Look what Gunner did....

Gunner was invited to go fishing today with Phil and a buddy of Phil's. They headed over to the Yaquina River ready for, basically a boat ride in the pouring rain. About 10:15 Mark's phone rings, it is Gunner, "Dad, I caught a fish, a monster fish". While Mark is talking to him, I check my phone and I had a text message. This was what I found..........
It weighed about 40lbs and was about 38 1/2 inches long. Gunner reeled it in all by himself. (He has just bought a brand new salmon rod and spincast(?) reel this summer, so it has the stink off it). He was pretty stoked. Phil was hoping like hell he didn't miss it with the net!!

Not much action the rest of they day, they were getting ready to leave and Gunner has another hit on his pole. After the other 2 got their gear in the boat, Gunner gave his pole to Phil's buddy and he reeled it in, it was his first salmon, Not as big, but still a nice looking fish. It weighed about 20lbs(ish) and was about 30ish inches. Both fish were caught on some special homemade spinners that Mark had made. He's not happy or anything is he???

Good Day Fishing......

Drake Football Update.....

Had a game on Wednesday night, at the high school. Glad I was sitting under cover. When I got there it was not too bad but about the end of the 1st quarter it started pouring buckets. (I thought Missy was crazy when she sent me a text that she was sitting in the pouring rain watching soccer. At that point it had not hit us yet.)

Started out to be a good game, but quickly became boring. We were up 22-0 at the end of the 1st quarter, won 28-0. Drake did have a highlight, they were on defense and it was either 3rd or 4th down and the quarterback threw a pass and Drake intercepted it. He managed to run it back about 7 yards (YEAH DRAKE, would have been cool if it was a TD), but it did set up the offense to score the 1st TD of the game. Of course I did not have my camera ready for it either. As I said, after that it got boring. Pop Warner has a rule that if you score more than, I think 28 points and beat them, then your coach is suspended. We had several times where we got the ball and just punted it back to them. Drake did end up playing quarterback for most of the offense and it was good practice (but kinda frustrating becuase he couldn't pass and did not have the normal running backs),
But a win is a win and they are now 3-0. Looks like a promising season!! Keep it up boys.

Ready for some Football?!?!?!?!?!

Football has started.......

Drake actually missed the first game because was at Lake Chelan (Did not know the games were starting so early). His team beat West Albany (yeah), I think 24-0. They played again Wednesday at Crescent Valley and they won 34-12. Of course about the 4th play of the game on defense Drake was called for a facemask penalty. Luckily that was not the worst penalty and it did not impact the outcome of the game. He played good solid game and even took a couple snaps as Quarterback.

Here is a pic of Drake in his uniform, he looks so handsome (I was gonna say cute, but I think he is getting too old for cute), but gotta say, not lovin the uniform color combo, but hey, they didn't ask me :D

(He's QB in this pic below)


For anyone that is interested, here is his football schedule (not including any post season, if they make it. Which I hope they do, because then they could get a chance to play at Reser Stadium. How cool is that!!)

Wednesday 9/15/10 @ 5:00 P.M. - Lebanon High School
Sunday 10/3/10 @ 2:00 P.M. - Sprague High School
Saturday 10/9/10 @ 10:00 A.M. - Silverton High School #8
Saturday 10/16/10 @ 12:30 P.M. - Sprague High School
Saturday 10/23/10 @ 12:00 P.M. - Seven Oaks Middle School (last regular season game)

1st Day of Schol...

I LOOOOVVVEEEE this commercial....It is just soo perfect, but sadly I did not see it air this year, but thank goodness for youtube.


1st day of school, ohhh I remember the excitement, the jitters, not sleeping well the night before from the excitement and jitters, the new supplies and new shoes, and not being able to wear the really cool sweater the 1st day because it is like 80 degrees outside, seeing all my friends. I remember it well.

Today is the first day for both boys. Can't believe Gunner is a sophomore and Drake is in 7th grade. My how the time has flown by.

Don't they look grownup!! I am excited to hear about the first day, who did what over the summer, any new kids, how many girlfriends to they have, do they like their teachers, all that good stuff!!

Summer's Over?!

Well, Labor Day Weekend has come and gone, that usually means the end of summer. This year, like every year, I think I am going to get so much done and make the most of every minute that I can. Well, we did get alot accomplished, I am not so sure it was alot off my list though, but it was a good summer!.....

Even with a wet spring and beginning of summer, it didn't really slow us down. Gunner finished baseball before school was out and decided not to play summer ball. Instead he had his 3 week trip to Alaska (still need pics from that, hint, hint). He got home in time for the County Fair and Vacation.

Drake spent until the middle of July playing baseball. It was a good exciting season finishing with the state tournament. He just got back on Thursday from spending a week at Lake Chelan with some friends (fishing, swimming, jet skiing, go karts, miniture golf), Poor Deprived Kids!!.
(tough isn't it?)
We did manage to get some camping and fishing in, managed to catch a couple Corvallis Knights games. We had 3 trips to the coast, went to Diamond Lake, spent a week at TrailBridge. Caught alot of fish and some rays (from the sunshine) and had some good times. (launching SS Chucklehead) (don't they look grown up?)
As I am typing, I am sitting here in the trailer at South Beach watching the RV's pull out one after another from the campground and I know that in a couple hours that will be us (Of course I am looking at all the shit we need to pack up!)

