Our first day in Campbell River we went fishing for salmon in the ocean.  I had no idea what to expect and was pleasantly surprised by the experience.  I've fished a bit in my life but never on the ocean.  We broke up into groups of two or three and headed out on boats for six hours with fishing guides.  My boat was owned and captained by Curtis.  Curtis runs Coastal Wilderness Adventures.

It was raining when we headed out that morning and we had been given huge insulated coveralls to keep us warm and dry.  I ended up shedding mine half way through the day as it was too warm!  I had dressed in layers and would have been fine without any coveralls.  On the ride out to the "fishing grounds" we saw some beautiful scenery.

We also ran into a pod of Orcas.  There were about ten of them and they were very playful.  We saw them leaping about and one large male was putting on quite the show breaching and coming completely out of the water.  I didn't get a picture of that but one of the women on my boat did.  (We are all pooling our photos for a book that they put together each year)  We learned there are two different types of pods, "Residents" and "Transients".  One eats fish and the other eats mammals.  The guides were all really glad to see that this pod was a Transient pod because Transients eat seals and other mammals so our fishing would be good.  If they were locals the guides all said that we wouldn't catch a single fish because they'd all be hiding.

Ocean salmon is done by trolling.  We would head out  from shore and then slowly troll in against the tide with our lines out. All the boats are in the same area and going the same direction playing the same game.

Waiting.  Waiting.  Waiting. 

Our group didn't have long to wait as by 7 am we had a 16 pound salmon on board.  Salmon have to be about 25 inches long in order to keep them, anything smaller gets thrown back.  The three women on our boat would take turns rushing to the poles when a bite would happen.  Canada has outlawed barbed hooks so fishing has become a bit more of a challenge for certain species.  Salmon will take the hook and then turn and run with the line.  If they turn toward the boat you have to reel like a mad person to keep ahead of the fish because the barbless hook will slip right off the fish if he's faster than the hook.  Your wrist really gets a workout!

My first fish gave up the fight quite quickly.  The guide had explained that salmon fight more than the other fish so we knew it wasn't a salmon.  I didn't expect what came up at all.

It was a Ling Cod.  I was thinking "yuck" but the guide said it was really good eating and a keeper too.  It was about 27 inches long.  I found out that Ling Cods spend most of their time down around 200 feet (which is where our hooks were at).  Salmon go up and down but Ling Cod stay down almost all the time.  The result is that when you pull them up their eyes bug out.  Makes them look even stranger!  The teeth!  Wow, razor sharp teeth.  The guide kept saying, "watch the teeth!  watch the teeth!" He said they would slice you up very quickly.  I watched the teeth.  I caught a Ling Cod and my husband caught a Ling Cod.  Because it doesn't freeze as well we decided to use our two fish for an appetizer for that night's dinner.  We were grilling one of the salmon that someone caught that day for dinner.  The resort chef came over and talked over ideas with us and the Cod were delivered to his kitchen to make some fancy creation.  Ling Cod was very light in flavor, a delicate white meat.

The day progressed.  Each person on our boat caught a salmon.  We were the only boat to have success for each person.  The salmon put up a much bigger fight and it took about fifteen minutes to get him into the boat. We had 20 pound line on the poles and there was about 750 feet on a reel.  My fish only ran out about 400 feet so I didn't have as much to reel in as some others.

Here I am with Curtis and my salmon.  Slimy slimy salmon.  He weighed about 18 pounds and was 27 inches long.  A keeper.

The biggest fish of the day was caught by a woman in our group.  The woman that we all thought would not go fishing.  She's small and with the help of the other two in her boat she managed to pull in a "Tyee", a whopper salmon.  Her salmon weighed 33 pounds!  It took them almost 45 minutes to get it into the boat and they have pictures of her holding the pole sitting on another woman's lap who is holding her around her middle to keep her in the boat, then the third person is holding that person in the boat.  I guess that fish gave them quite the struggle!  It was an impressive fish that's for sure!

