Free Fishing Day

Today was free fishing day, which means you can go fishing without a license. I've been fishing only a handful of times in my life and for whatever reason I just could NOT get into it. Cristian being experienced has helped pique my interest and today we decided to wake up at 7am to give it a go. We readied everything last night so we'd just have to roll out of bed and head out. Violet was so excited and kept yelling "fishing! fishing!" from the backseat of the car even though we're sure she had no idea what we were actually doing. However, knowing fish were involved definitely helped with her enthusiasm.
My dad and younger brother accompanied us for a the first little while-it was quite the adventure getting him in his wheelchair over to where we decided to stop. Violet enjoyed throwing rocks and sticks into the water and had a great time "helping" Pa with fishing line. Cristian was in his element and it was refreshing to be in the outdoors trying something new.

 I caught my first fish EVER. EVER. As in...IN MY LIFE. I'm grinning ear to ear but truth is I was terrified this teeny yellow belly was going to wiggle and squirm right out of my hand and do something stupid like...hit me in the face with its spikey little tale.

 Violet "helping" Pa with his fishing pole and line.

 Cristian constructed a make shift pole for Violet so she could be a big girl and "fish" with us. By the look of her face in the second photo I think she was on to us. "This is not a fishing pole dad."

 Cristian had to put in some extra effort to help her get excited about her stick and line by putting a bobber on it. She liked it and they look adorable.

 Awwww yeah! I caught ANOTHER one. And this one ended up being the biggest catch of our day. I had a left handed fishing pole (Cristian is left handed), and it was so hard getting the coordination down to reel this one in. He's promised we'll get me a sturdy right handed reel sometime soon.

Violet absolutely LOVED when we caught fish. She would try and hug and kiss them and was very sad when we released them back into the water. She would bow her head and slowly wave her hand at the water while whispering "bye fishy......bye...". It was cute. She even worked up the courage to touch a couple worms all by herself! I think it's safe to say we will be doing this more often.