More "UpNorth" 2012

Sam's first fish caught with a Cars fishing pole

Sam showing off his fishing mojo

Speaking of vacation, on the way up north I asked Matthew if he was excited for vacation. He said "No," and I asked him why and he responded that "Vacation is scary". Hmmm. So I asked him if he was excited to go to the cabin. To that, he yelled, "Yeah!!!". Oh, Matthew. He still insists that vacation is scary, but he liked going to the cabin.

Matthew's first fish (covered in seaweed)

So the boys did some fishing off the dock and Sam is quite the caster. He casts like he's been doing it forever and got it quite far into the lake. His first catch was a pretty large bluegill. W he told the family members who weren't at the dock about how big his fish was, he spread his hands about a foot apart. It wasn't quite a foot long bluegill, but it was pretty big. He's a good fisherman already. Sam then explained that Grandpa Don tried to catch some fish too, but he didn't get any. Although Sam wasn't too impressed with Grandpa Don's catches (sorry, Grandpa!), Sam apparently thinks highly of Uncle Jim's fishing as he was quite excited to tell Uncle Jim about his catches (which he didn't get to because we had to leave when Jim was out fishing). Matthew also got into the fishing action and caught a large bluegill. When the boys saw the fish on the hook they weren't really scared, they were kind of interested, maybe bewildered, or intrigued. It's hard to describe how they reacted, but it sure is neat as a parent to get to see your kids' reactions to a new experience. 

Sam's second fish. It wiggled around some and got Sam a little wet, thus the face.

Abby did not go fishing, but she did get to go on her first boat ride. She handled it as well as can be expected for having to wear an over-sized infant life vest. She fussed just a bit and rode around for maybe 10 minutes or so. Matthew also went on his first boat ride too and he seemed to enjoy it as long as he was sitting with Grandpa Don. I went on a few boat rides with Grandpa and Grandma and Sam and Matthew and most of the time my lap was empty as the boys preferred to sit with their Grandparents.  It was actually a nice break, because when I was around Abby occupied my arms and lap extensively and if she wasn't with me she was generally quite unhappy although she tolerated Jason pretty well. The boys also enjoyed playing on the boats when they were at the dock. They found Grandpa Duane's boat tools and proceeded to "work on" the boat. 

Abby crawling around and getting dirty  after breakfast

Jason and I had quite a nice time, despite the stress of going on "vacation" with three small children. Abby took good naps, so that gave us some free time and the boys played a lot with Grandma Sue who loves to run around with her active grandkids. I told Grandma Sue that her vacation apparently starts when we leave as she definitely didn't have any down time with the kids around. Jason and I got some swimming and reading in and played a lot of bean bag toss. I'm surprised (and not surprised at the same time) with how much bean bag toss we played. We played and played and played and honestly, Jason just couldn't win. So we played some more. And more. And I played left handed. And we played some more. I think Jason wants to play some badminton now that we're home as he has a much better record in that game.

Throwing rocks off the dock after playing in the water