Our First Salmon Fishing Trip

I booked a salmon fishing trip for Ben's birthday this year.  Our guide Justin and his deckhand were the best!  After several "almost" and "d*x?q!" from the boat, I was lucky enough to reel in the first fish.  It was the hardest time I have ever worked for a fish!

Ben was a happy birthday boy.  He was all smiles this day!  Maybe it was because it wasn't raining at the moment or maybe it's because he knew it was almost his time...

It wasn't long before he had one on the line and ready to reel in.  He had a much easier time, probably because he has more experience than I do with anything bigger than a trout!

 The jacket even came off for a little while! There was a brief moment of thinking he had caught another but this one was too cute to keep!
We were on the Cowlitz River and it was so beautiful most of the time.  We saw quite a few trains rumbling along the tracks and over this bridge!

Ben and his fish.  He wanted to take my picture with mine but look at all that blood, yuck!

Ben was a good sport about cooking his own birthday dinner.  We ended up with 4 giant salmon filets and we are looking forward to trying all the recipes people have been sharing with us.

Wait, do you think they are sharing recipes hoping to get an invitation?  I see a salmon feast in our future!

So there's one last thing I have to share (mostly because Ben said I wouldn't!)... After my beautiful fish got into the boat, Justin said he would take care of the rest.  I didn't know that what that meant was that he was going to hit the fish over the head to kill it as quickly and humanely as possible.  I started to cry and then I heard one of the 6 men in the boat say "there is NO crying in fishing".  It actually helped me the rest of the day.  Now don't get me wrong- I love to fish and I love to eat fish.  I just don't like to think about how they get from hook to plate!  BTW, it wasn't until later on in the day when I heard that line again, (after I cried again) that I realized that phrase had come from the birthday boy's mouth!

Buddy Watch

We dog sat for my sister's furbaby Buddy.  He is an adorable Bison who, fortunately, is well behaved.  I took Buddy for walks, I took him out at night, I fed him and all he wanted was Ben.  How is that for gratitude?  Every time I looked for him, I found him with Ben.  

Buddy even spent 20 minutes at the front door watching as Ben cut the grass.  It was pretty cute!

One afternoon Buddy was playing outside and I realized that he was in the fire pit.  It's hard to tell but his little face was covered in soot.  

We had a fun time with Buddy but we decided we aren't ready for a furbaby of our own.  We still have too many people to visit and places to see!  But we are looking forward to hanging out with him again!