A Fishing Lesson

If you go fishing with one of these...

And you catch one...








...dooooon't forget your gloves! I made a rookie mistake and tried to grab the Northern sans gloves. The fish moved (huh, imagine that.) and the treble hook went through my finger. While waiting for Andy to find my bolt cutters, I asked the fish nicely NOT to move, as this caused considerable pain.

A Perfect Fall Day in Minnesota

These are two of Marta's 3 remaining brothers, Chris (on left) and John. Tom Warren, who passed away last year after an accident, was surely with us in spirit.

Today (10/19/08) we were out on Lake Independence. As John tells it, this is where the Founding Fathers actually conjured-up American independence whilst drinking beer and fishing. As you can see in the video and picture below, John is the REAL fisherman in the family. It doesn't get much better than this.


VIDEO

I told John (below w/ 42" muskie) I was going to Photoshop my face over his but I just couldn't do it. And by "just couldn't do it" I mean I just couldn't figure out HOW to do it using Photoshop.

Mom and Dad

Mom and Dad came up for a quick trip. This pic was taken by A. during a break in his last soccer game.

Sunday morning fishing

Patience...

Andy psyches himself up for fishing

This is the smaller of the 2 Northern Pike we caught.

Andy could barely lift this monster.

VIDEO

Rainy Saturday on Turtle Lake

It got cloudy and rained when we were out on Turtle Lake a few minutes after this picture was taken Saturday afternoon. We didn't catch any fish, either. On the bright side, it was a Saturday and we were out on a lake.

A Golden Birthday Party

Andy had his 6th birthday on Oct. 6. He's wearing an "Adventure Boy" visor made by his cousin Catherine. The visor includes exotic feathers and creatures from all over the planet.

Grandma and Grandpa Devine, who drove 12 hours from Indiana for a brief 3-day Minnesota visit.

Marta is looking up at the ceiling trying to figure out how to retrieve a balloon.

Andy and his friend Ryan get ready for high-5's

A proud winner, cousin Henry played "Pin-the-Tank-on-the-Head's-Up-Cockpit-Display" like a true warrior.

Dad distributes balloons at the end of the party.

Summer of 2008

Sunset on Snail Lake. If we don't have much time, we visit Snail as it's only about 2 minutes from our house.

This is a nice Largemouth Bass caught on Turtle Lake. Turtle is about 1 mile up the road.

This picture was taken on the Mississippi in July. We didn't catch anything that day, but we did see a massive barge up close and personal.

This a picture from mid-August. Andy and Josie have been best friends since they learned how to crawl and take each others toys away. Where one is, the other is never far away.

Up North with the neighbors and Andy's best friend, Josie.

Twins lose, season over

Andy's not too happy about the Twins losing last night.

Andy's First Day of School

These are pictures from Andy's first day of kindergarten.

Andy's Northern Pike

Andy and I went fishing both Saturday and Sunday. Saturday on Peltier and Sunday on Centerville. On Saturday he caught this 32 in. Northern Pike. No big fish on Sunday, but we both caught several nice Crappies. Andy really wants to have a fish dinner of his own making, so I promised him next time we'll keep the Crappies. The Northern looked too mean to eat.