The fish was ....this big!

This afternoon the kids begged us to take them fishing. Can you tell they are hooked? he-he Jaron specifically is hooked! Just like his Uncle Chris he is a fisherman at heart I believe. He can't wait for my parents to get here in June. He is praying we have great weather so that he can take his Papaw fishing. Something he has wanted to do for a very long time!

I think if Jaron could be on a boat in a lake catching fish all day he would be one happy kid! Guess some time in the future we may have to consider getting him a small boat ... say in about 6 years or so. He'll be 15 then...maybe he will be ready then for that kind of responsibility, not sure if Mom is ready for that but ya gotta let your kids grow up. Actually don't have much of a choice do we?!

So we decided to go as a family and

we had such great fun! Kristofer

was on the ball catching fish. Every

time we turned around he was yelling I caught a fish. The boy was on fire. It was great! He was so happy! Plus his fever finally broke around noon today and he is feeling so much better! YAY! Kristofer has learned how to catch the fish under the boat ramp. He sits patiently and sticks his hook over the edge and watches for the fish to come up and grab it. Every fish he caught tonight which was like I think 5 maybe 6 different fish all different sizes he caught sitting on the edge of the boat ramp. He was so happy! All the kids were cheering him on! YAY! GO KIDS!

I am SO GLAD Sean went with us, because when we were leaving we realized our back tire was flatter than flat. It was sad. I have never changed the tire on the van and didn't even know how to remove the donut. Ok yes I need to know this stuff and now I do. But I have to say is was a true blessing to have him with us this time around and not because of the tire. Any time we can spend together as a family is always fun and always needed.

We even had a bit of a fishing war between Sean and I.

It was so funny watching him get all excited about the fish he caught till he got it in! HAHAHAHAHA! Sorry but I had to laugh cause his fish put up such a fight he thought it was going to be huge and it turned out to be maybe at the most 3 inches long. LOL! He was releasing his when I caught a fish (actually I caught a 3 tonight). I reeled mine in and really started laughing because mine was at least 6 inches long and way bigger than his....lol! Even the kids got a kick out of the fact that I caught the bigger fish. It was definitely one of those ... "and the fish was .... this big" stories. On the way to the van we had an unwanted visitor! A small little snake. We weren't sure what it was till we got home and checked it out online. Thank goodness for the Internet! We believe its a smooth earth snake. It wasn't very big but since we weren't sure what kind it was we or I chased it away with the fishing pole while Sean was chasing the kids into the van. I know role reversal here but had the snake been larger you better believe I would have been the one in the van! LOL. Seriously though things like that don't scare me much. I am more scared of being stranded some where without a cell phone or the means to get some where safe, specially when I have all the kids with me. Again I am SO THANKFUL Sean came with us instead of cutting the lawn this afternoon.

Eli was searching for the crawdad (crayfish) that he had watched steal his worm. He tried for a good 30 minutes trying to catch that thing. Kris was helping him but it was a crafty little thing. It stole so many worms the boys were getting frustrated. In between trying to catch it Kris was also catching fish.

Sara was having a grand time as well. She was using the net we bought today and was catching minnows. Naturally they wanted to bring them home and put then in our fish tank. I doubt they will make it till morning but it made the kids so happy bring something home that they caught.

This Week in Our Family

OK On May 8th, my Mom's birthday -HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM! That afternoon a storm came across S. IL and took out many trees. The weather guys are calling it an inland hurricane. We had 106 mph winds and no tornadoes. Yes driving through the towns you would think a bomb went off. There are so many trees that are down. We lost power and began the adventure of the Kelly House Camp Out. Yes I even have a name for it. We tried to keep things calm and peaceful. But I can tell you I could see the stress on my kids faces. On Kristofer's even more. He has a routine and it was thrown to the wind from Friday till Tuesday night at 10:31pm. In fact when the power came back on and the lights came on he screamed, "Thank you Jesus!" He was so excited. He was the only child up when it came on but Wed. morning, Sara came and pulled my eye open and said, "Mommy look the lights work again!" Eli came in and said to me, "Something strange is going on....the computer is on!" So funny they were.
There were so many things God has shown me the last few days without power...

#1. POWER IS A GREAT THING!
#2. Technology can be done without, BUT IT SURE IS GREAT TO HAVE!!!
#3. Cooking out gets really old!
#4. HOT coffee is the best thing in the whole world!