So here are my fish.....

I had a lot of fun doing this.  I will say that Curtis was a great guy and really knew his stuff.  We did have a moment of panic as we were zipping back out for another trolling run part way through the day and we hit a submerged log.  BAM!  We broke it in two.  It was about 14 inches in diameter so it wasn't a small thing.  Curtis was a bit worried that it might have bent his drive shaft but at last report all is good.

 Today I get my salmon by FedEx!  We had it cut and frozen by a cannery for us.  This fish ended up producing about 11 pounds of meat for us.  The cost of the fishing license was $11 for one day and the right to keep my fish (it was only $6 if you didn't keep the fish).  The processing was $16.  We don't want to talk about the shipping charges.  Let's just say that it makes the fish quite expensive!  lol  (Added to the cost of the trip I'd say this fish is gold!)  I hope it tastes good!  They shipped it last night and it should be here by 10:30 am.  I sure hope FedEx does it's best and it's still frozen!

 Edit:  The fish showed up by 9:30 and was still frozen rock hard.  It is now residing in my daughter's freezer because she and her husband love fish and my husband really really hates salmon.  Sure hope it tastes good because it sure looked good!  (if raw fish vacuum packed can look good that is)

From Seattle we headed up to Vancouver Island, British Columbia.  We got there by Ferry.  I have very little recollection of the boat ride because that particular size of boat makes me VERY seasick and so I took a little pill and slept the four hour trip away.  Or maybe it was five hours.  I'm not sure.  I slept.  We docked in Victoria, the capital of British Columbia.  It was a beautiful city full of history.  This is a picture of the state capital.  It was very victorian in feel.  The whole town was.... go figure... Victoria... victorian.... must be some British age related thing. 

We rented cars and drove about three hours north to Campbell River.  Campbell River is known for it's fishing.  We stayed at the Dolphin's resort which was a small resort made up of private cabins.  Our group had two cabins and the "lodge", which held four couples.  My husband and I were in the lodge.  Our room was very nice, rustic and cabin like.  I liked it a lot better than the previous lodging even though the bed was smaller.

The view from our room and the deck of the lodge was spectacular.  We faced the inner passageway and mainland Canada.  At night we'd see cruise ships go past and we'd wave at the people on board.

The resort was quite nice.  Very quiet and pleasant.  It was easy to find a quiet place to escape and be alone.  Which was a good thing as I was finding the group "vacation" a bit stressful.  I simply am not used to planning my vacations and activities around a whole group and honestly am not real good at being social all the time.  So seclusion at times was really important to me.  I would wander about and take pictures and check out the local flora.

This was the coolest plant.  Almost like a reed in structure but fern-like in look.  The entire plant was segmented and if you pulled part of it it would come apart at the closest joint.  The stalk was segmented, the "leaves" were segmented.  I found it quite fascinating.

These are salmon berries.  They grew wild everywhere and they tasted quite good.  I think I was good competition for the bears with the amount I ate.  They were the size of raspberries but tart, not sweet.  Very good!

The resort had it's own dock and I walked down to it to find that someone had built a little shrine to the local sea god or something.

I will have to admit though that one of our major activities while on this trip was eating.  Oh my.  The food we ate.  Even the night we cooked for ourselves the chef of the resort sent over desserts for us!  We were spoiled a little bit.

Tomorrow I will share my fishing tales with you.

Recently we took a "vacation".  It was to Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. 

I'll share a few photos of our adventure.  This was a group "vacation" and my husband and I decided to travel up to Seattle a day early so we could have a day to ourselves.  Seattle was a lovely town, actually one of the nicest cities I've ever been in.

We walked down by the piers and found this totem pole in the city park.  Now what you can't see is the twenty or thirty homeless folks sitting around it.  For some reason they weren't quite as photogenic as the birdman.

