Catching up!

July was a very busy month. So busy in fact, it has completely passed us by before we had a chance to post all about it! This post is an attempt at bringing back July for just a minute or two, so we can get caught up and ready for August!

Quatro de Julio!

Of course, we have to pause for a minute and reflect back on the birth of our great country. For the Fourth of July festivities, we celebrated by heading up to Red Cliffs for a great American tradition, roasting hot dogs and making s'mores!



We also introduced Max to the fine art of fishing for crawdads! We put one in the back of his dump truck so we could watch it swim, and before long, Max decided to bury the "pinchers" by dumping fistfuls of sand on top of it! Before he was completely caked in a mud pie, we decided the little guy (the crawdad, not Max) had had enough of the burying alive bit, so we let him go in the stream where he could rejoin his crawdad friends. I'm sure he had quite the story to tell them all when he got back! "Whoa dudes, I was just munching on this hotdog, when all of a sudden I was pulled out of the water, thrown in the back of a truck, and then covered with sand! It was awesome!" Yeah, I'm sure those were his exact thoughts.

Later that night we went over and parked ourselves on my uncle's front lawn, right across from the Sun Bowl, where we could enjoy the annual fireworks celebration.


We started the night by setting off a few of our own, then moved on to the sparklers, which were quite the hit 'till Max thought it would be fun to grab the actual sparkler part of the sparkler. Turns out it wasn't so fun after all.


Luckily we were able to get Max's fingers properly cooled down before the real fireworks started. Not that Max would have cared too much had we missed them. They were too loud! Isla however, couldn't keep her eyes off them!



The Pirates of Powell!


For the 24th of July (Pioneer Day) we took our busy little selves out to Lake Powell for fun, food, and fun. We went out with my family and invited my Uncle Doug and his family to join the party. Every year, my family will get together for a little reunion of sorts, and this trip was that reunion for this year. It's never really called a reunion, but that's essentially what it is.

Holding true to tradition, we played a homestyle version of the Amazing Race. Not ones for clever game titles, we usually call this the Wells Family Amazing Race! This year, Shayla and I were in charge of putting the race together and we decided that since we were on the water, and staying on a giant of a house boat, we had to have a pirate theme for the race. And so a pirate theme we had! We renamed the houseboat "The Pearl of Powell" for the weekend and called ourselves the Pirates of Powell.

It was a great weekend filled with fun and games, and we have to thank Sharla and Jeremy for letting us use their houseboat and toys.



Lucky 7 Ranch
My boss owns a ranch just north of Hatch and he invited the entire office up there for a weekend retreat. We spent the last weekend of the month up there enjoying the cooler weather, fishing, shooting shotguns, riding ATV's, and dining on some of the best steaks and buffalo burgers I've ever had! It was a great weekend and Max caught his first fish!


This crazy fish took the lure in one swift gulp! I was using Max's new Shrek ('cuz it's green) fishing pole, letting him help me cast and reel it in as he liked. He would move between fishing with me to climbing the small but steep hill behind us to where Shayla was sitting. It was during one of the times when he was with Shayla that this fish struck. And it struck hard! Max quickly climbed down and helped me reel in this 18 inch beast! As we got it to shore and right as I was bending down to pick it up, the line snapped and the fish swam quickly away with my lure!

I was a bit happy it got away actually. You see, neither Shayla nor I like to eat fish. And even though he's never had it, I feel quite confident telling you that Max doesn't like fish either. With the fish getting away, it kept me from having to work the hook free from inside it's mouth, keeping it, cleaning it, and taking it home.

Now I know some of you may be thinking, "But Bob, haven't you ever heard of catch and release? Just take the hook out, and put the fish back in the water." Well, this obviously sounds like a good idea, and is usually what I like to do when fishing anyway. However, we were all told by my boss, that if a fish swallowed the hook, we had to keep the fish. Deep hooked fish have a fairly low chance of survival, and as this was his own private pond on his ranch, he really didn't want dead fish floating around in the water. Can't say I blame him.

Now, as I had mentioned earlier, I was about to grab the fish out of the water when it broke the line. It was relatively easy for me to see that he had swallowed the hook, causing me to have to keep the fish. With the fish getting away, I no longer had to worry about the prospect of keeping it, cleaning it, and eating it.

Or so I thought. A few minutes later, a fish, about the size of the one Max and I had caught earlier, came floating by, belly up. Shayla asked, "Is that the fish you caught?" Even though I didn't want to, I had to assume that it was.

Yup, it was. As we got it out of the water (with a little help from someone in a paddle boat) and looked into the fish's mouth, there was my lure, about halfway down it's fishy little throat! I guess I'd have to keep it anyway!

At least now we could snap a few pictures for photographic evidence of Max's first catch! And what a catch it was! This fish was exactly half of Max's two-year old height of 36 inches! He loved reeling it in, and after a little coaxing, we even got him to touch it's slimy body.