Fishing Fun

Michael likes to go fishing. I've been fishing... I'm not sure if I've ever used a pole. Or if I've been fishing since the age of single digits. And there's fishing here at the ranch, so we all went as a family and with some friends. Ivan thinks it's pretty dang fun to fish. He even understands how to reel it in and when he gets stuck he usually asks for help. I let Michael fish, since he's doing it to catch one and eat it, and I helped Ivan. I would cast for him and let him reel. He got bored after a little while and walked around with Charlotte. Then I got to fish. A couple casts in, and I caught a bass! Woohoo! It was really fun. And weird. Once you catch the fish, what do you do with it? It's too small to keep so you have to put it back. And I've been reading Montana Outdoors, cuz it has amazing pictures in it :) and you should be gentle with the fish to ensure it will survive the catch and release process. And since we could see an alligator hanging out in the far corner of the pond, I thought I should give this guy his best chance. By the way, the name of the pond we're fishing at is Square Hole. Real clever. And the road that the pond is on, it's named Gator Branch, but what do the locals call it? Three House. Did you know there are 4 houses on this road? Who would have guessed.

Charlotte's a natural.

Michael showing Ivan how it's done.

Michael's first fish. I think he caught a couple that night, and more after we went for our walk.

I caught one! Ivan thought it was so cool!

After I got the fish out of the water, I had to hold it. Ew... Ew. But then I could take a picture with it and try to get Ivan to touch it. He was pretty excited to see the result of fishing and was suddenly all interested in it again. By this time Charlotte was pretty upset, probably because no one was paying attention to her. Then I found out the real reason. She had fallen and gotten her hands all dirty in ashes from an old fire and then wiped her eyes with said dirty hands. Silly head. Now her face is all dirty. Then I had the idea to use the pond water to clean her off. What a great idea that was! Now she knew where the water was and mom said it was ok to play in it. Ugh. She got so wet. Then it was Ivan's turn.

Before

After. I don't know how that girl manages to get so dang dirty all the time!

Wil helping Ivan fish. Charlotte just playing in the water. And me, well I'm just standing there looking pregnant. 

The kids were obviously done fishing and getting pretty unruly, so I let Michael and his friend Wil fish a while longer and went for a walk with Wil's wife Jess. I really like Jess. We just think alike. So we took the kids and walked down the road a ways. Charlotte wasn't super interested in walking so Jess and Ivan got much farther than we did before I realized just how far behind we were. By the time we caught up, they disappeared! I did find them, they were visiting with one of the people living on the road there. Well, in a house on the road. They would be in the fourth house on Three House road. Tiffany, who lives there, has a little boy that's Ivan's age and they love each other. They are in the same class at church so Ivan just walked right up and started playing with him no problem. Tiffany has a bunch of chickens and some dogs and rabbits and my kids thought it was so awesome! We stayed and talked and hung out for a while so the guys could fish. They have a slide and a trampoline and Tiffany gave us juice boxes. Ivan was in heaven. Charlotte too! It was really nice to meet more people in the area. I've seen Tiffany and her family around church but we hadn't ever had the chance to meet and talk before. Hopefully this means some play dates in the future!

An alligator just waiting for us to slip and fall into the water. 

Ivan thinking that scaring all the little tiny fish away is great fun.

Isn't it pretty? This is just right across the street from the pond we fished at. 

DolFUN Tours

I have an iphone. I love it! I don't know how I lived for so long without a smart phone. It's especially nice with the kids because I can do a quick check of something without fighting off tiny hands from the computer. And I've been dabbling in the endless world that is the app store. I downloaded (is that the right term?) Groupon and I like looking through it for good deals. Most of the time, well actually all of the time, it's for stuff that I wouldn't normally spend money on, but I'm losing my cool in this tiny house and I need an outlet.... or maybe an outing?

