We rented a cabin at Morrow Mountain State Park in NC this last week. My sister Kerrylin and I started off the trip with a 100-mile drive that took six hours and included five turn arounds, at least that many stops, and one barf-o-rama.
We're happy to report, though, that everything got better from there, culminating in a highlight of our year-- Aaron caught several (five!) fish!! We didn't get a picture of the moment (too busy enjoying it!) but here is Aaron with his first catch: a striped bass.
He reeled it in jumping up and down, and in an unprecedented show of excitement, rejected a high-five and instead threw himself into Ben's arms, saying, "I did it! I did it!" He caught four more within an hour or two, then ran into the house saying, "Who do you think caught more fish? Me or Tato?" The (expectedly) unexpected answer, of course, was that Aaron caught more. Indeed, Aaron caught five fish while Ben caught onlyt two. Five of the seven caught were too small to be taken home, but here is Aaron with the two that were taken home.
His smile lasted most of the day, and expanded each time we mentioned how cool it is that he caught fish. Such a great moment for all of us.
Here he is enjoying his well-earned lunch:
I'm interested to see if having caught fish will amplify or diminish Aaron's fishing/hunting obsession. He told Kerrylin today, "As soon as this trip is over, we can start planning the next one." At this point, all of us hope to go back as often as possible. We had such a grea time-- sitting on the screened-in porch watching the deer stroll by, grilling freshly-caught fish almost daily, and generally just having all the beauty and fresh air of the outdoors camping experience yet with the convenience of a shower, kitchen, and beds.
Ten years ago I never would have thought that the highlight of my five-year-old's life would require and result in being covered in chicken liver (the bait of choice), dead fish guts and other fishy goo. It's funny how the disgustingness of liver blood and fish scales becomes irrelevant once you see the smile on that kid's face.
And, of course, no big brother's obsession goes...
unimitated by his admiring little bro...
or unwatched by his attentive little sis.
Aaron insisted I include this picture, since "you can tell how huge it is, and see it better."
He reeled it in jumping up and down, and in an unprecedented show of excitement, rejected a high-five and instead threw himself into Ben's arms, saying, "I did it! I did it!" He caught four more within an hour or two, then ran into the house saying, "Who do you think caught more fish? Me or Tato?" The (expectedly) unexpected answer, of course, was that Aaron caught more. Indeed, Aaron caught five fish while Ben caught onlyt two. Five of the seven caught were too small to be taken home, but here is Aaron with the two that were taken home.
His smile lasted most of the day, and expanded each time we mentioned how cool it is that he caught fish. Such a great moment for all of us.
unimitated by his admiring little bro...
Elliot wanted to fish too, but we figured out that he was mostly interested in the 'balls' at the end of the string, so we attached one to the end of this broken fishing pole and he was quite satisfied to just throw it in the water and pull it out over and over again.
Elliot and I went to search for bugs (a.k.a 'buh!")-- here Elliot is studying and chasing an ant he picked up from the ground.
