A Natural

Benjamin has been making fishing poles out of sticks for years and these last couple weeks his desire to go fishing has reached new levels. So last night Kelly bought him a fishing pole and today we went on our first fishing trip. The kids and I had never been and Kelly hasn't been for almost as long as we've been married. We went to Kensington Park and Kelly taught Benjamin how to cast. I wasn't expecting much from him on his first try, but that kid is a natural! On his second cast he flung it out into the lake and reeled it in like a pro with 5 fish nipping at the fly.


He made it look so simple that I wanted to try. My first cast went into the reeds at my feet and the next onto a log to the side. He laughed like I'd done it to entertain him. He continued to cast like he'd done it all his life and he had a marvelous time. It was so fun to see him enjoying it so much. In the end we caught and released two fish and had a wonderful afternoon at the park.


Even Bella tried a few times, but she wasn't quite herself. As we were leaving, I noticed she seemed very warm and I ended up putting her to bed with a 103 fever right after we got home. I hope she gets better soon.

Another love of Benjamin and Bella's is building parking garages out of Jenga blocks. Every day they do a new one and they always make me laugh. Here's one where they've buried the cars underneath and placed a "guard" at the entrance.


Here's a multi-story one that unfortunately suffered from some poor planning - all the spots ended up being too small for his cars so they parked out front instead.


And of course, we've done a few more crafts and science experiments. I wanted to show them how much fun ooglic can be. I don't know what everyone else calls this stuff, but that's the name Kelly gave it when we made it together on our first date. We really are geeks - it's official. It's 10 parts corn starch and 1 part water, approximately, and it's the funnest stuff ever. It's both solid and liquid depending on how you handle it and when my kids get a hold of anything this fun, it's inevitable that it'll end up all over them and the patio. This time I made sure to keep the food coloring out of it.


It's been a fun Summer and despite the heat, we've been surviving okay. Thank goodness for basements, backyard pools, and splash parks.