Of course we went to Pikes Place and the market.  There you can see them throw fish when a customer buys it.  People stand around waiting for someone to buy so they can snap pictures of the fish tossing.  The guys are nice enough to toss a few fish even when there aren't buyers.  Actually I think they do it so the crowd will clear out and customers can get to the counter.

The flowers are beautiful and amazing.  Everywhere you went there were folks carrying fresh flowers.  That reminded me of New York City where I also saw many flower stands and people buying blooms to take home.  Their way of putting a little outdoors and nature in the concrete jungle.

There were sculptures all over Seattle.  Very unique ones.  When I first saw this pile of bags on the street I thought that they had left bags of mulch out to spread.  Upon closer examination I discovered they were concrete and part of a sculpture.

The umbrella sculpture rotated and was quite fitting for Seattle.  Although I think we've had more rain here in Houston this week than Seattle has.  Seattle is the only place I've been where I saw a store dedicated strictly to the sale of umbrellas!  The second sculpture was just a fun mobile that was moved by the wind.  Bright and colorful and mounted on the corner of a building.

Of course we went to the Space Needle.  We went once during the daytime at which time we ran into another couple from our group from the Texas panhandle who had also gone to Seattle early.  We also went back at night and saw the city at night.  Quite beautiful.

We came upon this plaza that was full of trees painted blue and statues of people.  They were set up in pairs and were copies of each other.  One Silver, one bronze.  If one was sitting on a bench the other was sitting back to back with the first on another bench etc.  At first I thought they were mirror images but they weren't they were identical except for the way they faced and their coloring.

I saw many gargoyles in the city but this one was one of the most impressive.  There were giant walrus gargoyles by every window of this building.  Others that I saw were Indians (sorry, I believe they are called First Americans now), dragons, traditional devil looking ones, and even one that was bouquets of flowers.

While perusing the stores we came upon the  Utilikilt store.  A store dedicated to the kilt wearing men in our lives.  They had denim kilts, Carhart carpenter kilts, even pinstripe kilts for the businessman.  I couldn't get Ken to try one on no matter how hard I begged.

We knew we would be putting out a pretty penny on this vacation but I have to admit I am quite dubious that the hotel room we stayed in was worth what they charged (*cough* I still shudder at the cost).  Of course we felt like we had arrived when we moved up to the Holiday Inn Express from the Super 8 but in many ways I thought the Holiday Inn would have been just as good.  The hotel was nice, European in feel (the furniture was WAY too low to sit in and get out of with any resemblance of grace), and .... expensive.  We would have never chosen this hotel but then we weren't the "vacation" planners.

The room was pretty much standard size.  The bedding was "weird".  In fact everyone thought it was, not just us.  They had the bed made so that the top sheet and cover wouldn't go any higher than your waist....  A king sized bed, wet bar (locked of course), desk and couch.  Then the bathroom was TINY.  The sink was only about three inches deep and sloped down to the drain so you really couldn't fill it to any real depth if you wanted to.  The shower (no tub) was done in glass block.  Very pretty but wow, the lighting was horrible.  They did have high end bath products in the shower though, so I couldn't swipe them and add to my "take to the gym" stash.  Bummer. 

After a day in Seattle we took the Ferry to Victoria, BC.  That is tomorrow.

I've been sick for the past few days.  I have joked on Facebook that I am consuming whiskey in great quantities but just a joke that has been.  I don't think I would have had the strength to lift the glass to my lips.  Besides it would not mix well with the high dosages of Robitussin I've been taking.    This illness has passed through the family in different forms.  Emily had it for two weeks, Art for one week, Cadence for a few days, Walter is coughing today and we are hoping it stops with just today.  Cora was down for four days to the point that her husband had to take a day off from work to take care of the kids because she felt so bad.  Hannah is down for the count on day 3 with a fever and I am recovering today after three days of ick.  The illness seems to have mutated to whatever form is the absolute worst for the person currently suffering from it.  One person has high fevers, one person has aches, another has coughing and all are miserable.  Since I am better and Hannah is worse and Chris is fixing their car I get to watch the Fergalmeister.

