Family Fishing!

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> On Saturday we got up well before sunrise to head to Ocean City, New Jersey. We spent four hours on a fishing boat, enjoying the warm weather and peaceful time fishing. We had a $20 prize for whoever in our family caught the biggest fish, and Emma won that!
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> Emma caught a flounder, and Seabass. Scott caught a sand shark, which is really a dogfish, Toby caught a small flounder. Both kids got to hold a puffer fish!
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Gone Fishing!

This morning we spent 4 hours on a fishing boat.  We each had a rod and unlimited bait.  We stood side by side, no one had any advantage over another.  And we even had a prize of $20 to the family member who caught the biggest fish.

Yet, Toby spent over half his time NOT fishing.  Not bothered to sit or stand with his rod.  He was fine until about 3.5 hours in when he started crying bc he hadn't caught anything!!  I refused to "catch something " for him since I hadn't caught anything myself.

About 15 minutes before we returned to shore he put bait on his hook and dropped a line.  I prayed he would catch something even though he didn't deserve to!  Scott prayed with Toby to catch something.

Then the captain gave us a 2 minute warning, "fish hard, fish fast".

Shortly after, Scott heard "bring up your line".  So he did.  Then the captain told everyone to bring up their lines for the last time, at the same time as Toby pulled in his line saying "I got something!!"  And there it was, a little Flounder!

It wasn't big enough to win the competition, however, I am hoping he saw that God hears our prayers, shows incredible mercy when we don't deserve it, and comes through when you think time is up.  That is worth far more!!.

Really?

Has it really been two months since I posted?  Ugh.  Sorry if you've been waiting to hear about the crazy exploits of our family!!  I will take some time over the next week to show you some of what we have been up to.

For the record, September is my least favorite month of the year.  It is a cruelly hard transition from the 2 months of free-flowing summer in to a strict schedule of school, homework, swim practice and other commitments.  I think we maybe do ourselves a disservice by relaxing so much in the summer!!

On the flip side, we have Toby's 9th birthday (yes, 9!!) next Saturday, leading to a wedding on the 20th, and then taking the kids to see the Statue of Liberty at the end of October!!  So stay tuned for the pictures, and I'll strive to make at least a weekly post!!

Much love,

Deb