Fishing at Arcadia Lake

The boys met a "soon-to-be" nine year old girl, Breely, at the playground while we were at Arcadia Lake this week. She and her Dad were spending the Spring Break week camping and fishing. Breely wanted to show the boys her minnow collection and then decided they should all go fishing. Breely's Dad, Monty gathered their fishing gear and we headed to the water's edge. Using earthworms and minnows, it didn't take Robby and Breely more than 20 minutes to land some fish! Robby caught a perch (or was it a pike?) in a crack in the rocks that he was standing on! We're not kidding, there were several 6 inch wide cracks in the sandstone and one of them was deep enough that this little 8" fish was hanging out in it.

Breely caught her fish the old fashioned way, by casting out into the lake. Both fish, it turned out, were too small to keep so the kids had to toss them back. Sawyer, on the other hand, became quite attached to the bait fish (minnows) and put several in a pail. These became his pets for the day and he carried them everywhere! We eventually talked him into releasing them back to the lake also but he sure was attached to those little guys!

Joss is afraid Sawyer will be the one bringing every stray bird, dog, cat, snake, gerbil, etc. home. I guess we'd better make sure we have enough land for all these creatures!

The 411 on the ER 911 Visit

We got into Edmond, Oklahoma last Friday. Edmond is a suburb of Oklahoma City, just to the North. While Joss was reading stories to the boys at bedtime, Sawyer got a little rambunctious and somehow poked Joss in the eye with his finger. It was a glancing blow, under the glasses that cut her cornea. She knew immediately the cornea was hurt because when Robby was nursing as a baby one night, he did the same thing...in the same eye!

We bandaged it and she took Motrin all night but by morning it was still hurting A LOT so we decided to go to the Emergency Room. We ended up at Mercy Hospital in OKC on Saturday morning. After the usual wait, seemingly forever, the Nurse Practitioner got to take a look at her. They gave her antibiotic drops and pain medication which left her very sleepy. I took her back to the trailer and the boys and I went to our cousin's house in Edmond for the big family get together they planned.

She was feeling better Sunday morning so we decided to go to Chickasha for little Emilee's first birthday party. Cousin Steve and his wife Karie have two kids, Max and Emilee. First birthday's are always a lot of fun. How could they not be, the kids are so cute!

Rattlesnake, Bison, Pronghorns, Deer, Aliens and Snow!

Since it's been a while since I've "blogged", I thought I'd run some interesting things by you...all at once. A few weeks ago we were in Albuquerque (ABQ for short) and visited Bob Myers at his world famous American Rattlesnake museum. He has the largest collection of rattlesnakes from around the country and other snakes from around the world. What he doesn't have is enough room to show his amazing collection of snake-related art, history, knick-knacks and you-name-it!

While we were in Taos late last week, we met a really cool woman who is an eco-farmer during the growing season. She told us of a herd of Bison on the way to her house, up the mountain and off the paved road. Well, we have four wheel drive. What's a little ice and snow? So off we go. We found the bison and continued up the ever narrowing snow packed dirt road. We just wanted to see where it went and how far we could go. Finally I decided we'd gotten deep enough and far enough that I didn't want to a.) get stuck or b.) have to back out, so we turned the beast around (and in the process, flattened out quite a lot more of the road for the locals).

Then Saturday (two days ago) when we were coming down from Santa Fe to Roswell, Sawyer had to go potty. We pulled over on the side of the road, when what to our wondering eyes did we see... a herd of Pronghorn antelope just beyond the barbed wire! Our first antelope sighting, how cool!

After the antelope, we got to our campsite at the Bottomless Lakes State Park, outside of Roswell, New Mexico. On Sunday, we headed into town to see the International UFO Museum and Research Center and other Alien themed things around town. On the way home, just a few miles from our campground, we startled a small herd of mule deer right along the road. I was "exercising" our diesel engine when it downshifted and spooked the deer. They took off running along the fence right next to us (but we beat them easily...8 deer are no match for 360 horsepower)! We got the beast turned around and went back to take some pictures. There were four bucks and four does (double-double dating?).

And finally, last week while in Espanola, between Santa Fe and Taos, we had a snow fall that was absolutely silent and only lasted a few hours. But it was the heaviest and wettest snow we've encountered on the trip yet! It is simply amazing to us Southern Californians how beautiful a little snow can make things!