Ok seriously, God has shown me a lot and I plan to expand on what God has been showing me in our adventures this week with no power and the fishing trips we have taken but I plan to post them on my other blog, Broken Potterie. I want to keep this blog more about my kids, family and the adventure's we partake in with autism.
After playing a variety of board games way too many times...Chutes and Ladders, Candy Land, Scrabble, Pet Shop Monopoly, and Clue...then came the card games and Uno. I have to tell you I am as Jaron said..."Boarded OUT" He said he knew why they call them board games...."The make you bored if you play them too many times!"

On Monday afternoon we headed to Wal-Mart...the one store that had power, naturally! But we headed to town for supplies; ice, batteries, food that didn't need to be refrigerated (we lost approx. $200 worth of food due to the extended power outage) and FISHING poles. The damage we saw to so many homes and businesses is just saddening. It truly looks like a hurricane went through here. Yes I know what it looks like when one goes through, I have witnessed too many of them when we lived in Florida! I will post a few pictures at the end of this post of the damaged trees. I never had my camera when we were going through the neighborhoods...kept forgetting it. Sara was so excited she put her own worms on the hooks. That day was so great! I was able to get some much needed sun for these white legs! I am ashamed to call myself a born and raised Floridian with how white I am right now. While there Jaron was looking through some weeds along the shore line and found what we thought was a nut...nope not a nut! A baby musk turtle. He is so small, never seen a turtle that small before, and so cute! He is no bigger than a quarter.

Anyhow, we headed home for dinner and then took Sean back with us and by the first night they all caught a fish except for Kristofer. Then on Tuesday we headed out again, all but Kris caught a fish. Poor guy, he so desperately wanted to catch a fish, he didn't even tell me he wasn't feeling well. It wasn't till after their baths (thankfully we had hot water) that I realized that something was not right with him. He never complains when it comes to not feeling well unless he is in severe pain. Took his temp and was surprised that it said 102.8 I about flipped. So we headed to the doc on Wed morning. Poor little guy has double ear infections and strep. So now he has meds. on board and hopefully he will start feeling better. Since they did not have school today we headed out to go fishing (which we release all fish). Naturally when Kris is sick he wants to be with me and Sean had to get his sleep, he is working the over night shifts and he has to sleep, so despite my plea for him to stay with daddy he came with us. Guess who caught a fish! KRISTOFER! He caught the first one with his hands and was freaking out. He was pacing back and forth and was so excited! Then he got smart and would sit on the side of the boat ramp and was so patient when he was trying to catch the fish. Then....BAM! He caught another fish. I have never seen him react like that in my life. He was SO FUNNY! Being gentle and talking to it, explaining that he would let it live and he released him.

Eli's First Catch!

Jaron's First Catch!

Sara's First Catch!

Unfortunately I did not have the camera with me to get a picture of Kristofer's first catch....frown! But I will take the time to get pictures this weekend I am sure. The kids are hooked on fishing...lol no pun intended...lol ok maybe a little bit.

Ok So I could make this a short post but I just want to get it done. So here are a few pictures of the tree damage. Many were up rooted due to how saturated the ground has been but even so many just snapped in the 106 mph winds. Brings back many memories of the hurricanes of 2004.

The picture below is of an old oak tree. This tree is so beautiful in the fall. Sadly the trunk just snapped under the ferocity of the the winds last Friday afternoon.

These are a few pictures of the playground in Marion we go to frequently. It is such a beautiful shaded park. Now more than 75% of the trees have either fallen or have had to be cut down. The picture below is of the train that Kristofer loves! It was covered with two large trees that were cut away. So far it looks like the train survived but that is yet to be determined.

Cookies & Fish

Ok so today's lesson....

what do cookies and fish have to do with each other.

Any Guesses?

Ok I won't keep you wondering!

Last night we had our Sunday School Picnic at the lake. It is such a great time! This time we had more in attendance than we did last year. Which is a nice blessing! Anyway, my kids being the bug and frog catching kiddos they are brought their jars in case they caught something. Jaron the smart kid he is, decided to put a ice cookie in the bottom of the jar and laid it in on the lake floor. Well low and behold the boy caught a fish! Yes a fish! A blue gill to be exact.

Not wanting to break his heart we allowed him to bring it home and place it in our fish tank. I figured we would wake to a dead fish floating.

NOPE! We have a 2 1/2 inch blue gill swimming along with the gold fish, 2 tetras, and 3 little sharks. I am completely amazed the thing lived. It was moved from one jar to a Juicey Juice container to a small gold fish bowl to our tank. So if you are ever stranded and all you have are cookies, a jar and a lake near by...here's a new way of catching fish!