Happy 4th of July!

I hope you all had a great holiday this past weekend. We had a great weekend as well. It was nice to have Jason home from work on Friday. He took the boys on a bike ride Friday and then to play with friends in the river...well, creek right now since we haven't had much rain. Friday night we went to visit friends in Spring Hill to watch fireworks in their neighborhood. They really enjoyed their first fireworks experience! We wondered how they would handle the noise since they seem to not like anything loud except the radio. But they did real good and it was almost 10:30 when we got home to put them to bed. They were great! While we were at our friends house we played a little Guitar Hero, hopefully I can get those pictures posted on this blog because they are hilarious! Travis is in the brown shirt and Taylor is in the red.

Friday morning I was up before they were, sitting on the couch and was able to listen to their conversation on the way down the stairs. Here's how the adorable conversation went:

Long sign/yawn from someone as they're getting out of the bed.

Bedroom door opens, Travis says "You hear Rusty, Taylor?" (Rusty is out side barking at a friend walking by).

Taylor responds "Um, yes. You wanna go see him Travis?"

"Yes, let's go see him," Travis says.

"He's outside, Travis" says Taylor.

And now they see me sitting on the couch watching them come down the stairs and they stop talking and begin smiling these huge smiles at me. It's like they know they were caught by me in the middle of some conversation they didn't want me to hear. They talk like this to each other all the time. It really is adorable and I'm so fortunate to be a part of their lives!

On Saturday night we had our fish fry. We fried something like 35 pieces of catfish and made the best hushpuppies to go with it for 21 people in our backyard and just had a great time. Our friends made a homemade chocolate ice cream that tasted like the Wendy's frosty and Jason made his MtDew ice cream. It was all fabulous! We used Memaw and Papa's fish fry and hushpuppie recipe. It's a lot of work and has certainly given me a new appreciation for what Memaw and Papa do when they fry fish for everyone at their house. Jason pretty much stood over that boiling oil and I was his "runner" for the whole evening. It makes it hard to get to spend time with all the friends you invited over, but it was still fun. However, next time we "entertain" we'll tell people to pick up a bucket of chicken and come hang out in our yard. That way we may get to spend time with them!

An update on naps - the boys are doing much much better. I don't know what was going on, but they are back to normal nap time. It takes me sitting outside the door to make sure they don't pull their mattresses of their bed and go all WWF on me, but it works.

Fish Fry Practice

Once we were back from our fishing trip, we wanted to have a big fish fry for or friends. We started with a smaller crowd and invited our old neighbors over to be our test audience. Jason fried the fish and the hush puppies while I made the slaw, tartar sauce and lemonade. It was all very good for our first time! Of course there are no pictures of Jason frying, as the process and recipes are top secret. I'm not sure we got the entire recipe from Memaw and Papa. :-)

After we ate our fish we enjoyed home made chocolate ice cream with our friends. You can see part of Rusty in the background tryingto get in on the action.

Gone Fishin'

A couple of weeks ago we took the boys fishing with Jason's Memaw and Papa near Wheeler Dam in NW Alabama. We had such a great time! Check out all our pictures! In most of them Travis is wearing orange and Taylor is in blue.

For three days we got up about 5:15am, slathered the boys in sunscreen and headed to the boat ramp to meet Memaw and Papa. We left at 6am and were back by 9am to beat the heat. The boys had a great time fishing but they also got to drive the boat and pee in a bucket...both of which were equally exciting! Day 1 we caught 31 catfish, day 2 we didn't catch as many but Papa and Jason went out later and brought our total to 38 for that day. Day 3 we caught another 38 catfish. That's a lot of fish and it's like that everytime we fish with Papa. The McGriff's have a reputation on that lake. It's been said that Papa and his brother Duell were fishing out there in a crowd of boats. They were catching everything and the others weren't having such luck. One boat said "We gotta go, there's too many McGriff's around here." So we're proud of their legend!

The boys did great on the boat and were good sports about the life jackets and hats as well. You can even see Travis sporting his sunglasses up there. Papa and Jason would bait hooks for the boys, Memaw and myselft and then we'd cast out and wait. Apparently the key to catching catfish is drifting. You must have a breeze to push the boat along. And Papa is hilarious to fish with! We have 5 poles in the water, each with 2 hooks of fiddle worms and if in about 2 minutes no one gets a bite, Papa wants to reel in and try another spot. And we of course listened to him because he knows where the fish are. Why 2 hooks? I'm not really sure, but me, Taylor and Memaw all caught 2 at a time during our trip!

Fishing off a pontoon boat is ideal with kiddos. We would have never been able to stay out there with a little fishing boat. There was room for the boys to roam around a little and still be out of the way of the flying hooks and fish. The boys were fun to watch. Taylor would pull his pole out of the water and exclaim "I think I've got one!", and some times he did, some times he didn't. When they got bored with fishing they would dig in the bucket of worms and throw the dirt overboard. Or, if we caught a little brim or other kind of bait fish they wanted to throw them back over. Once we had one that Papa wanted to cut up for bait. He left it laying on top of the cooler and one of the boys picked it up and threw overboard, sparing its life no doubt.

When we weren't fishing we were hanging out at our cabin or out exploring. We went on our first "hike" with the boys. A hike with 2 toddlers for us translates into "walk in the woods". Nonetheless, it was fun and exciting. We also took every chance we could to throw rocks in whatever water we could find. These guys are more efficient than the corps of engineers and putting up a dam.

On Monday night we cooked our catch for the day which allowed us to sit and learn at the feet of the master fish friers and hushpuppy makers. That was good and the food is always good when Memaw and Papa are involved.