Time to Go Fishin'

Addison had been looking forward to going fishing with Grandpa Jeff ever since she learned about fishing by watching an episode of Mickey Mouse Playhouse.  She pretends to fish all the time at home and now that she's in America, Grandpa Jeff got her all set up with her very own fishing pole.  Now my dad is one to splurge and he wanted to get a little princess pole but they cost just as much to buy a nice regular pole.  My brother, sister and I each got a similar pole for our birthday as we grew up but Addison takes the prize for the youngest recipient.

Dad tied on a plastic worm and we cast it out over the deck into the yard and let her reel it in.  She focused pretty hard on turning the crank but then turned it over to me to get it all the way up.  Since fishing in the yard wasn't real enough we decided to go do the real thing. 

We headed off to Cedar Rapids to return Kevin's rental car and thought we would stop at Gander Mountain to pick up a few things while Kevin and I needed to get our day fishing licenses.  As we tried to leave the store, the Expedition didn't want to start.  A kind gentleman helped give us a jump start, but as we were driving home dad noticed that all the gauges went dead and we couldn't close the electric windows we had opened because we didn't want to run the air.  Luckily we were just passing my the town my sister lived in so we stopped there for the boys to work on the truck.  They ended up having to go back into Cedar Rapids to buy a new alternator, battery, and battery connectors.  Nice thing about it all was that I got to hang out with my sister for another half day.  My mom ended up driving over so she could pick me and the boys to get us back to buy stuff for our fishing trip/picnic.  It was a good thing that it all happened today because we were meant to borrow the Expedition for our trip over to Des Moines tomorrow.  Another funny thing was that I ended up running into an high school classmate of mine, Matt Johnson, so it was nice to get to visit with him as well.  What a crazy day so far.

Well when we finally got home we packed up a picnic, the kids, and the boat and headed to Iowa Lake, a place that me and my family used to go ALL the time when I was a kid.  I figured it had been at least 10 years since I had been there last and thought how sad was that.  We found a little site to grill up some brats and hotdogs.  Kevin got the fire started "Jeff Schafbuch" style by using a blow torch (it's my dad's favorite way to start the fires since they've gotten their fireplace).

Kevin, Dad, and Harrison hanging out together on our picnic blanket ...love that tiger print!!!

Bo even got to join us for this trip.  I tell you it's a handful for four adults to take care of three kids....how did my parents do it alone???

Look at my boys...how cute!!!!  After our picnic mom packed up the little boys and brought them home to clean them up and put them to bed.  Dad, Kevin, Addison and I were going to hit the water to see what we could catch.

Addison cast out her line a couple of times but she mostly like seeing the fish and playing around in the boat.  She did really well and stayed very safe which was a big concern of mommy's.  I was the self-proclaimed "game hog" as I got about 7-8 blue gills.  They weren't very big and I wasn't looking to catch anything else but it was fun reeling them in.  

My dad caught a nice little bass, so he caught the biggest fish while I caught the most.  Poor Kevin spent most of the time trying to sort out a huge mess his brand new rod and reel made after he made is second cast.  He got frustrated enough that he started clipping away at the line and this about mortifies my dad to see someone do that.  It was pretty amusing to watch and listen to the two of them.

One other truly amazing thing that I almost forgot about was the sunsets over the water.  Iowa is so beautiful in the summer time and it has been great being back when we could get out and enjoy the outdoors.  It was also great to get our daughter out on the water because it's one of the big things we miss most about our living overseas right now is not getting to go out on our boat with the kids.  It was a great time fishing and it was the first time I had ever been out until dark which was about 10PM.

We ended up with yet more drama before the day was over though.  Dad's motor had just had some repair work done to it but for some reason it still wasn't working right so we had to use the trolling motor to get us back to the dock.  Well, when they when to pull the trolling motor up to trailer the boat the string broke and dad and Kevin had to work on manually unhooking it to pull it up.  In the meantime as we are at the dock, some crazy people were trying to get their boat trailered and this guy has having a really tough time getting his motor into gear.  At one point he had the boat pointing perpendicular to the dock and the motor caught in a gear and he headed straight towards Addison and I sitting in Dad's boat.  Their boat ramped up over the dock and was literally 4 feet from my head.  I was so tired that all I could do was yell, "Hey, what the heck?" and then I saw Kevin dive over to push the guys boat off the dock and he exchanged a few words with the guy.  Then his boat was still acting up and Kevin yanked Addie and I out of the boat.  There were about 15 people around the dock and no one even flinched at what was going on which seemed really weird.  After a bit they finally got their boat out and then dad got his out and as we were ready to leave Kevin told the other people to have a "safe" and enjoyable rest of their evening.  The guy piped up and Kevin reminded him that a little common sense goes a long ways.  Most times I don't like Kevin to get to wordy with people but I was glad he did this time.  The guy hadn't said he was sorry or anything during the whole incident or asked if we were okay...I thought he at least owed us that for scaring us half to death.  The last words I heard the guys say as we drove off were "put yourself in my shoes."  Are you kidding me???  Who were the ones that almost got hit by a boat????  Anyway, it was still a great day of family, fishing and fun and lots of stories to tell.