Fishing at Grindstone lake

We took some time and went fishing....in New Mexico....in the snow...and 50mph winds!! It was a bit cold. (Just a lot!!)

But when you see a happy face like this...

Makes it all worth it!!! Bee did the whole thing BY himself...a proud little boy!

*Note the snow across the lake*

This was the grumpy group. Snacks and sippy cups, good for an hour. And then the meltdown happened. We spent the rest of the time in the warm truck, watching Mr. Incredible.

Fishing

These are the four fish Chris caught yesterday.

We got up and I decided we needed to do SOMETHING. Anything I said.

Chris picks fishing. So we drove up to Inn at the Mountain of Gods (Ruidoso) and got a permit.

This is what the resort looks like. It's a 6 story building with a 3 story fountain. It has a casino, and a large enough conference center to hold concerts like Blake Shelton, and a golf course that the pros play on. It's pretty nice stuff.

Oh yeah, did I mention there was snow on the ground? It was like fishing in Alaska all over again!

We were fishing over next to that building but Chris wasn't getting anything. So we decided to hike around the lake.

So Bee, Chris, Glo bug in his car seat and I picked up everything and hiked around the lake. About a mile and half later, (45 minutes ha ha) Chris found the perfect spot. He caught 3 fish in 15 minutes.

Then his mean wife said it was 5pm and we had to go. (It was windy, our hands were frozen and the sun was going to set in 30 minutes.) So we hoofed it back to the truck.

Bee cried the whole way back because he kept tripping and his hands were frozen popsicles. Oh well...it was a family adventure, for sure.

I get the Best Wife award that day cuz I hiked, carrying Glo bug in his carseat, around the lake.

But it really was fun. And I'm so glad we got out of the house. It's easy to get cabin-fever with a newborn. You just gotta get out. I gotta make myself do it.

Our big Adventure!

This is the trail to Red Shirt lake. It was GOREGOUS!!!

Saturday morning to got up at 5:45am to leave by 6am.

It didn't work but we were only 10 minutes late...good for the morning!

So we have Hooch, Bee, two backpacks of fishing stuff and food, Google map directions and off we go to Red Shirt Lake. (Oh we had Ben too.)

We drive for 1.5 hours to find out that the directions we had were WRONG. We ended up at a dead end, of a river. The little Sustina River. NOT what we wanted.

The ranger at the gate said, "Oh gosh. Umm...you are gonna have to drive 45 minutes back that way and then take a left, then drive another 30 minutes and take a left. And it's about 15 minutes back in there."

Super.

So we thought we would drive back to one of the other lakes we saw along the road. We stopped at a few only to find that they were private lakes. No public property to fish from.

And being in Alaska, people DO shoot at you on their property. NO JOKE.

Finally we found one. We got out and stretched our legs, the boys threw poles in the water, Bee was throwing rocks. So we were having a good time. Not catching anything but still fun.

I was watching Bee throw rocks into the lake. All of a sudden he turns, smiles at me and books it into the lake. FULL bore...into the water. Clothes and everything.

Did I mention at it was about 50 degrees outside with the water about 40???

Crazy kid. I was shocked and stood there for a minute before I realized I needed to pull my kid out of the water. He had fallen on to his face.

What a nut!

So I change him and get him warmed up. The boys decide that they want to drive to Red Shirt Lake, even though it's going to be another hour to get there, at least.

Off we go to Red Shirt Lake.

We didn't have directions to this lake so we are going off a GPS that doesn't even have roads on it. What an adventure.

We get to Red Shirt Lake and rent some ores for the boat that is at the lake. We have to hike in the ores. Cool deal...not a problem.

WAIT....did I mention that the 1.5 mile hike I thought we were going on, turned into a 3 mile hike to the lake and 3 miles back?? Oh yeah I forgot....just like my hubby!

So Bee hikes in about 2 miles of it. We carry him on our shoulders for the last mile. We get to the lake. It's goregous! Boats are awesome. We were good to go.

We get into the canoe and I hadn't thought all the way through about bringing Hooch. I thought, He will have a great time on the hike. I forgot that he had to be in a canoe. Plus a 2 year old.

Oh it was an adventure to just keep the boat from tipping. Chris was fishing, I was rowing. We were having a good time.

