makes him fit in well around the farm. The other pic is of Dad taking a nap under the shade of a big tree. He was just lying there listening to the birds and loving nature. I thought it was cute so I quick snapped a picture.

The day went fast and it was fun. We really enjoyed each others company and had a great time catching fish and can't wait to do it again.