I smell fishy....

Fishing season has once again started here in Southern Pennsylvania for our family.  We are so deeply blessed to have such a great friend who has an amazing pond that he allows us to fish from.  These fish are his "pets" such a BIG FISH BOWL,  so we never keep them but just like to see what we can pull out.


Last year Guy pulled up a snapping turtle on his fish line and a white albino catfish with amazing blue eyes which are a rarity. Who knows what this year will bring for him. So far he has caught a few catfish, sunfish, bluegills, yellow perch, and large mouth bass...but not the MONSTER fish he's always after.


The children really enjoy fishing for the first few times and then they become bored with it especially if they aren't catching anything. If they only knew how peaceful and relaxing it really is especially for those of us who hustle and bustle all everyday. We are just so blessed to be able to find time as a family to spend such a great times together.

 

This is my all time favorite picture!!

Alexander, is such a crack up!! He didn't want to touch the catfish but it sure does look like he wants to eat it. Lindsey, wanted to kiss the slimy creature of the sea (and I must say she looks cute doing it). And for Guy this is his 1st catfish of the year, it measured 27inches not too shabby.

As for Anthony he was our all-star fisherman this time. I don't even remember his count because he kept pulling them out one by one right after another as  he would just put it. This is a large mouth bass that he is holding so proudly!! Way to go Marc-Anthony!!

For me, well I am a proud fisher woman of two amazing fish. I started out strong this year, but it seems to have been a fluke because any other time we have been fishing I have not been able to pull anything out. My fish was a white albino catfish that measured 28inches and then my large mouth bass which measured at a whooping 17inches, which for being a pond fish is awesome.

Please pay NO ATTENTION to my unruly looks! 

It was a GREAT time though.

I am so ever thankful to have such a loving family to enjoy our times together and build some great memories in our life's.  Thank you to our great friend Darryl who has the land and love of our family to allow us to come to his home and enjoy God's gifts to us.

 

 

Cluck, Cluck, Cluck

Recently Guy had a desire to have chicken/ laying hens added to our animal family.

This past Thursday his dream came true.  He built himself a chicken coop, a luxury one at that with 4 laying boxes for each one of the hens.  They aren't allowed to roam free in the yard but have a nice "dog run" but really it's a chicken run.
They have adjusted to their new home quite well, three of them laid eggs the 1st day they were here but the 4th one isn't laying JUST yet!



I never thought in my lifetime would I be the proud owner of chickens, living right in the heart of the city.  What a whole new world this is for me.



I have to laugh the lady we bought the hens from wanted to get rid of her "rooster"  a rooster that doesn't crow,  when Guy picked up the bird he KNEW right away why it didn't crow because it isn't a ROOSTER it's a HEN!!! A big fat LAYING one at that. We all just had to laugh when we realized no wonder the "rooster" didn't crow.

Here we are a week later and we have our 1st dozen!!

We have big brown ones that are double yolk, medium and small ones. There is one hen that hasn't started to lay yet and the little one hasn't learned not to just drop an egg where ever she feels like it. Hopefully soon she will learn to sit in a box,  any box will do.  Shoot there are even four of them to make her home.


We are all learning so many new things. The boys love the hens and collecting the eggs.

Happy New Year

It's been forever since I have done anything with our family blog. The last thing I did was in the Summer time when our harvest was coming in of tomatoes, a lot of time has passed since then with many adventures as well as some enduring times.

The last part of this year was just a blur to me. I was a bad Mother/ Parent where I did not even choose to get out our Christmas decorations to decorate our home with such wonderful colors of red & green. No baking was done this year either. No gift giving to our neighbors or to co-workers, no thoughts of kindness or acts of kindness. Not one single Christmas event where you could feel the love of Christ and celebrate his birth.
I don't know if a lot had to do with working long hours or the thought that I had to go up 2 flights of stairs to pull everything out, and then have to put it all away in just a few short days. My spirits were not so high, in fact nothing mattered to me. I know it wasn't fair to the children not to go all out and celebrate Christmas but they didn't seem to mind actually.

The night before Christmas I had bought a small little living tree/plant that sat on our dining room table, around it I had placed 3 small tiny stockings filled with lumps of coal, candy, etc....Lindsey had the green one and the two boys were allowed the red ones. It was anything super fancy, where hours required to put it together, but quaint and simple. In fact I think the children enjoyed them just as much as they would have if we had a big tree with the train running around the bottom of it and their stockings were full of unneeded things.  They enjoyed what they were given!


New Years has come and gone. New Year's resolutions have been made by all in the family. We each have made them, but I am sure keeping them is a different thing all together.


So with that I hope I will make more of an effort to blog here, just a lot of things in life that take up time.