Maybe I'll have something of more substance to write about later.  My mind isn't working at full speed. But that' wouldn't be anything new.

 Our power was out for about five hours today.  I had to trim some pieces I'd made a few days ago and pull some handles for cups so I lit the candles and went to work.  For water (when we don't have power we don't have water since we are on a well) I put a bucket out in the rain and gathered water.  It was actually quite peaceful working by candlelight.  Since I have a kick wheel I can use it without power (I have a motor on it for when I want to save my leg).  The cats curled up on my shelves and watched me.  Perhaps I need to name my studio Candlelight Clay.  I really don't have a name for it, hmmmmm.... it's a thought.

I'll have to take some candlelight pictures without the giffin grip (what is holding the pot on the wheel for trimming).

Mindy has claimed this shelf for her own while Mork has decided he is a potter and every time I get up he takes my place at the wheel.  Unless he's exploring my cabinets and choosing glaze.

It has stopped raining.... after eight hours and about eight inches.  The highway is closed from Spring Creek flooding and the road into town is covered with about ten inches of water.  I think I'll go back to the pottery.

A life spent making mistakes

or

A life spent doing nothing.

??

Love me

when I least deserve it

because that is when I really need it.

I just know that my friend AmeliaJake will appreciate this cartoon.  Okay, maybe I just hope she will.  lol   I find it hilarious myself, slightly irreverent and poking fun.  But then aren't all Argyle Sweater cartoons this way?

Right now I'm finding myself a bit at odds with the church we are attending.  We aren't members and haven't felt like we should become members so that's why I keep my opinions to myself when there but sometimes I just marvel at the decision making process that they have gone through. How different their conclusions are from what I would envision.  At issue is a piece of land that they have purchased to build a church on.  The land is paid off so they are now looking at a building fund.  The land is 125 acres of beautiful farmland.  Well first off I think it's a shame they want to take it out of farmland but that's a rather moot point because if they didn't then some developer eventually would and it would be covered with tract housing.....   But I don't really agree with what they want to do with the land.  Their "plan" that they paid a land architect to draw up consists of a large church, a glass chapel that cantilevers out over a lake (that is currently on the property), a gym, a classroom and youth ministries building, and a "pod" of cabins nestled in an orchard to be used for retreats and conferences.  Now don't get me wrong, I love a beautiful church as much as the next person.  I just find building huge buildings that sit empty 80% of the week to be a waste.  The argument for such a compound is that 1) we can minister to so many people through this building and setup, reaching the world.  and 2)God loves beautiful things which is evident through his details in the decoration and design of the Temple in Jerusalem (gold, fine linens and tapestries etc).  Well....

1) Who is going to really use this building.  While some folks may come to a big building because they are invited I find huge churches and fancy buildings to serve mostly those that are currently attending.  Those that are already in a relationship with God.  Not necessarily those that need help in finding God.  And it's been my experience that the most effective way of introducing someone to God is not through a church building, but through relationship, one on one, caring about someone, making it personal.  A building just doesn't offer that.  It is brick and mortar and not one bit more than the people that fill it.  If you have self-serving members then it will be a self-serving church.  If you have legalistic members then it will be a legalistic church.  If it is full of giving people it will be a giving church.  It's the people used by God, not the building that draw folks.  One of the most dynamic churches I know works out of a metal building that meets their physical needs for space and is nice, but not fancy.  Their focus is not on serving themselves but on reaching out to others.  Which brings me to number two.

