Pinetop, AZ

Once again, Jeff's grandparents were very generous in letting us use their time share in Pinetop, AZ. Pinetop is about 3 1/2 hours north east of Gilbert. We couldn't have gone at a better time. This past weekend was record highs in Phoenix. It was 119 in Phoenix on Saturday. In Pinetop the high's were in the low 90's. The weather was awesome. It was overcast, breezy, and waaay cooler than Gilbert. Pinetop is nothing like Gilbert. It has huge tall trees, thousands of them. No cacti in sight! We went swimming and fishing. If were weren't fishing we were swimming. Saturday morning we tried our luck fishing at Woodland Lake we had power bait and worms. There was only one spot to fish from. We fished from a floating dock with about 25 other people. No luck here. Then we thought we try Show Low lake. We found a secluded spot to fish from, but again, no luck. Sydney was getting rather frustrated that we weren't getting nibbles or anything. We did, however, teach them about the experience in John chapter 21 when the disciples fished all night and caught nothing. Then Christ appeared and told them to cast their nets on the other side and they caught more fish than they were able to pull into the boat. Our time was not wasted and the next day we tried a third lake. I told Sydney to put her good luck fishing clothes on as this was our last chance at fishing before we had to drive home. We drove to Hawley Lake. When we got in the car it smelled like onions in someone's pit. We concluded it was the worms we accidentally left in the car over night that had died. We got to Hawley Lake and casted from shore again. We had a small herd of cattle staring us down and encroaching on us....better than bears I guess, but I was still uneasy about it. We had no luck and spirits were down. Jeff made the executive decision to rent a dinky little motor boat for an hour. The kids perked up about going on the lake. Our first cast and we caught something! Levi reeled it in and caught his first fish. The girls each caught their own fish too. It was so exciting for the kids and Jeff and I to anticipate reeling in a fish and seeing the joy in our kids faces. Macie was sleeping so she didn't participate in all the commotion of catching 3 fish. The power bait worked the best. The only problem was the fish were swallowing the hook. We didn't plan on it, but we ended up killing all the fish. After we made it back to the dock, we filleted the fish at the Hawley Lake store, drove home, and cooked and ate the trout we caught. We had a great time. Fishing was relaxing in the cool weather and beautiful surroundings. We met up with some friends for dessert Saturday night. On our drive home we DIDN'T even stop. All the kids crashed for a good amount of time. I'd love to go back in the winter and go skiing at Sunrise Resort that is 30 minutes away.

 Pool time and Macie's first official time in a pool (all the way in). She already loves the water.

 Woodland Lake

 Hawley Lake

 Levi wears this BYU hat every single day.

 Macie's first time on a boat. 

 Jordyn loved petting the dead fish, holding it, and making faces with it.

 Gutting the fish. The girls were all about anything to do with the fish. Levi could care less. He was annoyed with the smell and flies that surrounded us.

Back at home and eating the fish we caught. It tasted yummy. Thank you fishies.