Then we past this little island, about 20 ft across, round. We thought, Oh this would be perfect for Hooch. He can run around and we don't have to worry about him moving every two minutes. Plus he doesn't like water so we know that he will stay. SCORE!

So we dump him off and off we go. We are fishing and talking. I notice this big piece of wood floating next to the island where we left Hooch. I asked Chris if he saw it. He did and told me to go towards it.

That's weird, why?

Cuz it's Hooch.

Our beagle can swim!

So we pull him in and go fishing some more. After about an hour of fishing in the wind, we decide to take a break at one of the public cabin on the lake. We beach the boat and hop out.

IT IS AWESOME!! It has a stove, fire pit, porch, wood beds and table inside along with matches and toliet paper!!

So we camp out there for a few hours. Bee takes a nap. I take a nap. The boys fish! All is happy.

I wake up from the nap and decide that since it took us 2.5 hours to hike the 3 miles, we better start hoofing it back to the truck since it was about 5pm.

We packed up camp. Left the cabin better than we found it and got in the boat.

Within a minute of pushing off the beach, it starts to sprinkle.

Chris and I laugh, "Oh I'm glad we are from Seattle or we might melt!"

What can you do? So we laughed and kept rowing.

Well about 2 minutes later, the rain gets harder.

Two minutes after that, it gets harder! And then HARDER!

Until the rain would drop into the lake and it would make a 4 inch splash!

Chris and I laugh, "Oh it can't get much worse this. Bee is sitting in a puddle, shaking cuz he is cold. Hooch is whining cuz he is wet. Oh let's hurry and get to shore."

As soon as Chris replied, Yeah it can't get much worse....

It starts hailing with thunder and lightning!!!

SERIOUSLY!!

That will teach us!

So we hurry even faster to the shore and stand under the canoe to keep the hail off of us. Finally it slows down to a sprinkle. We grab our stuff, the kid and had for the truck.

Bee was so cold that he couldn't walk so I'm hiking with my backpack and stuff, plus carrying Bee like a sack of potatoes. 35lbs sack!

We get about 100 yards onto the trail and it starts hailing again.

So here I am hiking up these hills, carrying Bee, and sliding down the other side, while standing. I'm watching the water flow by me down the hill.

What can you do but laugh??

So we get to the truck 1.5 hours later. The rain finally stopped. We threw everything in the back of the truck and drove home. We all just wanted to eat and sleep.

I took pictures of this adventure on my phone. BUT my phone was in my backpack while the hail and rain got us. So now my upper keys don't work, to get into my pictures.

So google helped a sister out!

Have you guys had an adventure like this or is it just a W thing?

Happy Father's Day 2009

Oh what a wonderful Father's Day it is going to be for my hubby!

We're going to church but HAVE to leave early to take my Mom to the airport.

BLT's for lunch...his fave.

He is going to open a floating personal fishing thing. Here's a picture of one.

And a new tackle box. He is going to be so excited!!

Chris-

You are such a wonderful father. You worry about things that I have no idea about for our little man. You are counting down the days until Connor can understand fishing. He is so cute. Thank you for all the time you spend with our little man!

We love you bunches!

What did the dad's in your life get??

Fishing in Alaska

This is Chris and Bee fishing at Hillberg lake. There wasn't very many fish but it was fun.
They stock this lake twice a year, once in the Spring and then in the Fall. They have a fishing contests in the Summer. And then Ice fishing contests in the Winter.
Here is a moose to the left of us, about a football field away.
Here's my Bee running in an abandoned parking lot. Behind him is the ski slope.

We saw this guy as we pulled out of the lake. He is about the same size as the one Chris got last year. How cool is it that we can see this, literally minutes from our house.

He was a skiddish bear...which is just the way we like them. We stopped long enough to watch him walk across the road and left him alone.

Here's another picture of my HOTT hubby!

Here is a big picture of where we were sitting for a few. This is the slope where Chris went snowboarding for his first and last time. It was his birthday the first year we were here. I was el prego so no new sports for me.

So Chris fell down and really hurt his knee. It was about 3 times the normal size. He still has trouble with his knee when the weather changes...old fart! :)

Here's my little Turkey. Don't you just wanna kiss him?

I did. Don't worry.

