Romance

When we were at the lake, my husband made a sweet gesture...he brought me a gar. Doesn't sound romantic? Well, there's a story behind it.

When we were dating, I caught 2 big gar one day. I didn't have a camera to take a picture, but Cody wouldn't let me put them in the live well to bring back to the house. Ever since then, I have hoped to catch a gar so I could get a picture of it. So when he brought this guy home for me, I was touched that he remembered something so silly from over 10 years ago.

My Fisherman

Somehow I missed this picture when I uploaded pictures last night. I love to watch my husband fish. He is in his element with a fishing pole in his hand, and he's passing on his love of the outdoors to our kids. Jake and Josie spent hours throwing the cast net off the dock catching minnows, shad, and perch for bait. Even I've learned to throw the cast net. The best part of catching bait for the kids is hearing Jake say, "You're the best Mama!" and "Mama, you rock!"

Cousin Conversation

Cash: "You really should believe in Santa Claus."

Josie: "Well, duh! Who do you think gives us all those presents?"

Lake Fun

We just got back from a few days at Inks Lake. We had so much fun with family and friends! We managed to pack lots of fun into a few days. With the start of school looming, we crammed food, fishing, fireworks, tubing, and lots of laughter into a long weekend at the Spivey Fish Camp (aka Camp Granny).

Setting drop lines with Amy

The catfish were biting! Yum...Can't wait for a fish fry!

Fishing for perch... We worked hard trying to keep them alive to put on our drop lines and trot line.

Can you sense my fear? If you know me, you know I do not like to go underwater. You probably see where this is going. I now have reached my underwater quota for at least the next 10 years. I'm pretty sure that is the last time I willingly put my head below the surface of any body of water.

This is more my speed, but Josie wasn't too impressed! My arms are still sore from all that rowing.

Jake, doing what he does best...shooting stuff!

The catfish slayers...rowed out to the drop lines, baited the hook, caught a catfish, took it off the hook...are you impressed yet?

All those hours of tumbling paid off for Josie. She managed to hold on despite Daddy's best efforts to throw her off.

Thanks Granny and PaPa for a vacation to remember!

More From the Beach

National Lampoons Beach Vacation

Not really, it just sounded good. We are a little bit dysfunctional, but there was no dead aunt strapped onto the roof of our car.

Fishing On the Coast

While we were in Port Aransas, we did a little fishing. The waves and wind were too strong for surf fishing, but we had fun fishing here on the Corpus Christi ship channel.

We couldn't get into this water because the waves from ships can get a little crazy...

and also because these little guys were everywhere.

No fish pictures from this trip. All we caught was gafftop, which is a saltwater catfish. Every time we threw in our line, we hoped for something different, but we just kept catching the same thing.

Little Funnies

We were watching TV last night and one of those Match.com commercials came on. Josie piped up and said, "I might use that site if I don't get someone." Cody told her that was a long time away and she said, "yeah, I'm only 8."

This morning, Jake and I were playing Big Buck Hunter Pro on the iphone. We were shooting whitetail deer, but when you shoot a critter like a bird or squirrel, you get a critter bonus. I noticed when he shot a bird, he got 300 points. When my turn came, I shot a bird and only got 50 points. I said, "Hey, that's not fair, I only got 50 points." Without missing a beat, Jake said, "Well, my bird was the king."

Canning Tomatoes

Our giant tomatoes have been doing really well, and every couple of days we pick a bowl-ful of them. We have had to start picking them right when they start turning red, because if not, they split. Someone told us that means there are too many nutrients in the soil, but I'm not really sure if that is the reason or not.

So with no less than 3 calls to my grandmother and 3 to my mama, I started the process of canning the big bowl of ripe tomatoes. First, I dipped them into almost-boiling water for a few seconds. This makes the skin come off easily to peel them. After peeling them, I cut them up into smaller pieces. You can leave them whole if you would rather, but since I will probably use them for spaghetti sauce, I decided to go ahead and cut them up.

Then I packed the jars and added 1/2 teaspoon of salt to each one. I had already boiled the flats to sterilyze them. I closed the lids with the flats and rings and placed them into the pressure cooker with 2 quarts of water.

Once I put the pressure cooker on the burner and turned it on high, I waited for it to "jiggle." The first try didn't work, because I hadn't gotten the lid sealed properly, and too much steam was escaping through the handle. I had to turn it off and let the pressure go down and reseal the lid.

Here's the finished product. When I do the next batch, I will pack the tomatoes into the jars tighter. Now I'm really feeling like a farm wife--maybe I'll get some chickens next...on second thought, maybe not.

Cousin Fun

Wedding Festivities

This past weekend we were blessed to host my family for Brant's and Ashly's wedding. The highlight for Josie and Jake was having all of their cousins sleep over every night. We had so much fun visiting and hanging out. The girls were beautiful as flower girls. Somehow I only managed to get a few videos and very few pictures. Hopefully someone else got more pictures to share. We were having such a good time, I forgot all about my camera. The wedding was beautiful and went very smoothly. I can't wait to hear all about the Disney honeymoon! It was a great weekend, from the rehearsal supper to Cody's Saturday fish fry.