Mitch came for meetings at the National Academies and stayed for a couple of early mornings on the water with Shawn.

I stayed home and made coffee!

Sunrise on the Bay

Graffiti

Mitch sent us an MMS reminder of our visit to Crunchy's in East Lansing over Christmas. He's coming to visit this weekend, after a meeting at the National Academies.

Next Year's Christmas Card Photo?

Easter Picnic in the Smokies

What to do on Easter Sunday?

Instead of cooking or trying to find a restaurant that would take our motley crew on Easter Sunday, we decided to drive out to the Great Smoky Mountains in search of adventure.

After a stop at Kroger to stock up on provisions for a picnic, we drove through Pigeon Forge into the most visited national park in the country.

It was a beautiful day, so not surprisingly, many people had the same idea as us. Every picnic area was overflowing with people and dogs and cars - not quite the ambiance we wanted for our day in the mountains.
As we crossed the border into North Carolina, we started looking for places to pull off. We found a parking area that had been barricaded for maintenance, so we decided to take our chances and see what was up the trail.

Remember - we had a toddler, cooler, and a couple of tote bags full of supplies with us, so any rough hiking was out of the question.


We hit the jackpot, finding a short trail that ended next to a shaded waterfall with a flat space and plenty of good sitting rocks next to the creek - the perfect spot for our Easter picnic.






There was even a tree that had a cross carved into it.

After lunch, we waded into the creek. Shawn built a cairn; Ella went "swimming;" Jacob, Cory, and Michael hopped rocks; and the rest of us got varying degrees of wet.




Daniel couldn't resist jumping into my photo of Shawn's handiwork.

All in all, a pretty perfect Easter dinner!

What's So Funny?

Two-Fisted Tucker

Getting ready for a road trip, Tucker makes sure he won't go thirsty. The boy has grown (and grown, and grown)!

Happy Belated Birthday to Ella!

Ella checks out the loot in her birthday bag from Grand Dad & Grannie Diannie.

Gus

Visiting Daniel & Tiffany this weekend. This is my "grand-dog" Gus, amazingly calm for a change.

New Haircut

Not sure how well you can see it from this picture, but I FINALLY got my hair cut.

Opening Day, 2011

Shawn starts the 2011 rockfish season off with a bang!

My Boat In Action!

Creig & Shawn show Thunder Road's best side!

It Doesn't Take Long Before the Masses Start to Swarm

It's hard to keep a good fishing spot a secret for long!

Creig's Spring Fishing on the Bay

Every year, Creig manages to squeeze in a little fishing when he comes to Washington for a conference. Shawn is only too happy to oblige!

Spring Family Fishing Extravaganza

Sometimes We Miss the Benches on Crockett's Reel

How Shawn Copes With the Weather

Yuengling, bungee cords, and a heavy-duty shower curtain liner!

April Fool's!

Despite the title of my post, these photos have not been Photo-shopped. On this day of pranks and spoofs, Cory caught his personal best rockfish.

The big fish was almost more than he could handle!

Read all about it here.