Not his first fish!

Joe's paternal grandfather (Paw Paw Porter) wanted to teach Joe to fish, and they have been out fishing twice this week with Joe's "straight A" fishing pole awarded from said grandfather. This picture is NOT his first fish, which Joe is emphatic about telling everyone. However it is the first fish I got to see. Apparently his first fish was given to someone else at the fishing spot, and the second was legally too small and was released to grow a little more to be caught another day by someone other than Joe.

Not a bad catch!

In Paradise

Yep, we found some great shark's teeth!

Just try telling her "no"

Catching a wave!!

??!!?? *

We've been having a great time here at Amelia Island, FL, in a little beach town called Fernandina Beach. We are about 2 1/2 blocks from the beach. The water is warm, the rain is too, and there have been some great lightning storms. I already want to move here.

* This is a really big grasshopper the girls found on their walk to the beach. It got it's wings wet in the early morning rainfall. Elizabeth noticed it first and got all excited, Brianna caught it in her bucket and we took it to the beach where it tried really hard to stay away from the water. It wasn't until this evening that the daddy told them no more live critters in the house...they had taken it upstairs to their room.

I think we've killed about 5 baby frogs, not intentionally of course.

I did convince them to put back the hermit crabs we found in the tide pools before heading home.

On the road

First day on our three day road trip to Florida, we are doing well!

I think I have found the trick (for my kids at least) to end the endless, every fifteen minute question, you know the ONE...
Are we there yet??

I gave the older three children five raffle tickets each. That is the allowable limit of times they can ask it today. If they ask the question in ANY form I take a ticket. Once we bed down for the night the more tickets they have left the better the prize! So far only one ticket has been taken! We are at the end of the day.

I also put together a map where they can look to see where we are at any given time. This seems to help them grasp how long it will really take.

All in all a good travel day.

Love of the Scriptures

Brianna says to me the other day:

Mom, I love to read the scriptures!

Keep in mind she is just learning her letters so she really isn't 'reading' the scriptures yet, but "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." Proverbs 22:6

G-ma Fisk is having her mark "God" every time they run across it in the scriptures. She is really enjoying her involvement during scripture time.

We recently went to pick her up her own scriptures at the Deseret Industries (I got a Bible, Book of Mormon/D&C/Pearl of Great Price for about $4!), and she used them for her first talk in Primary this past Sunday.

I think she is well on the way to becoming a lover of the scriptures.