A Lot of Catching Up to Do!

I'll start my catch up with our visit with Mom and Dad at Holden Beach. It was Dad's birthday on July 5th, and we were there from Friday to Tuesday afterwards.

The kids always have the itinerary planned in their mind....putt-putt with an ice cream finish, water sliding, fishing in the lake, and eating lots of Klondike bars (which are always in a plentiful supply at Granny and Paw Paw's).

Here are a few pictures of the festivities for the weekend - the kids did do a good job of trying to tire out Dad...I know they tired themselves out. They slept until 9:00 or after every morning. VERY unusual for my kids - Julia anyway.

The first night was spent building a fire in the fire pit. Legare had to be told over and over to keep the sticks in the fire. He kept wanting to pull them out after it got going. Not sure what he was thinking about doing. There was definitely a team effort in blowing on the fire to get it started. They ended up getting a nice little fire going.

At supper that evening, Uncle Harry and Aunt Doris were there. They treated Dad and the children to birthday cards full of putt-putt tokens. Nothing could have pleased the children more. Mom then invited the kids to blow out the candles with Dad as an early birthday since she may not be able to make it to Charleston for their birthdays that are coming up soon.

The next day, Dad helped the children hunt for worms so that fishing could take place in the lake behind their house. The mulch around the base of the trees proved the best place to find worms. I think the kids had as much fun looking for worms as they did fishing.

You know, you never know what fishing is going to be like. After all, they call it fishing. Not catching. We made the children wait until the early evening to fish hoping that the cooler weather at the end of the day would have the fish hungry - Legare couldn't quite understand that concept - and I was afraid we would just be doing a lot of standing and fishing.

Turns out, it was the perfect afternoon, and catching is definitely what was happening! The corks were going under water almost immediately. If I remember correctly we each caught five or so fish a piece. Following are some of those pics.

Getting the hooks ready...the children even baited a few of their own.

One of Julia's little bream.

One of Legare's little bream.

Julia's big Bass catch!!!

Legare's big Jack catch! (no kidding!)

Duke, the friendly neighborhood dog, taking his turn at being reeled in.

You've heard how curiosity killed the cat? Well, fetching hooked the dog (Only for a second. And only in the back leg/fur. It was out before we could even get to him.) No animals were harmed in the making of this blog.

Putt-Putt was the activity of the next day. We each got at least one Hole-In-One, with Mom leading the pack at 3 - or more....I lost count!

Posing WITH the cute wildlife.

Posing AS the cute wildlife.

Posing as if you actually HAD a wild life.

A horrible picture I took of the real wildlife.

There are several deer that live in the neighborhood. They came up on Sunday night to eat the wild cherries. My camera was on the wrong setting - BUMMER!

We had a truly GREAT visit!! Thanks, Mom and Dad!

Sorry there were no pictures of the day at the water slide. I didn't want to risk hurting the camera.