Birthday Party for Scot

Tonight we had a birthday celebration for Scot at my parents home. It was a nice evening with my whole family, including both of my grandparents. Our nephew, Eli, had Scot read Bob the Builder book to him three times. Eli is great entertainment for all of us.

Cadence, me, and Amber

Grandma De Vree & Grandma Hoekstra

Eli sitting next to his great-grandfathers.

Amber & David Neale

Sarah & Chris Rillema

Night with Friends

John & Beth Wedeven had a few couples over on Saturday night for pizza. It was great to see everyone & be able to catch up with one another. We had an excellent time. We were able to congratulate, Mat & Karen Wedeven who are expecting their first child in October.

Beth & I

Holly Kellum & Karen Wedeven
Erin & her daughter, Ava

Shane Kellum & Scot

Kid's Hope

This afternoon we had our spring Kid's Hope party at The Edge in Holland. The Edge is an ice skating rink. I have never ice skated before and it wasn't easy. Thankfully, I never fell. Some of you may be asking, what is Kid's Hope. Kid's Hope is a program to help kids at area schools. My student this year is Peter. Peter is in the 5th grade. I meet with Peter every Thursday for an hour during my lunch. We play games and work on his homework. Today, Peter had a lot of fun at the ice rink & is 110% better on ice skates than I will ever be.

Crop - Crop - Crop

Last night and the majority of today, I spent scrapbooking at my mother-in-love's house. I haven't worked on my scrapbook for years. Yes, years. I worked on my pictures for 2009 and my goal is to keep current for 2009. It was great to get back into it, I forgot how much I really enjoy doing it. Mom finished her book for 2007 and was cruising though her pictures for 2008 until she ran out of ink for her photo printer.....bummer.

Holly wasn't in the scrapbooking mood so she worked on organizing her pictures, sticker, and paper.

Heidi worked on her pictures for 2008 and I think she finished the most pages!

Can you believe all the stuff we have to scrapbook???

We did take a break late in the afternoon to enjoy the sunny, spring day. Heidi and I took Trigger for a walk while Mom took care of her horses. I can not believe how fast the day went by. I was reminded that time flies when you are having fun.

Thanks Mom for hosting a wonderful day! Lunch and dinner were spectacular!

Friday Lunch at McDonald's

This past Friday, Dad, Sarah, Lee, Eli and myself all had lunch at McDonald's. McDonald's was my sister's idea. She was babysitting Eli and she was hoping that if he played in the toy area he would take a good nap.
Eli loved the toy area and watching all the other kids. Eli was a little young for the play area and only made it a few feet into the plastic tubes. The question was, who was going to go after him if he couldn't figure how to get back out???



Eli really kept Grandpa busy! Eli LOVES Grandpa.

Eating our Catch of the Day

Last night we went to Kretch's Restaurant that was recommended by George to have some of the red snapper and cobia cooked for dinner.

The red snapper is on the left and the cobia is on the right. I tried the red snapper and cobia but my main dish was a chicken salad. I am not much of a fish lover. Both of the fish tasted good. Scot, Dad and Mom really enjoyed eating their catch. We are all very tired. Fishing all day is hard work.

A day of Salt Water Fishing

This morning we left for a day of salt water fishing for red snapper with Weis Guy II charter. We started at 7:30 this morning and got back in at 4:30. Here we are in the beginning, before the wind blown look.
We had to ride out a ways to catch live bait. One the way to the baiting location we just took it easy and enjoyed the ride. It was a little chilling this morning. The water was very calm.
Here is George, the first mate, throwing the net out to catch our live bait. It took a several tries and a few different locations. Finally after hitting the right spot and getting at least 60 little fish for bait, we were off to fish. We caught several grouper, red snapper, and blue fish. We were catching fish left and right.

Scot and his huge grouper. Unfortunately, we could not keep any of the grouper even though Dad & Mom really wanted to.

Scot and I caught red snapper at the same time. Notice who caught the bigger one, that is right....ME!! Scot's was able to catch 2 King fish.

During our trip we saw dolphins and sea turtles. Dad caught a whopper, Cobia. He had to fight the fish for 30 minutes and was able to get it in the boat off a light tackle fishing line. When they got the fish on the boat, George hit the fish a few times in the head with a metal bat to kill it. The Cobia weighed in at 60 pounds! What an AWESOME catch! Way to go Dad!!!

On the way out of the marina we seen the boat below. Per Jodi, the owner had it anchored out there and when it was low tide the boat flipped to its side and a window broke and water came in and the boat has been there for the past two years. They believe the boat owner did no have insurance on it and just left it.

When we got back to the Marina, they hung the Cobia up for display. There were many people that stopped by to check out the big catch the of day. Many people took their own picture next to the cobia, wishing it was theirs. Jodi cleaned all the fish for us. Here is my fishing instructors...Jodi & George

We had an EXCELLENT day of fishing!