Fishing at Uncle Pat's Pond

Oh those were the days!! The kids were little and actually listened to us! Mike and I loved to have family days with them and they still enjoyed spending time with us! LOL A lot of times we would go to the zoo or a festival or somewhere, but a lot of times we just hung out together, maybe going to the park or yard-saling or taking a ride. One of our favorite things to do was to go to Uncle Pat's Pond.


Mike's brother, Pat, lived out in Danbury. A ways behind his house was this wonderful pond and we would go back there quite often to fish and have picnics. It didn't actually *belong* to Pat but we always called it Uncle Pat's Pond. That's where Phillip learned to fish from his dad. Lisa and I were little nature girls so we would hike around looking for things to put in Lisa's *nature museum* she had at home on the bookcase. We would take food and pop, and just have fun the whole day long! The boys always caught lots of fish - I don't know if someone stocked that pond or if they just always had good luck! Sometimes Grampa Jim would stop by while we were there or maybe one of the uncles - it was a popular place with the Ashton family!

Those were also the days that Lisa insisted on wearing dresses always! She just plain refused to wear shorts or jeans or pants! She would get all dressed up nice and girly in her dress with cute flowers or bows in her hair, maybe a touch of blush on her cheeks for her make-up, and happily skip off outside to find some bugs! She was such a tomboy. She just HAD to keep up with her big brother. If he played baseball, she wanted to play; if he rode his bike, she rode hers; if he looked for frogs, she wanted to go with him! She was his shadow. At least until her Daddy got home from work. Then she was all up in his face and following him around. He would go outside to sand something or stain or some other woodworking project, there she was too. The only thing she wouldn't do was to lay on the couch and watch TV like he would sometimes. Then it was back to following Phillip!

Of course, we had our *girl days* too - days that we would get Grama and go shopping or get our hair done or do some crafts. She liked to do all that too. She was just such a well-rounded little girl! She could do about anything and enjoy it, along with enjoying who she was with doing it!

She still is the same sweet girl! But now she does wear jeans, ALL the time now, rarely wearing a dress or even dress pants. She still likes to ride bikes and do things outside but she has stopped catching bugs pretty much. Although, she did catch a turtle for Jake a few weeks ago. The girly-ness is still there too. She is forever doing something with her hair - I'm surprised its not fried and looking like straw, but its not. She has it blonde with a few patches of light pink now. It looks nice. I think I liked it best when she had it dark blonde/light brown with a little bit of the burgandy on the underside. She had a few blonder streaks in it then too and it was quite long.

Well, anyway, I really started to make this layout to use Victorian Rose's wonderful fishing kit again but it just got me into a *remembering* mood and y'all are the ones who have to hear about it now! LOL Hope you enjoy it!