Granddaddy Hal's Influence

My dad imparting his fishing expertise to Zadie.

The fishing gang. Tori stayed home with Charlie while he napped.

I like how my dad takes his role as one of my kids' male role models very seriously. Last fall when they were babysitting our three kids for our anniversary, my dad wanted to play catch with Skip and was very disturbed that Skip is terrible at catching a ball. He asked my mom whether that was normal and apparently even Googled it. Something about my dad being driven to Google "normal age for boy to catch ball" just makes me die laughing. It's very sweet that he's so concerned about the matter. (Just for the record, Skip is really athletic but is so boisterous that he hasn't shown much interest in the focus required to actually catch a ball. But I'm determined that my kids will be well-prepared in the sports department and won't suffer from not having a dad to play catch with -- Tori and I both love sports!).

It was with these manly mentor intentions in mind that my dad really wanted to take our kids fishing at a little trout pond near our house that I had told him about. My dad was really intent on doing this fishing thing right and making sure my kids could catch a fish. Everyone around us was catching fish and for some reason we weren't having any luck, but my parents (especially my dad) were determined to catch one for the kids. You can see how serious my dad looks in the photo above.

My mom actually caught the first fish (she grew up in Alaska catching boatloads of fish!) and then finally my dad caught one. Everyone caught one except my poor nephew, who was quite frustrated. Skip and Zadie couldn't hook the fish, but they could bring them in once they were already on the line, which was triumph enough for them.

So mission accomplished. Those were some seriously expensive trout, but my dad got to give the kids a fishing lesson and I think the adults enjoyed it even more than the kids!