Back from camping and fishing.....

Well..... to start off, this trip was fantastic! We had such a great time. Now for the details.

We left Friday late afternoon after John got off of work. Its about a 4 hour drive there. We packed the truck full of clothes, food, fishing gear, camping gear and then Us and the dogs. We let Bear(cat) stay home and enjoy some peace and quiet for a couple days. I'm sure he probably did everything he wasn't supposed to while we were gone. Our neighbors were nice enough to feed the fish and check on Bear for us while we were gone.....I'm realizing here we have alot of animals lol. Two dogs, one cat and a bunch of fish and frogs. Ol' Mc Erin had a farm......

Ok so anyway. We got up to the area and had to make a quick stop by some friends house to say hi since we were there, borrow their dipnet for fishing and head up to the beach.

Once we got to the beach, Jesse (friends were camping with) met us up at the edge and led us onto the beach where the campsite was. John and I soon realized that my tires on my truck are NOT beach/sand driving tires. Oh well, they still look pretty :) And really, isn't that all that's important? ha ha

Well we got to the campsite, unloaded children and animals and our stuff and sat down to have some smores and relax. The fun went into the night (well daylight still) until about 12:30am, when John and the children retired for the night. Jesse and Brenda made a "joke" about going to fish and I quickly agreed. I wanted to get some practice in while noone was really around so that when I fished "for real" I wouldn't look like a complete idiot. Little did I know this trip I would catch more fish than the next day.

So Jesse and I suited up in our chest high waders to get into the water. I was a bit intimidated at first. One because I'm not a fan of open water and everything that "could" be in it, especially when I can't see my feet beneath me. We stood in the water for a bit. Jesse caught 3 fish right off the bat, so I got to see a bit how its done. Then once a fish slammed into my net, it was my turn, I pushed the net to the bottom of the ocean floor so fishy couldn't get out, then started my backwards haul up to shore, fish in tote. Let me tell you, not as easy as it sounds, those fish aren't happy at all about being drug (go figure) and my arms and legs are killing me today with all the work. I ended up catching 9 fish that night. We were out til probably 4:00-4:30am. Brenda came out to the water with me after Jesse caught his 4 fish and she ended up catching a bunch too. I never thought in all my years I could have so much fun camping and fishing in the middle of the night. Brenda and I laughed ourselves silly sitting out in the water at 3am being the ONLY two women out there sporting our lovely 'do rags and smiling faces. I don't think everyone was enjoying us as much as we enjoyed eachother :) We hopped around in the water, talked to the fishes trying to coax them into the net, and laughed til the wee hours of the morning.

The next day, John wasn't feeling so hot and wasn't up to fishing so I was quick to get my butt out there yet again and caught another 4 fish. We came back ate some lunch, both of our families (all 8 of us, 10 including dogs) took a long couple hour nap, played, ate some dinner and headed for home a day early.

We had an exciting ride hope with Annabelle (puppy) having some tummy trouble in the back of the truck. John and I had to pull over twice to clean it out. I had "bear duty" watching the side of the road making sure no bears decided to pop out and pay us a visit. Chances of that are pretty small but I don't care, I have no interest in seeing Yogi OR BooBoo OR the pic-i-nic baskets. THEN we got stuff in crazy traffic and finally got home about 2am. PHEW!

We had a wonderful time, we will defintely be making camping part of our life and fun in Alaska. The boys had a great time too, staying and playing on the beach!

SIDE NOTE: On our way down to camp, we decided to warn Tristan (our sensitive son) about having to hit the fish on the heads to "knock them out" so we can eat them later. We didn't want him to be surprised and get upset about it when he saw it. He seemed ok with it and then the second time I went fishing during the day we took him to the water and saw a few people doing what we had said, and as soon as Jesse or I brought up a fish he was smacking the hell out of them and "knocking them silly" as he said. He helped us with almost every fish that day AND strung them up. He jumped right in with it and wasn't bothered at all. He was so proud of himself!

Thanks for reading our long story if you have made it this far :)