The Keyes!: Temple, Hiking, Memorial Day, Biking, Fishing, and the Beach

We borrowed a stone polisher from the library. Nixon chose these rocks from his collection to put it.

We put them in a little round container with some water and some polishing material (basically like sand) and then we let it run for three days

This was the final result

I forgot to share this picture of Henry and I on the kayak from the last post so here it is

Last Sunday afternoon we played some softball together

It was warm so we needed lots of breaks in the shade

We also did a little bike riding in the forest

Henry loved exploring on his bike

Lyza found a friend

Henry got to make fluffy slime

He had so much fun playing with it

This is Lyza showing off some of her school work

Henry played his favorite Imagine Dragons song on the ukulele

Lyza and I got to go to the temple together last weekend

That afternoon we all went hiking up Chilco Mountain with the Stavness Family

Mason surprised us and led the pack the whole way up and then down. No one could keep up with him.

This is our group almost at the top

The view from the top is beautiful (this is actually from the drone). You can see Lake Pend Oreille

From the first lookout where we took the group photo you hike up above the trees to reach the peak. We even found some snow.

Once you get out of the tree line you hike through rock

Mason in the lead

He wanted to be (and was) the first to the top

Nixon was of course very comfortable on this hike. He and I did it twice last year.

Henry also did really well

Made it to the top

Everlee and Mason turned the fallen cross into a teeter-totter

The lake from the top

My favorite hiking companion

Here is some drone footage

Down near the parking area the kids found the carcass of an animal (deer?) that they had way too much fun with

On Memorial Day Nixon and I got up bright and early and went fishing at Fernan Lake

We had limited gear and even less knowledge and experience

The fish knew not to take us seriously

But we still had fun together

After that we played at the beach with friends

I got to take Henry out on the kayak

Mason also went out

This week I took the boys to a nearby pump track with their bikes and they had lots of fun

A 15 year old kid showed up and put on a show on the big jumps (check him out in the video below)

Meanwhile Lyza and Kim were buying cookies

Have you noticed the new trend where teenage girls are wearing fanny packs across their bodies? Lyza started that trend about 5 years ago.

Lyza missed a day of school this week because she was feeling run down. Watching Frozen with Henry helped her feel better.

The kids had the Panther Prowl at school this week. All the students get an hour (staggered between the grades) to run as many laps as possible around the baseball field. Henry joined along with Mason, Nixon, and Lyza (three separate runs).

Nixon got to have some friends over Friday night for an outdoor movie. They played some basketball while waiting for the sun to go down.

The movie (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse) was a lot of fun.

This week I watched a lot of Youtube videos about fishing (I am that cool). I also made a couple of trips to Walmart to get some new tackle and even some bait. Yesterday Nixon and I got up early and went fishing at Twin Lakes.

I rigged up a hook with a bobber on Nixon's pole, put a Canadian Nightcrawler on the hook, cast the hook, and caught a bluegill on the first cast.

I set it all up again and let Nixon cast it out. He reeled it in, nothing. Cast is a second time, and caught this bluegill.

He caught several more after that

Nixon was catching so many fish I barely had time to get my own pole rigged up. When I finally did I set it up to float some power bait 3 feet from the bottom of the lake. I cast it out, waited a bit, then reeled it in to make sure everything was still where it should be. Cast it out a second time, and not too long after I felt some action at the end of my rod. I reeled it in and found a beautiful 13.5 inch rainbow trout.

Nixon caught some more blue gill

Things slowed down after that after I switched Nixon from live bait (to intentionally slow things down because the bluegill kept swallowing the barbed hooks and I didn't want to bring too many home)