Catchin' Up!

Wow, I haven't been in blogosphere for awhile so it's catch-up time.  In the last eleven days, Leanna, Jared and grand-kiddos left for Turkey, Otto and I are grandparents to a new boxer pup, we had out of state visitors (Jamie and DeWayne), celebrated Father's Day and it's officially 'hot season' otherwise known as summer in Phoenix with temps well into the 100's!

After finally skyping the kids last week and seeing them in Turkey, visiting with Jamie and DeWayne as well as catching a few of Dylan's baseball games and celebrating Father's Day, Otto and I headed out of the heat  to enjoy a weekend of camping and fishing in Northern Arizona.

We left Phoenix, and 108 degree temps Friday afternoon and snatched the last campsite at Pine Grove just South of Lake Mary and across the FSR from Ashurst - two favored fishing spots up north! 

Ken and Bea were able to join us and once we set up camp, the boys were off to fish and the girls, well, we read and slept!  It was Polo's first camping trip and as you can see from the pics, he did just fine!

The weather was perfect, we couldn't have ordered up a more beautiful weekend - 80's during the day and 40's at night, we were even able to have a small campfire as long as we had a bucket of water handy and the fire was small.  Wish I could say the same for the fish, they were rather uncooperative and didn't want to leave their comfy homestead and take a trip to our frying pans!  Well, bad fishing aside, it was a great weekend!

Ken caught a chair, Otto caught a fish, but it got away and I got taken hook, line and sinker, literally lost 'em several times!  We played poker, golf, holey board, the name game and Yahtzee, we fished, we walked, investigated a marsh and even had time for a nap.

As I was spouting off what a bad day it was after losing my hook for the 'umpteenth' time, Otto quietly said "beats any day in the office"!  Yep, you got that right - I stopped muttering about my luck at fishing, put my feet up, threw my line in the water and just enjoyed the day!

This morning we slept in, had a quick breakfast and headed out for an hour to see if we could snag a fish two, then came back to camp and packed up.  A wonderful weekend getaway, although only a few days, is good for the soul and we all returned renewed and refreshed from the great outdoors!