But,it will be nice for the kids to be back in school and back on somewhat of a regular schedule. Drake has already started football and has games for the next 6 or 7 weeks. He is also playing fall baseball, but not sure how that is going to fit in the schedule. Gunner is looking forward to deer and duck hunting to start. Sounds like him and Mark are going to Summer Lake again, so that gives him something to look forward to.

I guess I will just have to put my honey-do to-do list in a safe place until next summer.......Hope it was a good one for everyone!!

P.S. Ok, I thought I had posted this yesterday but I guess I hit save instead of publish, oh well!

Corvallis Knights game....

I am a little slow posting this, but, oh well......

Last Friday we had tickets to the Corvallis Knights games (always enjoy going to those and the kids like it to). Evidently our baseball coach contacted the Knights and let me know we were coming. He also told them about the baseball team taking 2nd in state in their division, yada yada.

WELLLLLLL, our boys that were there were taken on the field for the 7th inning stretch and singing of Take me out the ballgame. Our boys were leading the song. It was awesome. They also announced it over the loudspeaker and put the team picture up on the score board with the coaches names
(not sure why my pictures didn't turn out better, but atleast I have some). It was very cool for the boys and very good representation for Lebanon.

Because Drake was on the end, the guy put the microphone in front of him first, he wasn't too sure about that!
ANNDDD the Knights won the game that night!

~~Gone Fishing~~

Isn't funny how sometimes the spur of the moments trips/adventures are some of the funnest........

Not sure how it started, but suddenly last the week Gunner was all over going fishing at the coast. He was checking out the weather and the ocean and the tides and having Mark take daily reports to Nick. I guess Nick liked what he in regards to the ocean, so they planned a fishing trip. It went from being a day trip, to Mark and Gunner sleeping the pickup (with the canopy) to "why the hell not", all of us going and taking the trailer.

We knew we couldn't leave until Saturday morning because we had tickets to the Knight's game (that was fun and awesome, have to have another post to talk about that!). So butt crack of dawn on Saturday, yes that is a time, atleast on my clock! We get up, fill the trailer with water, stop at Safeway for milk, pop, beer and ice (yeap, no food :D) and headed over. Originally Nick was supposed to go over Friday and save a spot for us, but that didn't work out so well. Besides, he says, the parking lot at the marina should not be full, Halibut opens next weekend! HAHAHAHA, we come across the bridge at 9:00 A.M. and HOLY COW, I have NEVER seen the parking lot soo full and have never seen so may boat trailers. They were parked EVERYWHERE and I mean everywhere! We pull thru the parking lot and THANK GOD for my Mark's awesome backing abilities! He got us in a spot that was long enough and then we were even able to save a spot for Nick, right across from us.

Mark and the boys take off to check out the fish coming in, as we were now waiting for Nick (long story there) and I see Mark coming back with someone. Well Jeff and Cheryl were parked about 5 spots down from us. We had a nice visit with them. Finally Nick shows up and off they go. Well, it was absolutely beautiful over there and it decided it was Ok for Drake to go out (in the ocean), so away they went. They all caught some fish. Drake (who has a new friend "Ralph" :D), even caught 3 sea bass one line at one time, he was pretty stoked. Not sure how many fish they caught, but they caught some sea bass and ling cod. Drake enjoyed it, but he was pretty happy to see land. Gunner, well, Gunner wanted to know what time they were going on Sunday....... (this is just a couple of what they caught).

Sunday morning woke up was kinda foggy, overcast and the wind was blowing. The boys were trying to decide if they wanted to go fishing or crabbing. Finally decided to go fishing. While they were getting ready, Raymond came over and asked if anyone wanted to go on a boat ride. Well, I jumped all over that one, even though it was the big bad ocean, they were only going out to pick up crab pots, quick trip. I didn't think Drake would wnat to go after Saturday, but he did.
It was fun, the ocean wasn't too bad, Drake enjoyed it, he got to help Jeff as Jeff pull crab pots. It was a fun boat ride.
Mark, Gunner and Nick ended up not coming in until almost 5, they limited it out on Sea Bass (so we had almost at hour at the fish cleaning station, UGH). We ended up with about 25 lbs of fish from the weekend. Not too shabby for a spur of the moment trip.

Alas, it was time to come home, the sun was on the horizon and the weekend was over. I, thankfully, was wearing my big girl panties (get your mind out of the gutters and yes I was wearing some Nichole!) and drove home.......towing trailer.......from the coast.....OY!! (I'm a big girl now :D) and all the way home, the boys were commenting on what a fun weekend it was and how much they enjoyed. Case in point, sometimes spur of the moment is the best way to go.