4th of July at the Lake

I know I'm a couple of days behind with posts, but I just can't get caught up.  We are melting here at the lake with record high temps in the 100's, as I'm sure many of you are as well.

We've been spending a lot of time in the water or else just hanging out in the house, with the A/C blasting and playing card games.

Fourth of July is always a huge party at the lake.  Everyone on our block is here and we spend a lot of time running back and forth between houses.  We also celebrate Louie's birthday during the holiday, so Tony and Alex baked up his favorite cookies - snickerdoodles - in patriotic colors.....

It's our lake tradition to always have a fish fry on the 4th and everybody looks forward to it.  We defrosted 275 fish fillets.....

By 10:30 am Kyle was breading them.....

By 11:15 Louie starts frying them....

And by 1:00 we are finished.  We pile them up on plates and Louie starts taking them around to each house on the block.  By the time we're finished, all the fish are gone and everybody is happy and has a full tummy!

While waiting for the fireworks and the evening party, the kids were all piled around the kitchen table looking at stuff on Pinterest.  I thought it was funny that they had 3 laptops going......

Each 4th of July our neighbors have a giant party and evening buffet and invite the whole block over for dinner, drinks and to watch the fireworks.....

The full moon was amazing!

The little kids were playing on a slip and slide and also running around with sparklers....

We had great seats for the fireworks too.  All the lights you see are the boats out on the lake.  We used to take the pontoon boat out for the fireworks, but it's such a madhouse getting back home afterwards that we stopped doing that.  Front row yard seats are much easier and safer!

After the fireworks we went back home and ate Louie's birthday cupcakes....

4th of July at the lake is always a fun event!

Standing Bear on the AT - July 3, 2012

I don't blame Mike, aka Standing Bear, for whooping it up!!  He has just passed 1500 miles on the AT, passed through 11 states and is making tracks in Massachusetts.  Way to go Mike!

If you're not familiar with Mike's journey, please check out his blog to read all about it.  It will be well worth your time.

He also has a FB page with more photos and notes.

Mike has an incredible spirit and an amazing drive.  He is inspiring to me because of what he's doing and because of what he has overcome.  It's not often in life that people can overcome childhood mistreatment and have such an open heart and ability to love.  I think Mike has all that and more.  Please visit his Hike4Kids page and consider making a donation to his cause.

All photos courtesy of Mike McLaughlin.  Do not reproduce without permission.

Red Ear

Now this is what I call a nice Red Ear!

Excuse me while I go hunt for some more....

Lessons on How NOT To Be Stealthy

Rule number 1 of geocaching is to be stealthy.  You are never supposed to let anyone see you find, sign or replace a cache.  After all, that's how they end up disappearing, or get muggled as we say.  

Over the course of 3 years of caching, we have applied many techniques to our bag of stealth mode tricks.  Sometimes we take the dogs and pretend we are walking them.  I've been known to use my girlfriends daughter as a decoy.  I'll hiss at her,  "Go swing on the swings Abby while I rummage around in the bushes behind you.  Don't look at me."   Mom is really good at sitting on park benches and feeling around the seat with her fingers.  We kneel down and pretend we're tying our shoes, talk to imaginary people on our cellphones and one time I practically crawled on the ground behind a bus stop shelter where 2 people were sitting and waiting for the bus.   Sometimes I feel like I'm 10 years old and playing "Hide and go seek."


The other day we had a fiasco that perfectly defines how not to be stealthy.  The cache was called Money Bags.


The scene was a small island in the middle of a suburban street, that was covered with grass and 3 small trees.  Dad pulled the car to the curb and we surveyed the area.  No neighbors were out and about, nobody was peering through their windows at us, no kids were anywhere playing.  The coast was clear so we shoved Laurie out to find the cache.  

There weren't too many places to look for a cache that was the listed small size, so she quickly determined where the cache was hidden, made the grab and scampered back to the car to open it.  The cache container was a small box that had to be opened a particular way.  We quickly handed it to the resident puzzle box expert and he made quick work of opening it.  We signed the log sheet, threw in a few trinkets, shut the box and he handed it back to Laurie to go re-hide.

