Vacation 2012-Stage 1

Vacation 2012 has come and gone--all too short as usual.  Our trip was like most of our family vacations at this time of life--fondly called the Grandmas Tour.  Both our mothers are still living, and with our young children, we want them all to have time together while they can.  ( I grew up without grandparents of any kind, so I want my kids to have that relationship that was denied me by death.)

Stage 1 of the tour took us to our favorite little piece of Heaven on Earth.  It is a 30 acre retreat, owned and managed by the church we came to faith through.  There is a shelter house, with kitchen facilities, flush toilets and showers, not to mention heat/AC !  We bring our sleeping bags and fishing poles, for there is a wonderful 3acre pond on site.

Normally this pond is a bass fisherman's dream.  This year however, with the drought in the area, the pond was down about 3ft.  The bass were noticeably smaller than in past years, and not as hungry.  However, they did bite for all of us, save Monkey1, who caught a crappie instead.  I did ok, too, with a couple bass, a crappie, and a mess of bluegill.

Here are some of the Monkeys' catches.

There were plenty of other critters to play with, chase, and/or catch up at the retreat.  Darned bullfrogs!  Those dunb things would always bite on a fishing lure...and they are most difficult to UNhook too.  There were a couple dogs up there, for the kids to play with.  One, Hank, is a lonely border collie, who stayed around us the entire time we were there--even to the point of sleeping outside the shelter house, to chase off critters for us at night, barking barking barking all the while...

Then down by my mom's, her neighbor has 3 more dogs, two of which are playful, with the kids too.  The dogs loved the extra attention, and the kids cherished more dog-time.

Rusty

Pixie

We got to spend time with my mom, and even persuaded her to go fishing with us one afternoon!  She said she hadn't been fishing since she was a kid herself, on vacations to Minnesota.  It looked like she had fun too, though I did wish I had a Zebco reel for her to cast with--the open faced reel was not her favorite.

It was a pleasant time, well spent with family and friends, and good food.  We actually managed to not gain weight, despite eating off the plan, and not getting any riding or much walking in.

Thus ends Stage 1 of Vacation 2012.