navygreen | A fine day for fishing. (Reply)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ERIN!

I hope today has been fan-freaking-tastic for you,

A.J. was out of school today for a teacher inservice day or something. Jack wasn't, though - he still had preschool as regularly scheduled. Since Jack and I often get to have special breakfasts or lunches together, I took the opportunity to spend some time with just A.J. this morning. He picked Vidlak's Family Cafe for breakfast, and he wolfed down a gigantic cinnamon roll with whipped cream, bacon and a scrambled egg, plus 2 glasses of chocolate milk - yikes!

Once we were finished eating, we headed over to Wal*Mart to order the cake for his party on Sunday afternoon. We looked around the Halloween section for a while, trying to come up with a suitable costume idea for him this year (Jack's costume is already decided), but we came up empty. We picked out a present for Noah's birthday party tomorrow afternoon, and we also picked out cards and a rose for my friend Ann's birthday today. The card A.J. picked out was a really hilarious one - it was a pop-up card of a kitten hacking up a hairball, and Ann just laughed and laughed when she opened it. A.J. had drawn a heart on the part of the tongue that popped out, even. :-D

We returned home for a few minutes, and I grabbed the Madagascar® mylar balloons. Then it was time to pick up Jack at school, and after doing so, we headed to Nobbies to drop off the mylars and order the balloons for A.J.'s party. We perused the Halloween costumes there as well, but still came up empty. *sigh* We've still got time, of course, but I'd still like to get this all planned out.

We all ate leftovers for lunch, and then laid down to take a quick nap. I woke up some time after the boys did (when they want to be sneaky, they are really good at being quiet, and I have no clue they're in the living room!), and they had already picked up the living room so that we could go FISHING!

We packed sack lunches for dinner, and then the boys and I headed out to Halleck Park to try out their new fishing equipment from

Heather's mom. They were sooo excited! It was such a gorgeous day, too - absolutely perfect weather.

Gone fishin'
(The boys are carrying their tackle boxes and poles - yes, their poles... you just can't see them because they are both holding them straight out in front of them, having been warned a few thousand times about the sharp ends by Mom!)

Once we spread out our blanket and got our stuff settled, I realized that I had NO CLUE how to assemble a fishing pole. It took me probably half an hour to get both of the boys' poles set up for fishing, and in the meantime, I gave them all the bread we had brought with us to feed the ducks. Of course, it took me longer to right the poles because I had to keep stopping to snap pictures of them feeding the ducks. ;-P

Boys feeding the ducks.

They even fed some ducks that walked up behind them. They continued feeding ducks until all of the bread was gone, and then the ducks promptly lost interest in the boys. Heehee.

Finally, the fishing got underway. We used bits of hotdog for the bait (we already had it in the house), but it probably wasn't the best idea. It took the boys a few tries to learn how to cast their lines properly - Jack actually mastered the technique first.

A.J. makes a clean cast with his line.

The boys never really grasped the waiting part of fishing. They'd toss out their lines and then immediately reel them back in, not even giving a poor fish a chance to have a nibble. After probably a half-hour or so, A.J. lost interest in his own fishing and became enamored with a boy about his age that was fishing just 15 feet away. The boy obviously had more experience, and he was catching little bitty fish every couple of minutes. He eventually stopped fishing as well, and he and A.J. raced across the bridge and all over the park area, having a grand old time.

Jack, on the other hand, was quite a diligent fisherman. He just kept on going, and he seemed more and more pleased with himself with each casting.

Jack's a regular pro now!

Jack casts his line out again.

Jack reels in his line.

Eventually, Jack took a break and had some of his lunch. Once he was satisfied, he went back to fishing... only this time, he parked himself on the rocks next to the sister of A.J.'s new friend, and the two of them fished together for quite some time. Around 6:45pm, I packed everything up and loaded it back into the car, and the boys ran over to the tire structure to play for the last 20 minutes or so.

Jack in the tires.

A.J. in the tires.

At 7:10pm, the boys reluctantly trudged back to the car and we drove home. On the way though, we all talked about how huge the moon was and how gorgeous the sunset was - so full of such pretty colors. As soon as we got home, the boys ran for the swingset and I ran to take a picture of the sky:

Sunset.

These clouds were situated over Heather's old house and her old tree, which was practically glowing itself. So amazing! We played outside until it was finally too dark to see again, and then we came on inside. It was such a great day though, and such a nice start for our "long weekend." :-)

(And if you'd like to see the rest of the pictures - there are SEVERAL more good ones! - you can find them HERE.)