I found a deal that was 75% off a boat tour where you could see dolphins. I realize the dolphins live in the Indiatlantic permanently and I could see them (and have seen them) just driving over the bridge on the way to the ocean. But it looked so fun and I thought the kids would really like it. And there is always this great toss up of who to believe with online reviews. Some people are so opinionated and that can go either direction! I can't tell who's giving an honest opinion without some bias that they were unintentionally personally offended by some off-hand comment. The good reviews outweighed the bad and the medium reviews seemed accurate so I figured it couldn't be that bad, right? So we got pumped up for a 2 hour long boat tour with 2 toddlers. (Sounds less fun when I say it like that.)

Here's the boat we were on.

We got there and the boat was average size for a tour boat. I was afraid it was going to be packed and there isn't assigned seating, so we got there a little early to grab a seat or four. That's when I got nervous. The boat is on the water and we needed to be in our seats to reserve them. And of course the kids are anxious. They wanted to run around and say hi and climb over the railing on the edge and look in the water. I was definitely starting to get stressed out. Thankfully we got THE BEST group of people ever. Most of the people on the boat were part of the same group. And they were old. They made conversation with us and learned our kids names and made our trip so much more fun. I don't know why there's this idea that you have to keep to yourself around strangers because it's the polite thing to do. Maybe everybody else is just as uncomfortable as you are around people they don't know and the thing that would make it all better is to get to know them and not be strangers anymore. Huh, what an idea.

Aw, we're so cute. We sat all the way in the back, hoping to be less of a bother to people.

The tour started out a little slow with the boat backing out of the super crowded marina, then we saw an anhinga! Those birds are so cool. They have a spear like bill that's really sharp and they dive down into the water to catch the fish they eat. And they have this crazy long neck that they keep all kinked up, it's very distinct of this species. (Man, when did I turn into such a bird enthusiast?!)  We got going further and the tour guide, a pretty funny guy, started telling us a bit of history of the area as well as some of the real estate information. I thought that was weird. He must have been a real estate agent or something because he knew the prices of the houses for sale along the drive. Maybe he'd just been asked enough so he looked it up. Who knows. Michael and I very quickly decided we would have much better ways to spend a million dollars than buy an oceanfront house. Silly. He and I think so alike. I sure do like that guy. Then the tour guide took us around the edge of the island and showed us some rich guys house. The guy that lived there was one of the first to inhabit the island and he built this giant green dragon. Then a hurricane came and blew it all down. Why do people live there?

This is the anhinga, look at that neck! And the spear like bill!

This is the wreckage of the giant dragon thing. Cool, huh? Huh? What is it?

We saw some brown pelicans and showed Ivan how they dive in the water. He got so excited! He would say "whoa! that's awesome!" I love how excited he is about everything. When we did start seeing the dolphins I thought Ivan was gonna go overboard trying to look at them. He kept yelling, "here they come!" and "I see the dolphins!" He was thoroughly entertained by searching for the dolphins. He still wandered around the boat a bit. At one point he was so excited to see the dolphins that he just stopped where he was in the aisle and darted straight to the side of the boat, right in front of somebody. The guy was really nice and helped Ivan see over the rail. I don't think Ivan's ever been that friendly before!

Watching the dolphins. I'm not sure how many Charlotte missed before she finally realized what we were all looking at. 

A dolphin! We saw about 5 or 6 and they would just swim around the boat and resurface somewhere else. Pretty entertaining really.

Ivan and his new buddy. He's just 2 rows in front of us, for anyone who was worried about him sitting with a strange old man. That guy was so nice. 

We saw a great blue heron, double crested cormorant, anhinga, a royal tern, and dolphins! I was hoping to see some manatees, but I think it's too late in the summer already.

I don't know what that heron is doing. That sure doesn't look comfortable.

This is a cormorant. You can tell the difference from the anhinga because of the neck and beak. Not near as long a neck on these guys as there is on the anhinga. And the cormorant beak as a hook or a curve at the end instead of being straight on the anhinga. 

Oh yea! We got Ivan some cheap binoculars and he loves them! I'm not sure if he can actually see through them the right way, but he sure wants to be just like his dad and use his binoculars to see better. 

Ha!