Fishing

Saturday we took the boys to the lake for some fishing. The weather was so nice! It was only 71 degrees when we left the house, and it stayed that way all day. It was very windy, but we still brought home a couple of fish for Michael to clean. (The fish kept stealing my bait!)

Ryan caught a blue-gill, Michael caught a nice 16 inch bass, Justin and Jonathan found lots of shells, and I caught some great moments on camera.

Justin enjoyed finding shells

We met some elderly people there who gave the boys an old turtle shell. Jonathan decided it needed some color when we got home.

Weekend fun

Mom & Tim came up this weekend for a visit. We had a great time visiting, grilling out, shopping, and going to Spencer County, Indiana. The pictures below were from our trip to Spencer County.

Our first stop was Santa Claus, Indiana.

At the museum in Santa Claus

A nearby park where we had a picnic

Santa's Candy Castle for ornaments and candy

At the Lincoln Boyhood memorial (limestone carvings on the outside of the building)
There were several cabin & home displays from that time era
We couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day. The weather sat around 73-75 degrees most of the day!
Nancy Hanks Lincoln's grave (Abraham Lincoln's mother) go here for a better picture of it and a little history lesson :-)
This was actually a working farm at the Lincoln Boyhood memorial. We really enjoyed this part!



I felt pretty puny because of a bad cold, but I still had a good time. I was so glad that Michael was able to take the day off work to go with us.
Jonathan playing with a huge beetle the farmer found in the crops (I think he wanted to keep it)





We went out for ice cream and those of the male gender always seem to gravitate toward video games (what's up with that? :-D)





Because we didn't have enough time to visit all of the Lincoln stuff, I am ready to go back. History is my favorite subject!
Tim jokingly said "next time we will go fishing while you women go visit dead people's old houses".

Black Raspberry Pickin'

The black raspberries (not to be confused with regular blackberries) are ripe, so we decided to go pick some for ourselves at our favorite place.

After we had walked for quite a ways away from the van, we had to go back and get the jug of water. Ryan and I went back to get it. I took some pictures of him along the way.

The boys had a pet turtle. His name was "Rocky", but he got away yesterday. They enjoyed him for almost a week. Much to the dismay of the boys (but very fortunate for Rocky!), he made his break last night. Bless his little turtle heart, he had been trying all week to get away.

I like the way the trees "frame" this field.

At the creek.......VERY slippery!

Look behind Justin (who is bending over).. You can see "Rocky" trying to get away. He was almost successful when he got under a large rock, but Michael was able to get him out. Poor thing, he almost succeeded.
I love these flowers... so do the butterflies & bees. There were so many of the butterflies on the plant, I could not count them all!

Further downstream ... catching tadpoles
This is what is on the hill above where they were catching tadpoles. As I am sure I have mentioned before, the entire roadway is an old railroad bed. This is the overgrown trussle. I saw a vibrantly colored hummingbird getting nectar from the orange flowers, but it flew away before I could snap a picture.
The wading turned into swimming.


There was a total of six cups of raspberries. I made a giant cobbler... Click here to see the recipe

Happy Anniversary Michael

Dear Michael,

"When God made you, He was thinking about me"
Thank you for 14 years of pure happiness!