Here is a block that I finished for Bee Inspired. I hand pieced this block together. Isn't the fabric cute? I hope she enjoys it.

Our weekend

Our weekend was pretty exciting around here.

First I quilted this quilt. This is the first quilt I have actually quilted without going along the seams. It is a whole bunch of swirls. It isn't perfect by any means but it looks cute enough.

This is the front of the quilt. It is for a Sister Missionary in our ward. She and I have become fast friends. I sewed the clothes onto the the front. The swirls are in the red and orange. I did a large wave in the black and white fabric. Then just did as little as possible on the clothes.

She totally loved it.

This is the edge of the lake. The stuff right there in the middle is ice too. The top of the ice was melting. It was so thin that it looked like it was water.

Our new friend, Ben, cast his hook out there and got it stuck on the ice. He did the normal tugging but it wasn't budging. So he gave one last tug and the hook went flying. IN TO THE BACK OF HIS HEAD!!!!

Here is Ben with a fish hook. Thankfully he had the smarts to turn around when he tugged, otherwise it would have been his cheek. We ended up leaving and taking him to the hospital.

This was Bee playing around the lake. He loved it!

(P.S. Alaska gets a lot greener but you have to wait for about another 2 weeks. The snow JUST melted here.)

This is a view of the lake we were at. It is in a secret location, at a secret spot that no one can say were it is because it's secret. (Or so my hubby says!)

Sunday we went to church. I played the piano for Sacrament meeting because the songs weren't in the organ.

Brother Nichols came up to me after Sunday school and said, "Sister W, I love that you play the piano and not that stupid organ thing!" Oh it just made my heart happy! (Bro. Nichols is about 85 years old and I think has said 5 words in the 3 years I've known him. And never anything to me. He is just a quite man.) So I think I might be playing the piano more, just to make that man happy! :)

OH and I totally have issues with the player organ. During the last song, I went to push play for the second verse and bumped the wrong button. The whole song changed and the tempo....so there was a huge long pause waiting for my to set things right! At least our ward is small and they just laughed!

We went to a BBQ for dinner and had coconut shrimp that was deep fried. I'm not a fish fan but I have to say, I didn't have to choke it down! It was a lot of fun over at the Flitton's. All the kids played outside and the adults sat in lawn chairs, chatting away! It was wonderful!!

We are going to miss out Alaska friends!

Fishing

We, W's, are going fishing to enjoy this beautiful Alaska day. I'm bring my camera and a good book.

When I get back I will tell you one of my stupid fears!

FHE

So this is what we did for Family Home Evening, last night! Fishing and wheeling!!

This is Josh. (See Chris' butt again in the orange, in the water?!) Josh caught our dinner. Well kinda. They 'chickened' out! LOL It was suppose to be the the boys caught dinner and we ate it there. (I brought chicken just in case and for me and Bee. As I don't like fish.) Josh and Brittany brought chicken too, just in case!! :) So Josh catches the only fish of the night and they don't even eat it! We might as well had them over for turkey!! :) Just kidding.
It was really fun. Bee got to ride in the Ranger with us..in his own seat belt. (I had my hand on him for all your mom's out there.) Then it got cold, so Bee rode back in the big truck with the Willens and Chris and I had some fun in the Ranger. I kinda like the thing now. I still want my own but it's a lot more fun when I'm not stressed about Bee.
And of course, what is a post with a picture of Bee!? He stayed in this chair for 4 hours last night. He is a great baby!!
Write more later!

Combat fishing

This is Chris combat fishing. You stand this close to people because there are that many fish. See the ripple in the water, that's salmon. Hundreds. And big ones too. This is all the way around this bend in the river. See that group of people that are like a foot apart... That's the PRIME spot. They put fish out of here once about every two or three minutes. Now look at the lady with white hair and light blue weighters. She's cute isn't she? (No relation.) She was out there with her husband for as long as we were there. (four hours) She was about to give up and she pulled in the BIGGEST fish that I'd ever seen. See all those men, they were sooo jealous. Seriously it made me laugh that this chica beat all the boys! You go girl!!
And the other pictures are of my hot hubby, Chris. And of the glacier at the end of the river. Pretty cool huh? If you could up here, we'll go walking on the glacier. Anybody on a plane yet?
Well just call me when your plane lands.