Phillips Family Fishing Day

We attended the first ever Phillips Family Fishing Day at Scofield on Saturday. It was a lot of driving for a few hours of fishing, but it was well worth it and we are excited to make this an annual event!

Cathy and the girls are in California, so poor Brian was flying solo. Lucky for him (and us), Abby snuggled right up to him and the two of them were BFFs for the whole day. She followed him everywhere and even shared his lunch and a DC. Thanks for the babysitting, Uncle Brian. You rock!


A portion of the crew...

Garrett was beyond excited to be there and to fish. Greg got his line baited and cast out and set it up on this nice little stick to wait for the fish to bite. Poor Garrett just couldn't leave it alone and went over about every 15 seconds to play with it.

I think this was about the 5th time Greg had to reel Garrett's line in and untangle/fix it because poor Garrett just couldn't leave it alone (as previously stated).

After about the 50th time of telling Garrett to leave his line alone, we finally looked at each other and said, "He's a kid...We're fishing...Who cares? Let him play with it."

And play he did...

And wouldn't you know it, he actually caught a fish!

It was even a keeper!

A lovely family photo, don't you think? I'm trying to keep Garrett from hooking himself and Greg is washing Abby's feet off in the lake.Good times...

Now he finally had a fish, Garrett left his pole alone and went over every 15 seconds to check on it, and play with it, and love on it, and make sure it was still there.

More of the crew...

You have never seen a kid more excited about a fish than this little guy. We put it in a ziploc baggie to take home and Garrett whined for a good part of the way home because he wanted to "play with it and eat it." We stopped at the famous In-N-Out Burger in Centerville for dinner, and we had to get the fish out of the cooler so Garrett could hold it for a few minutes. He waved it around the parking lot and was showing it to anybody who dared look our way. A few tears were shed, but we did get the fish back in the cooler and finally made it home.

Now for the best part of all: Garrett was outside with Greg unpacking and I brought Abby in to give her a bath and get her ready for bed. (It was a long day for her and she was tired!) While I was bathing Abby, I heard the door to the house close and some commotion in the kitchen. I got Abby out of the tub and walked in just in time to see Garrett standing on a barstool over the stove and reaching for the buttons. I told him to stop and asked him what he was doing. (We've had the old "the oven is very hot and is only for mommys and daddys" talk several times and he's never messed it with before, so I couldn't figure it out.) He got a big grin on his face and said, "I'm cooking my fish for breakfast." I asked him where his fish was and he pointed to the oven. I opened it up to find this:

(Please don't judge me by the condition of my oven. I know it could use a good cleaning and I will get to it one of these days.)

It was all I could to to keep a straight face as I tried to have a serious talk with him about the dangers of using the oven without mom or dad. Greg came in and we decided that for our own safety, we might as well just cook the blasted thing that night and get it over with so Garrett didn't burn down the house in the middle of the night trying to cook it himself.

By the time Garrett got out of the tub, Greg had grilled him up a feast and he was so excited. He ate almost the whole thing by himself and went to bed with a very happy tummy.

He got a little daddy snuggling in and was out for the count.

Here is the big moment immortalized on film. Enjoy!