Fathers & Sons camping/fishing in Jemez mountains

Hyrum, Lance and the older boys extended their fathers-and-sons overnight campout to do a little fishing in the Jemez watershed.

James reeled in the first catch at the 12-and-under pond at the nearby hatchery, a pretty decent rainbow, and again was surprised and a little terrified at the beast on the end of his line.  That was lunch.  While Hyrum was cooking it up, Lance and Scott ventured to a nearby creek where they reeled in 4 more rainbows—two each.

On the drive home, we stopped for several hours at our new favorite fishing hole on the Guadalupe river.  Somehow, we managed to find a way with our gear and small kids down the cliff face to the water’s edge.  Lance reeled in a brookie on his first cast, then another later on.  Hyrum finally absolved himself from becoming the weak fishing link, and reeled in the last—and not smallest—catch of the day: another brook trout.  (Obviously, as facilitator of this expedition, Hyrum was always busy taking care of the kids, setting up camp, cooking, taking photos, etc.; otherwise, he naturally would have brought home a lot more.)

Total fish count: Lance (2 rainbows, 2 brookies); Scott (2 rainbows); James (1 rainbow); Hyrum (1 brookie, which, although not the largest, turned out to be the fish with the most “intangibles”)

Besides the fish, the location was beautiful, sporting waterfalls, sheer cliffs, large boulders, and cool running, refreshing water.

And this is how you know that you’ve had a great trip:

Mother’s Day and Grant’s Birthday

Last year on Friday the 13th, Grant came into the world.  This year due to leap year, Grant and I got to share our special days.  It was a beautiful day.  Hyrum and Scott were up early making the table pretty and Hyrum and James made pancakes for breakfast.  Lance and Hyrum had a pancake eating competition which Hyrum would say he won, and Lance would say that was only because there were no more pancakes.  We went to church, flew kites, and ate birthday cake.  All in all, a great day!

Scottie in front of the breakfast table.  The boys picked out two lovely kites for my Mother’s Day gift, Transformers and Spiderman.  How did they know that I am a huge fan?  I picked out a nice cake platter for myself since I don’t have one and have wanted one.  They picked some beautiful flowers from our garden too.

Grant enjoying his cake.

Lance--interning at Sandia National Labs for the summer--is a lot of fun and the boys LOVE having him at our home.  While kite flying, he came up with the ingenius idea of connecting the kite to his fishing pole so that Hyrum could stand at one end of the cul-de-sac with the kite and he at the other end, and then reel real fast and the kite is in the air.  It may be the lazy man way (no running required) but it was super funny and worked like a charm.