Trick or Treat!!!

After much anticipation it was finally Halloween!  Elizabeth had been counting down the days and was so excited when she work up this morning when she heard it was finally here! 

We got Tinkerbell and Dumbo all dressed up a little early while it was still light out for pictures and captured a few keepers.

 Andrew loved Trick or Treating! I was a little surprised.  At each house he had to "push the button" even if someone was already there handing out candy!

 After 2 rounds of trick or treating, once with Daddy and once with Mommy, the kids were pretty worn out and came back home.  They both enjoyed some warm milk an had a blast handing out candy to the trick or treaters.

A Day on the Williams Fork

Its a mid October Saturday with highs in the mid to upper 70s for the front range!  A perfect day to get the family up into the mountains one last time before things start to cool off for the year.  We decided to head up to the Williams Fork river near Parshall CO for a little family picnic on the river, some fishing, and a nice hike.

 We set out on our hike to the river which is about 1 mile away just over on the other side of that hill.

 Andrew didn't like riding in the backpack at all.  He doesn't like swings, or rides that move, he barely likes the penny pony at the super market so you can imagine how he felt about being strapped into the backpack and riding on my back.  Elizabeth on the other hand did a great job!

 Once we got there Andrew did just fine and had a great time playing by the water.

 It didn't take long to land a really nice Brown.  This was by far the biggest one for the day but all the others weren't bad.

   Elizabeth had fun fishing too and caught a couple nice browns as well on the spinning rod.

 Andrew got a little practice as well with his little rod casting with mommy on the bank.

The walk back to the car was exhausting.  Fortunately Andrew slept this time - except for the part where I slipped and nearly fell - he didn't like that at all!  Elizabeth started to run out of gas on the way back and would occasionally just sit down on the path and take a break - it was slow going.  It was getting late considering we still had a 2 hour drive home and the kids were pooped so I carried both Elizabeth and Andrew when Elizabeth needed to rest.  Eventually we made it back to the car and started to head home.  Of course we had to stop in Empire at the "Dairy King" for a chocolate malt on the way home.  There wasn't even any traffic on I-70 - how perfect!  What a fun day!

Sometimes you have to break all the rules...

As you have probably guessed by the few posts that we have been able to get out lately things have been crazy at our house - we have just been way too busy!  

For the first time in a very long time I headed up into the mountains for a day on the river.  When I'm going out by myself I usual go in search of the bigger fish as opposed to quantity or scenery.  So I headed out to Spinney Mountain Ranch hoping to get into some of the lake run fish that move up into the river in the fall.

Instead of fishing my usual holes I decided to try some new ones closer to the lake.  Even for a Friday the usual parking lots were very full.

Fish 1 and 2:

Once I made it down to the river I was surprised to find a number of rising fish, and big ones at that.  With our house on the market all of my fly tying supplies are put away so I was nervous that I wasn't going to have the right dry flies to throw at the risers.  Looking through my fly boxes I was able to find something that was close to the bugs the fish were feeding on.  Usually "close" means "not good enough" and a lot of frustration as you fish that are feeding on the surface but won't take your fly.  But today, for some reason, the fishing gods were smiling on me.   My first good cast put the fly right in the feeding lane and sure enough, the fish nailed it.

I quickly landed it and was so eager to get my fly back in the water I didn't want to waste the time to get the camera out and take a picture.

I dried the fly off and got it back out on the water quickly, to my disbelief the very next cast I hooked up into another good fish.  Again, I didn't want to take the time to do the photo thing - had to get back fishing!

 Fish number 3:  The risers had subsided from the bend where I got the first two - time to let it rest for a little bit.  Looking up stream there were more fish rising - a couple of decent casts and I finally convinced one to take my fly - Fish on!  This time I had to get a picture - a nice rainbow!  Once I got him on the reel it was a full on battle with the drag singing with each run.