2) The argument that God must love beautiful churches because he wanted the Temple to be beautiful.  Yes God loves beautiful things.  He created a beautiful world full of flowers and butterflies, oceans and lakes, bears, kittens and babies.  When the Temple was built that was where God lived.  It was his home.  It was his dwelling place on earth.  He wanted a place of beauty and grandeur.  When Jesus came, died and rose from the dead the division between man and God was removed (the curtain separating the Holy of Holies where God resided and where the people could be was torn in two at Jesus' death).  God had a new dwelling place... He resides through his Spirit in His people.  So..... should we not be making people beautiful rather than a building?  We should invest in people, not brick and mortar that sits empty and only to feed an already fat congregation.

What do I think could be done with the land?  Oh so many things.

• Build a sufficient building with classrooms, perhaps metal to save costs.  Perhaps in the form of a gym that can double as a sanctuary with classrooms along the side.  Use this for weekly worship and other traditional church functions.
• Build a home for unwed mothers, a place where women who want to keep their children and not abort them can go through pregnancy receiving counseling concerning keeping her child or placing it for adoption.
• Create a real job training center (vs. the government jokes for training centers) for those needing new job skills.
• A "light industry" type charity that could employ people with disabilities.
• Run classes for people who need to learn to speak English.
• Community gardens, or perhaps even 50 acres or so in a truck farm that could be used to grow food to donate to the Houston Food Bank (Houston has a huge need for food in certain parts of the city) and other food banks.  If anything just teach people how to grow their own food!
• Build a center for the elderly where "daycare" could be provided for those who need care for their elderly parents not ready for a nursing home and needing medical care but just needing interaction and a personal touch.
• Provide a place for youth wanting to do 4-H or FFA projects to keep their animals through the project.
• Perhaps a stable with a few horses and trained staff to help autistic children through animal therapy.

The list could go on and on but the focus would not be on the congregation, it would be on reaching our community.  Most of these ideas would take time to implement and the formation of legal charities (if not covered by the church directly) and training, finding of volunteers so yes, it's not an overnight thing but I just think investing in PEOPLE and not just a pretty building would be a better use of the land, and the money being spent on the "compound" as it stands.  We are talking millions of dollars for the plan they have currently in place.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not condemning beautiful churches but where I live the focus seems to be more and more on huge big buildings and compounds and becoming the next "Lakewood" (If you don't know about Lakewood just look up Lakewood and smiley Joel Osteen, and no I am NOT a fan of his).  The current thinking is bigger is better and grander and shows the world how wonderful your ministry is.  I don't think that's always the case. If God calls a church to build big and they use it for His glory then great.  Since coming out with the plan the church has had great division, a change in leadership, and lost about 50% of their members.  But like I said, I'm not a member, don't plan on becoming one, and will wait and see what happens.  

Is it really good?  Is it God's will?  I'm torn about it. No, I'm just typically opinionated about it.  Yup, this is just my opinion and other than sharing my thoughts with a few people in leadership who react with shock that I don't support the compound plan I've actually kept it to myself.  Amazing isn't it. 

Okay, now that my public opinion is out there... How about that cartoon.... come on, you have to admit it's funny. 

This past weekend was our 9th annual girls weekend.  NINE!  Hard to believe.  We had a very laid back weekend on Galveston Island this year.  We slept, we ate, we made jewelry, we learned how to make Amaretto Sours, shopped and got our picture taken.  It was very subdued compared to previous years.  Emily was sick and Hannah had our token male to feed at regular times.    But it was good and we had fun!

Riding the Dolphin!

It takes four women to get one baby in a sling.

The gang in our official Girls Week Shirts.

Fergal was a real trooper.  He did great for such a little guy!

Our personalized wine glasses.

Gangster Molls and our little gangster.

    
A few pictures of the summer so far.
 
I think this was Memorial Day.... not sure, Sundays all look like this. 

Kid's table!

Savva is 1!

Fergal continues to grow and change... getting his own personality these days.

Fergal - 4 months old

 
I love this picture... Walter is just launching himself with wild abandon.  The grandkids LOVE to swim in Grandpa's pool.