Fishing, The Smokies, a Dinner Cruise and FHE

I found some pictures on the SD card that I never uploaded so these are old but I wanted to get them on here.  The first pictures are from when we went fishing for the first time.  I think it was the last week of May because Will had just gotten home from 11 year old scout camp earlier in the day.  The night ended up being really chilly and eventually we all had to quit because we were too cold.  Our friend's go fishing often at a private pond that one of their friends lets them use so they invited us to come join them.  We don't own any fishing things so our friend's supplied everything and we just had to show up.  The pond is in the middle of no where.  It is gorgeous and quiet and perfect.  The drive there reminded me how much I love living so close to the country.  Piper caught the firsts fish and then everyone caught fish after fish.  I think the pond was pretty well stocked.  It was a great way to start their fishing experience.  It would have been sad for the kids to go fishing and catch nothing.

 Isaac was so funny to watch.  He thought the worms were disgusting and kept having the funniest faces whenever he had to touch the worms or the fish.

At the beginning of the summer I took the kids to the Smokies.  We decided to go early in the season before it got too hot.  I went down alone with the kids and they all wanted to swim in one of the swimming holes.  The water was still freezing but they loved it.  I am hoping we can make a couple more trips down in the next couple of months.

These last pictures are recent.  It's gotten hot enough that we don't want to be outside much so we haven't done a lot lately.  I took the kids swimming on Tuesday and then on Wed we rented a movie from Redbox so we could just stay home and stay cool.

One of the things I wanted to make sure we did before we moved was take a dinner cruise down the Tennessee River.  The boys had a birthday party where they played Capture the Flag and had a huge water balloon fight.  Piper was sad that she couldn't be with her brothers so I took her to a girl in our ward who babysits for us and she and her little sister had a girls night with Piper.  They watched a movie and did makeup and hair.  So, Mike and I went on our dinner cruise with our friends and it was our first date in months.  The food was fine, not amazing but fine.  There was a live band that sang while we ate.  After dinner we all went upstairs to the top floor of the boat and chatted.  The houses on the shore are gigantic and beautiful and very expensive.  Anyway, it was a nice evening and something fun and different than we usually do for date night.

 Finally, Isaac has been supplying us with our Family Home Evening lessons the last couple of weeks.  He has a great teacher who always has fun object lessons and Isaac has been coming home and replicating the object lessons for us on Monday nights.  This week we played Bean Boozled and it was hilarious.  You get a container of jelly bellys  and you don't know if you are going to get a vomit flavored bean or an apricot bean.  Or, you might get lime or lawn clippings.  It's so gross and funny.  Isaac taught us that Satan tries to confuse us and presents us with things that look good even though they are bad and we have to keep the commandments and follow our leaders and The Spirit to know how to continually make the right choices and not be tricked by Satan.  The game was so funny and I'm glad I captured this picture of Isaac and Mike after they ate a disgusting bean.