By Special Request

We had a fun Saturday going fishing. We didn't catch much more than mosquito bites. I did, however, manage to catch my very first fish...sort of. I accidentally hooked a line attached to a hook that a fish swallowed when I was reeling in. Nevertheless, it was still a catch. We took a picture of it, a medium size rainbow trout, cut the line and let him go. I was pretty thrilled. The rest of the trip, we would see five fish circling our lines with no bites. Then we went to a nearby river and still caught nothing. My hubby took the kiddos fishing again today and he caught and released about a 12 inch catfish. Neither of us fancy gutting a fish, so we've opted to release them lately. We may need to hold onto some soon, cause I'm in the mood to bbq.

The lesson learned though was to leave our dog at home. She stuck close by, but was a real handful, almost getting hooked with our poles a couple of times and constantly knocking over the tackle box. She did, however, accumulate a nice collection of dead fish that she found along the banks. She then proceeded to chew the heads off of them. No harm, until we realized that fish guts are not a great breath mint for a panting dog. The bad breath lasted through another whole day until my husband had her munch on a peppermint candy. That did the trick and she was minty fresh again.

Before our fishing trip, we had to make the obligatory trip to Wal-Mart to get poles and bait and etc. We, of course, had to stop at the first sight of the melon stand because my husband could live off melons for weeks if allowed. While choosing from the watermelons, we were approached by an older asian man. He then gave my husband a tutorial on how to pick the best, sweetest melon by tapping on the melon and listening. I'm not quite sure what you're supposed to listen for, but he seemed to be an expert on it. During the lesson, we noticed that another older man was standing nearby and watching the whole interaction. HE then proceeded to give us HIS method for picking a melon. It was basically what we had just heard with the twist that the melon tapping should be carried out over the whole melon until you find one that makes the same sound all over. During his advice, we also noticed ANOTHER man watching this. Thankfully, he did not share any melon wisdom...he was just getting a lot of amusement and a good laugh. All in all, we left Wal-Mart with three watermelons, a little more knowledge, and a reason to not go there again around midnight.

School is going okay. I had to hire a tutor for my math classes. I still have serious worries that I will not pass. I have, however, come to a very important decision. If I fail to pass these math courses this summer and still pursue my math teaching minor before I graduate, it will set back my grad and grad school dates by a year. So, I have decided that if I do fail, I will focus on just graduating with my major at the end of spring and applying to grad school a year earlier than planned. I will not give up on the math though. I will simply continue to attend the required classes until I am able to be certified to teach it. By deciding this possible alternative, it takes a load of pressure off of me to have to finish my minor requirements in the time space of three semesters on top of my major classes left. Hope that all made sense. If not, no worries.



I was brushing my daughter's hair today after her bath and was in awe of how beautiful she is. Her hair is an auburn color; red, light brown, and a little blond. And if that wasn't enough, her eyes are the exact same color. She is gorgeous and I am amazed that I had anything to do with her creation. I feel the same when my son is reading to me, when he laughs that deep belly laugh, or says something that makes me laugh my deep belly laugh. It's amazing!



Can I just say how stinking hot it is lately! I was driving home from school today and could have sworn that it was 95 degrees easy. I looked at my dash and it said that it was only 88 degrees. Maybe it was 95 in my car. And we don't have decent air conditioning in our living room and are in dire need of an AC unit for that room. I fell asleep on the couch for a few hours and literally couldn't make myself get up because I was sweaty and lethargic from the heat (just the picture of me you wanted, huh?). It sucked. Some water and a couple exedrin later and I was back to resembling the living. Hopefully, we'll fix that soon.