Just as she opened the car door to put the cache back into the tree, a man came out of his house and decided to "weed" his yard.  I totally think he wanted to see what we were up to.  Mom poked me in the shoulder and told me to go pretend I was taking Laurie's picture in front of the tree.  So Laurie takes the cache back toward the tree and I follow her with my camera, because you know, everyone who is anyone takes pictures of their sister posing in front of a boring tree in the middle of an island in some random neighborhood.  


So Laurie is posing and goofing around and she doesn't realize I am really taking pictures of her, which makes it so much funnier to me.  The guy is kneeling behind me in his front yard "weeding" and watching us out of the corner of his eye.
  

Then Laurie makes a swift move, turns, puts the cache back in it's hidey hole and swivels to strike another pose... Just then the cache box promptly falls out of its hidey hole, hits the ground, breaks open, and spills everything out all over the place.  At which point I burst out laughing.  You cannot plan stuff like that!

She crammed everything back into the container, stuffs it back in the tree and we go running back to the car, guffawing like a pair of hyenas.  Dad quickly drives away and I am sure that the second we pulled around the corner that guy was running over to the tree to see what we were doing.  If that poor cache is missing, it will be totally our fault and I do feel really bad.  If it goes missing, I'll have to email the cache owner and let him know why.  ** UPDATE as of 7-1-12.  Several other cachers have found the cache since we did so the cache is safe!  A big sigh of relief!


So there's your lesson on how not to be stealthy and I don't think anyone will be asking us to be spies anytime soon.

Fish Fry

Last week Louie managed to entice me out of bed at the crack of dawn one morning to go white bass fishing.  (White bass are different than regular bass.  They are more like stripers.)  When we're at the lake, I don't usually get up before the sun rises, but on that particular morning I was glad I did.  Here's the view as we pulled away from our dock.  It was worth getting up early just for a view like this of God's handiwork!

We met a friend of ours out on the lake in the "secret" spot and started fishing....

Within an hour we had a nice bucket of fish....

We took them back to the dock and Louie cleaned them up right away.  He uses an electric knife and he's quite good at it!

The dogs like to come down to the dock and inspect things....

But our little guy always likes to try to steal the fish...

We soak the fish in cold water all day and then that night we had a fish fry.  We bread them with Louie's homemade breadcrumbs and then fry them up, nice and crispy....

We also take some fillets, season them, add a little margarine and some lemon juice and cook them on the grill for about 20 minutes....

Either way, they are ummm ummmm good!

The Magic Rod

We've named Chablis' pink rod "The Magic Rod."

Some of you may remember that we had a fishing rod custom made for Chablis for her graduation present.  If you missed that post, you can go back and read about it here.

She couldn't wait to get to Kentucky and try it out.  We had barely pulled into the driveway before she and Kyle dragged out the little boat and headed into the bay in search of blue gill...

She's thrilled with her new rod!  Like I said Magic!!

If you're interested in having a rod custom made, I can recommend Ed over at The Four Season Angler.  I just can't promise it will be a magic rod!

Rotary Club Charity Bass Tournament

Last Saturday, June 23rd, The Murray Rotary Club held a charity Bass fishing tournament.  Louie and his son, Lou Jr. fished it together and had a nice day on the lake.  Together they caught the limit of 5 bass and Louie won 1st place for biggest bass of the tournament.

Here they are pulling up to the weigh in....

Weighing in the big fish....

Collecting his check for big bass!  The bass weighed 6 lbs, 7 oz.  It was a nice win - $ 500.00.

We were able to catch the interview on video.  They got a big kick out of Louie and his "northern accent" and gave him some ribbing about how they landed the fish.  You can watch it if you like....

The Murray Rotary Club put on a really nice tournament.  While the fishermen were weighing in, they had ice cold water bottles, freshly sliced watermelon, hot dogs, chips and sodas for the fishermen and the spectators.  They also had a ton of nice door prizes, including gift cards, marine batteries, tee shirts and fishing caps.  We won a tee shirt and a cap.  It was a fun day for the fishermen and it was an even better day for us since we won Big Bass!