Fish number 4: This one took the dropper - a little red annelid.  It actually moved quite a bit out of its way to take it, I waited for the take and set the hook.  This one sure gave me a good fight but at least I had a little bigger hook on the dropper and was now more concerned about the delicate 6x tippet that the fly was tied to and all of the weeds on the bottom of the river that a wily fish might use to get free.  Fortunately the tippet held and got a chance to take his photo!   This fish was somewhere in the vicinity of 20"

All this time the fish were rising on PMDs and Tricos - both super tiny.  The trick was to drop a fly right in the fish's feeding lane and hope it decides to take your fly instead of the real bug drifting down the river next to it. Once in a while you convince a fish yours is the real deal and it takes the fly.  If you are lucky you hook the fish but often with these tiny flies you either jerk it out of their mouth, or in the fish shakes it out during the fight because the hook is just sooo tiny.  ( I had several of such instances on this trip but fortunately I had a pretty good success ratio)  So as I am standing there letting the pool rest waiting for the fish to come back to the surface and start feeding again I see a large grass hopper fall into the river just upstream from where the fish have been feeding.  I stand there in eager anticipation to see what happens next.  Wham!  The hopper is GONE!  I quickly scramble to re-rig my line cutting off the microscopic flies and substituting in the huge hopper.

One of the lessons you learn early on in fly fishing is that if you want to catch fish you need to have a solid presentation of the fly where the fly moves down the river as though its not connected to any thing, it simply flows down the river at exactly the same speed everything around it.  Sounds easy enough but fly anglers spend their entire lives perfecting this technique.  If you do this right you catch fish, if you can't figure it out, you don't.

So here I am trying to perfectly float my big grasshopper down the river expecting at any second I'll get something to nail it.  After several good casts and good drifts right through the feeding lane... nothing.

Then I watch one of those bugs that walks on water go scooting along the surface across the current and right over where the fish have been feeding and it is instantly gobbled up.  AH HA!  Thinking back, that hopper I saw was kicking periodically as it was floating down the river....

With new excitement I deliver my hopper just upstream of the feeding fish and as its drifting down the stream I break the cardinal rule of fly fishing and give him a little twitch, then another, then a third one... wham!  Fish on, and its a PIG!  A beautiful Cutthroat!

After a couple of pictures I send him on his way

Fish numbers 5 and 6: I just had to try this trick again!  Same fly, same spot, three twitches, and I hook into another fish, this one the biggest fish of the day.  This time - the weirdest thing happened - while I was fighting the fish I watched it spit the hook only to have its buddy that was swimming along with it grab the dropper fly - I ended up landing the smaller fish on the dropper -  a little smaller but another nice rainbow.  I was too excited again and spared the photo...

 Fish number 7: By now I had caught a good share of the fish out of this hole and the rest of the fish were too spooked to feed.  There was no more surface activity, and no more takers on the hopper.  I decided to switch over to the spaghetti and meat balls rig (an egg fly with a worm fly dropper) and I picked up one last fish in the next pool up the stream!  Another bow approaching 20"!

This was some day!  The smallest fish was around 16-17" and the biggest one may hve topped out around 20".  The best part was that I was basically in non-stop dry fly / sight fishing heaven from 10am until about 2pm.  I did have my share of requisite lost fish which keeps things in perspective.  I would have kept going but the weeds on the river bottom were dieing off for the season and big clumps were drifting down the river - it got worse and worse until at 2pm the river became more or less unfishable - time to head home.

Lessons learned
-Sometimes cardinal rules are really more like guidelines
-Explore new stretches of familiar waters

Lady Liberty

A few weeks ago, Elizabeth learned all about the Statue of Liberty in school.  And it also happened to be dress like a superhero or princess day (and tumble bus, pizza and peaches and guitar lady ... how does life get any better).  Elizabeth enjoyed showing us her crown and torch and told us all about Lady Liberty.  I of course tried to tell her all about her Great Great Grandparents and Ellis Island.

