First fishing trip

As you can imagine, this was an exciting moment for Trey. I found a cute little pond in a park that supposedly has some fish, so T and I took her there for her first fishing experience. We stopped by Academy to purchase a brand new Dora the Explorer fishing pole and some "extra large mealworms" for bait. On the way to the store, we witnessed a small grassfire on the side of I-35 ("Should we call 911?" "No, someone's already called, I'm sure."). By the time we went around the freeway to get to the store, the two small, 12 ft diameter fires had spread up toward the actual freeway! Fortunately, the FD had showed up and were spraying them with water. I can't imagine what caused the fires. Cigarettes? Probably not, because there were two, spaced about 20 feet apart. It was weird. But I digress.

We got the fishing supplies and headed out to the park. It was a beautifully windy, if a bit warm for November, day--perfect for a nice family outing. Trey set up the line with a hook and a bobber, because Zoey wanted a ball on the end of her line. She'd seen a little boy fishing the first time we went to the park and really liked that there was a ball on the string. T cast out a number of times as we moved along the shore, trying to find a good spot, you know, where Zoey could actually catch some fish. The whole time, Zoey is way more interested in putting her hand in the water, or splashing a small branch she had found in the water and then taking it out to show me how wet it was. She stepped into a hole near the shore and soaked her tennis shoe in mud. (Note muddy right foot in picture) Trey kept casting. Zoey and I pulled out an extra large mealworm and watched it writhe on the ground. Zoey kept inching toward the water to grab leaves and pine needles floating near the edge. Everything was right with the world for a few minutes, even though there were no fish.

Then Zoey leaned over to grab at something in the water, and fell completely in. The look of shock on her face was priceless. I reached over for her, and wondered for a second if I could just grab her hand and pull her out; then thought better of it and went into the water halfway myself to get her out. She was soaked. I was halfway soaked, and she started to cry so I just held her for a minute and told her everything was all right. "We're finished," Trey said. I agreed and we walked toward the car with a whimpering, wet Zoey; me sloshing through the grass in my wet tennis shoes. Halfway to the car, Trey and I started giggling, because it was really very funny, and perhaps a necessary thing for Zoey to experience. See, every time we take her to some kind of watery body, she just wants to walk right into it and we have to pull her back forcibly and tell her she can't just walk into the water. But she doesn't ever really understand why. Maybe now she does. Does that sound harsh? It isn't, really. I mean, the water was only about two feet deep. She was never in any real danger. And the look on her face really was priceless. It's too bad I didn't get it on video, but the camera was in my back pocket--on the side of my butt that fortunately did not go into the water. Unfortunately, my cell phone was in my other back pocket, and it stopped working completely.

I had been planning on ending this entry with a little aside to the people who may care about how I was going to e-mail them with a new phone number, but this morning I put my phone back together and it seems to be working fine (please call me again BB!).

Oh, and happy 6 months birthday to Lucas!