And now she's scarred for life...

It was too windy to make the 20+ min drive to the big lake worth it.  There would be no escaping the nearly 40 mph gusts at our dear 13th largest lake in Minnesota.

But we wanted to do just a little fishing with the kids.

So we took them to the river in town. We found a few clear spots in the weeds along the bank, baited hooks, and filled cup holders with popcorn. (In case you didn't know, fishing and eating are very closely related activities. Pretty sure it's impossible to do the former without the later.)

We casted and waited, the adults not really expecting to catch anything. Jack-Hammer kept repeating that "you need to be wiwwy pwa-tient when you fish." 

And I completely agreed, which is why I didn't move from my spot in the sun on the grass when Ava matter-of-factly reported that her "bobber was dunking."

Eventually the words she was saying with a now-hilarious mixture of dryness and amusement over what she thought was her bobber just deciding to dunk on its own (really, we have taken her fishing before), sunk into our adult brains and we realized she had a fish on.

It was all very exciting as we ran to her side urging her to "reel it in! reel it in!"

To our knowledge, she's never actually caught a fish with her pole, and we're not entirely sure if she's ever reeled in a fish before on someone else's pole. That job usually goes to Jack. So maybe it was really seeing and feeling first hand what it's like to pull a fish in out of the water, or maybe she was expecting a pretty little sunfish or perch.......whatever it was, the poor little girl burst into tears when Daddy reached down and pulled up her line to reveal a slimy, spiny-whiskered bullhead.

I just wanted a picture with her first fish, but there was no way she was getting close enough to the bullhead for mom to take her picture - especially when mom was shooting with the 50 mm. I would have had to run all the way out to the road to get them both in the frame.

She tried to creep closer for a look but any motion by the fish sent her running and crying the other direction. It was hilarious and weird all at the same time. My girl, who loves catching and holding worms and toads, running in terror away from a bullhead.

So brother Jack got to touch the fish and we let the ugly thing go. He then insisted on fishing in Ava's spot "cuz that's where Ava caught a fish."

We got everybody's lines back in the water and cup holders re-filled with popcorn and settled back down to "wait wiwwy pwa-tient-wy."