Grand Marais

After 9 years of planning, somehow Daryl, Nancy, Bill and I finally made it to Grand Maris together... and now that we are back home, we already want to go back. We had a great time and other than a light "mist" the weather was perfect!
Nancy turned out to be a professional perch fisherwoman she was putting on a perch catching clinic for the entire trip - Did you know you can catch perch right underneath the boat all day long ??
Daryl caught Pike until his arms were tired, and Bill and I just tried to keep up with those 2.
In other highlights, we made friends with the Hippies (Very Important) we had delicious monster cookies that Nancy has been talking about for a year, picked some blueberries, and had to come home way too soon....

First the fish takes the bobber.. then you REEL

This weekend it was off to the neighbors pond for a little Bennett family fishing tournament. The results went a little like this:Most Fish: Cole Armed with his brand new pole and tackle box from his birthday, Cole was ready to show his stuff and he did - hauling out 11 fish and learning how to put a squirmy wormy on his hook!

Toughness in the face of adversity: Big Lare for not swearing when he got 2 treble hooks stuck in his hands after catching a very large and very spunky large mouth bass. We'll spare you the photoBest Surgeon: Bill for pulling out the not 1 but 2 rapala treble hooks that were stuck in both of Big Lare's hands, one was nestled very near the bone and the other one was in his thumb (his good thumb)... GROSSSmallest Fish: Cindi - pictured below but she did set the hook!Future Fisherwoman: Lexi who had never fished before was amazing, she hooked fish, reeled them in and even decided to take one off and put it "in the bucket" I think it was Aunt Traci's lucky pole that did the trick...Biggest Fish: Trevor who was getting taken to fishing school by Bill pulled off a victory at the last minute and hauled out a 15.5" crappie to win the tournament moments before we were all carreid away by the mosquitoes...

Rilley is 3

There is no better way to celebrate being 3 years old than pizza, pop, cupcakes and games... so Chucky Cheese is the place to be. We celebrated Rilley's 3rd birthday with Chucky and everyone had a great time - and guess what - even Bill had fun... Rilley and him played every game in the place while I tried to get Lilly to go visit Chucky Cheese (I failed she was scared)...

Gramp's Birthday

We went out for dinner this year for Gramp's birthday and the kids kept us entertained the whole time... here are some pics of the fun.

Cedar Point

Hey all you blog readers, it's been a busy summer and I haven't been blogging, but lots has been happening. Cole started off his summer in style at Cedar Point. For those of you who remember our trip to Formula K last year, this was Cole's second consecutive year of not getting in trouble at school all year long... this year's reward was a trip to Cedar Point (yes, I do realize I cannot top this one next year).
It was a perfect day for the trip... I convinced Kim to go with us (Phil was nice enough to take a day off to parent) and we had a great time. You will have to ask Cole what he thinks of roller coasters, but I think he will be a fanatic... just give him a year or so to grow a few more inches. Not sure what next year's trip will be, we will see if Cole can manage not getting in trouble for his big third grade debut.