Gone Fishin'

We've had several people say that they didn't believe that we've caught catfish given our past experiences with fishing. Well get ready for the proof. I told you we went fishing in our pond and I finally took some pics. 

This was my first catch of the evening - I caught him after about 30 seconds of fishing. Bluegill are like that. We were told by the neighborhood boy that he had caught 6 regular fish and 2 catfish. Jared and I were rather amused because when we asked him what type of fish were regular he said, "I don't know. Regular." So I'm guessing that's the bluegill variety. I have to admit though, these little suckers might be harder to catch than catfish. They are tricky little buggers.  They will snatch your bait more than you will snatch them. One in particular really ticked me off and stole my bait a half dozen times - I never did catch him.

This is my last catch of the day - as you can see quite a bit bigger than the first. He was harder to reel in but he was a hungry fellow so it didn't take long for him to bite. 

And here's some of Jareds. He made off pretty good as well. I think he caught something like six catfish in one evening. Three of them were tiny tykes, and the others were pretty good sized. 

Here is Jared posing with one. Undoubtedly, it flopped to the ground and escaped his hands while he was attempting to pose like this. They always did, especially the little ones. They had some tough back fins. 

Down below is probably one of his bigger ones. Don't let the looks deceive you, it was probably close to the size of mine if not bigger. The camera angle is just not the best. Anyway, for those of you who are bored with this fish talk - not to worry. I'm not going to turn this into one of those blogs that tells wild fish stories and posts only pictures of fish. No matter how much Jared would love that. Sorry, Jared. :)

Post-Ike

When we heard that there was a mandatory evacuation, I jumped at the chance to go to Arizona. So we took the 14 hour trek to Arizona once again, this time with both cats (I took one alone in December when Meowfish was still a little tyke and we didn't have Abakles). I was more than happy to make the trip, I was incredibly sorry I hadn't gone in the summer to see all my friends back there. People there seemed to think I was crazy for wanting to do it. Apparently, I could of stayed MUCH longer since I still don't have school. But Jared is back in school already, so I get to blog about it instead.

Meowfish (Abakles in the carrier) enjoying a nap on the way to AZ. I don't know what is up with that cat, but he always has the weirdest sleeping positions. He probably actually enjoyed being so smushed. 

Funnily enough, this one and bunch of others with Meowfish in weird positions on the way home are the only pictures we took of the trip. But it was really great, I was lucky enough to see quite a few of my friends, and even my Grandma Layton. In fact, Jared's mom threw us barbecue and we had quite a few of Jared's friends (and their families) come over. 

When we got home, my stomach was churning as I looked at the neighborhoods around us and saw the roof, window, fence, and plant damage. Not to mention the electric poles lying on the ground - we already had guessed we wouldn't have electricity. But we we got home, much to our surprise and happiness, we hardly had any damage. Of course, the electricity was out - but nothing we couldn't handle.

 Jared posing with some of the damage - as you can see he is smiling because it was not bad at all. It did pummel the gate he had worked so hard on though.

For the next couple days, I had a lot of time to ponder how lucky I am. With the electricity out, I found myself actually liking to browse Walmart (one of the stores with electricity) - something I had previously despised. I sat in front of each food I bought and thought about how long it would last or if I could eat it all now, skipping the frozen foods section entirely. Ice was limited. Gas was limited, we had to (still have to) think about our usage of gas constantly. But going to bed early and the heat was the hardest part. I liked not having the TV or DVD player. It was kind of nice to talk to Jared and do shadow puppets on the wall. It was also hard not knowing what was going on unless we happened to be in the car listening to the radio. Luckily, Jared's school had electricity so we could charge our phones and check on email on occasion. And we went fishing at our little community pond A LOT. Only yesterday, did I finally take some pictures though. That's a whole other story though, one I'll save for a later time since this blog is already getting ridiculously long. 

And I figured out what I forgot in the last blog - the best news of all. I'm an AUNT! I have the most adorable niece ever. Look for pictures on Ben and Tara's blog. There are a ton - she's a cutie. Here's just one.

I love this one because you can really see her chubby cheeks and her eyes are open.

Pre-Ike

Before the last blog, it had been a month since I blogged. I was under an uncomfortable amount of stress thanks to the first weeks of teaching, so I let it slide. But there is a lot to catch up on, so I decided to split the time periods that I've missed into pre-Ike and post-Ike, Ike being the reason that I even have a chance to be writing this right now. But before I do that, I've noticed that pictures of the cats have been mysteriously absent in all my posts. So here you go.

This is one of our personal favorites. In fact, it is our wallpaper. If you're wondering why he's behaving that way - look below.

My friend Kristin had come back from Norway (my teaching partner last year) for a couple of weeks, and she brought her chocolate lab over. As you can see, Meowfish did not take kindly to it. Also, we celebrated Meowfish's 1st birthday on September 1st. We had to take a rough guess as he was found on the street when he was about 4 weeks. I took some boring video but no pictures. But we sang to him, gave him some fancy cat food, and a few presents. It's really quite ridiculous. 

Also, we went to the zoo sometime early in September. Here are some lovely pictures of me by a huge elephant's butt. We look remarkably similiar (for those of you who don't know elephants have always been my favorite). I was pretty impressed by the zoo, it was pretty large. It seems like I'm skipping something before Ike, if I ever figure it out I'll let you know.

 

It feels like Christmas

The electricity is back up. And I haven't been this excited for awhile. I only went without it for 72 hours, since we took a trip to Arizona (I'm so glad we decided to do that), but that was enough. It was actually really fun in some ways, but going to bed at 7 pm, no air conditioning, and no refrigerator, stove, microwave, washer/dryer, etc. is a little rough. If you don't know (which I assume you all probably do), Ike hit Pearland, and hit it relatively hard. Though there wasn't flooding bad enough to ruin homes, it was definitely a lot of rain. Roofs were missing, powerlines were lying on the road, windows knocked out, fences were down, supplies are low (still even - with a few scattered business up and running), and electricity has been absent for the entire week. We were really lucky, with only some partial fence damage. Also, on the bright side, I've caught some of my first fish this week. We have a little neighborhood pond, and on Wednesday I caught a little bluegill. Today, I caught one within a matter of seconds. But nothing else for the rest of the night. The fish were just stealing my bait (I was using bagels). But right as we were about to leave (we heard the electricity was back on), this whopper of a catfish grabbed my bait and tried dragging me into the pond. He fought bravely, but in the end, I won. He ended up being probably a little over 2 lbs, but Jared thinks he's the biggest one he's seen in the pond so far (he's caught quite a few himself). I was surprised how exciting it was. I always thought fishing was a bit boring, but I was sitting out there for 2 hours really enjoying myself. Anyway, there are more adventures and a few pictures of come of the wreckage and talking about the week's experiences to come. But I was so excited about having the internet, I just had to post something tonight.