Elizabeth and Andrew are playing so nicely together.  Their favorite games are hide and seek (they play it every day when daddy comes home from work) and to just sit behind the rocking chair in Andrew's room or behind the bed in Elizabeth's room and talk about all kinds of things.  Elizabeth is getting better at hide and seek (she actually tries to hide somewhere) but oftentimes will still tell you where she is going to hide.   Elizabeth is a wonderful conversationalist and Andrew is a very good listener, interjecting an ok or nope or yep at just the right occasions.  Elizabeth has mastered the Little Mermaid song and belts in out at least 2 times per day.  I am not allowed to sing along, which is difficult because I love to sing and sing all the time but Elizabeth is going through a stage where mommy is not allowed to sing.  Andrew knows a few of the words as well, mostly the last word of each verse and will belt it out in unison with Elizabeth.  His favorite thing to do is read books by Karen Katz and "ride" on his tricycle.  I broke down and bought just about every Karen Katz book so now he has the entire collection.  He asks for them specifically but his favorite is "A Potty for Me" that Aunt Courtney and Uncle Michael got Elizabeth when she was potty training.  Elizabeth has it memorized and "reads" it to Andrew (along with I Can Share) which is adorable.  Andrew's favorite part of the book is when mommy flushes the toilet.  Andrew loves to wave his hand and go "woosh"!!
Andrew and Elizabeth's other favorite activity is to lay down on the couch after school to drink their warm milk and watch an episode of Curious George.  They lay on the pillow together and don't say a word, just relax.  It's absolutely precious.  I need to take a picture of it next week.

Breckenridge Weekend

A few weeks ago we went up to Breckenridge for the weekend with the kiddos.  Our family friends are so gracious to lend us their condo from time to time and we always have a blast.

One of the highlights of the trip for Elizabeth was riding the gondola.  She thought that was amazing.  Andrew, not so much but he tolerated it after about 3 minutes of movement.  However, when it was time to ride the gondola back down from the Breck Fun Park, where the kids got to pan for gold and Elizabeth rode a poney (Andrew was not at all interested) he was not overly thrilled.

Andrew and Elizabeth panning for gold.  

One of the other highlights for the kiddos was going to the park on Lake Dillion.  It has got to be one of the most picturesque parks in the world as it sits right on the lake and overlooks all the mountains.  Elizabeth learned how to do the monkey bars by the end of the weekend (we went to the park about 5 times).  She is so persistent as she was determined to get across all the bars and did it!  I was really proud of her.

 Jan was in the Dillion Open on Saturday and Sunday and got to race with team.  He had such a blast that he's up doing it again this weekend!

Before and After

Yup its time for another Gregario feature...  I think its safe to say that poor old Gregario has been a bit neglected ever since the addition of Elizabeth and then Andrew.  He doesn't get out for as many walks, his nails aren't trimmed as often as they maybe should be, there are random toys left laying in his bed, periodically Andrew sneaks up on him and tries to ride him like a horse, and of course there is always dinner...  I knew that Gregario would have a whole new outlook on Elizabeth and Andrew once they started eating in a high chair - In Gregario's eyes Elizabeth morphed from source of his neglect to a source of gourmet eats.  Andrew has taken it to a whole new level as his all-boy energy decides its time to eat and the food goes everywhere.  Gregario being a senior and now wiser dog strategically positions himself to be right in the drop zone under Andrew's seat and frequently finds himself in hog heaven and consequently also covered in food.  While Andrew usually needs a bath after dinner its not that uncommon for Gregario to need one too.  Just the other day he was covered in yogurt that required the hose...  

  

 A couple of times a year Gregario finds his way onto the blog and I just couldn't resist posting these shots taken a few hours apart.  These were taken when Kate and I returned from sailing in the Caribbean only to find there had been a fair amount of rain while we were away and the grass was now two feet long, then in an Edward Scissor Hands moment after seeing Gregario out in the grass it was pretty obvious that while we were mowing...

Greg now happy with his dapper do can now sleep without panting all night from the heat and what do you know, the grass looks better too!

Summer fun

I had Reserve duty the past few weeks and had some very warm welcomes home from the kiddos!  One day at school Elizabeth learned all about astronauts and made her very own astronaut helmet.  I asked her if she wanted to be an astronaut when she grows up but she doesn't.  She still wants to be all of the Disney Princesses.  I asked her about being a Princess Astronaut but that was not of interest either.

And Andrew giving the raspberries as usual.

Elizabeth helped Jan restain the deck.  I thought that she was going to help him for a few minutes and then loose interest but she stuck with it for about two hours and did a really good job.  The only problem was that she decided to stain the entire length of one board right in the middle of the deck so it made it a bit of a logistical issue for Jan.  These two make a great team! 

 Looking a bit like Grandpa Steve in this picture.