We went camping this past weekend. For about 6 months now Aron has expressed interest in fishing. He's always loved marine life, but he's now very interested in fishing with a pole with a "rolling pin" on it.
So for their birthday, Gramma Judi and Papa Tom got them each a fishing pole. Jordan's is pink and says Barbie on it. They were ecstatic! In addition they got these kid's digital cameras. We put SD memory cards in them and they can take like 5000 pictures or something. But they are very easy for them to point, click and review (and even delete, which Jordan has been doing on Aron's camera).
This past weekend was the last weekend that My dad was going to be in town, so we took his trailer out for one last summer camping trip and also took along the kids' fishing poles.
With their fishing poles they each received a rubber fish which can be tied onto the line for casting practice. Once we got to the campsite I tied on the rubber fish (Aron's was green and Jordan's was orange) and they practiced casting just on the ground. Aron got it right away. Which was slightly surprising, because Jordan is usually the first to master mechanical items (like her bike and the camera). But Aron pretty much figured it out after my showing him just one time.
So the next day we went down to the river (still with the rubber fish attached) and the two of the cast out these rubber fish into the river for awhile. Well, the river was moving kind of swiftly and we kept telling them they needed to reel them in quickly, as the weight of the rubber fish would take it to the bottom and then it would get stuck in rocks.
Sure enough, Aron waited too long to reel it in one time and got his little green fish stuck. My dad (and I) attempted to get it unstuck. The result of this little adventure was my dad sitting down, fully clothed, in the river and the line breaking saying good by to the little green fish forever.
Aron is funny. He takes a while to catch the point of something that has happened (for instance the little green fish.) "Mommy, I need my green fish! Find it!" "I can't Aron, it's gone down the river." "What?" "It's gone!" But when he does finally catch on (let's say hours later with repeats of the above conversation many, many times.) Then he has to explain to everyone. "I lost my green fish in the river. It's gone." So he explains that to pretty much anyone who will listen, whether they follow the conversation or not.
Anyway, after that we were given some hooks and lures which we tied onto their lines and then they practiced casting with real hooks and fake worms (Aron was particularly impressed with the fake worms.)
Nothing was caught all weekend, but Aron sure did have a good time. I don't mean to imply that Jordan did not have fun, but it was definitely a perfect weekend as far as Aron was concerned.
Here are some pictures (and some video... leading up to, but not including, the sit-down in the river by my dad).
