IronDad en IronKids Uitstekende Avonturen...... IronDad and IronKids Excellent Adventures: August 2006

Thursday, August 31, 2006

Bed head!

Just more old pictures... this one from three years ago...

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

One Red Paperclip

If you haven't heard about it you need to check it out. http://oneredpaperclip.blogspot.com/

Omama's 100th

I found this picture of Oma (Omama to the kids) on her 100th birthday... I swear she doesn't look a year over 80!

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

This was taken in Volendam when the kids and I went to Holland in 2000 for my Oma's (grandmother) 100th birthday. How cute do they look?!

(I got my scanner working again so I'm scanning all my old prints ;-)

Blast from the past!

Cute picture of Kiersten in her first triathlon... she won it, and there's a funny story but I'm busy so I'll have to get it up later.

Sunday, August 27, 2006

Night fishing!

It seems like we've fished all weekend! Yesterday the kids were reeling them in left and right... lots of speckled trout and redfish... so they wanted to go fishing TONIGHT!

I wasn't going out to the laguna again, so I took them to the park on the bay near our house with a fairly nice pier. Of course nothing was biting :-(

Friday, August 25, 2006

Pelican rescue!

Well... the fishing was OK tonight, lots of wind and high surf, but the kids each caught a fish. I caught a fish as well, but spent most of the time baiting hooks and untangling line (not mine) , LOL! There were pelicans everywhere diving into the water and coming up with fish, so they were out there... we just weren't catching many of them ;-)

Around 7pm I noticed that a fisherman not far from us had accidentally hooked a pelican in the neck with a treble hook (3-pronged hook). He was just reeling the poor thing in and it was taking off and falling back into the water flailing about trying to get away. I ran over down the rocks and into the water and grabbed it's bill and held it's wings and tried to calm it down. Amazingly it stopped fighting and just looked at me, I guess realizing I meant it no harm.

I had Kiersten go back to my tackle box and get my wire cutters. Very carefully I cut each of the three barbs off as close as I could to the center shaft and then removed the hook. It was bleeding some, but I looked carefully at the wound and decided that it was a superficial wound and that he would be OK if I released him. As soon as I let him go he flew into the wind and glided away.

So... needless to say... catching fish, rescuing a pelican and an incredible sunset... the kids couldn't stop talking about how cool the day turned out!

Kemp's Ridley Sea Turtle

The Kemp's Ridley Sea Turtle is a critically endangered species of sea turtle that lays it's eggs on the Padre Island seashore in July and August.

The water has been crystal clear lately (very little rain) and people have been seeing them where we are going fishing this weekend, so for the kiddos I hope we see some!

Saturday, August 19, 2006

A little fun in the sun!

Crossing the channel with the car on the ferry... one of life's simple pleasures (when the weather is nice!).

Watching the dolphins as we cross on the ferry... it seems like no matter what time of year or what type of weather they're always there. I couple of years ago we saw some of them mating and it was pretty wild. With all the twisting and turning and water splashing I thought it was a fight until we got closer!

A funny story... years ago (like in the 80's) when I was windsurfing up the channel on my windsurfer (the original 12-ish foot long "Windsurfer" with teak booms and deep centerboard), I was leaning back over the water hanging onto the sail when a bottlenose dolphin surfaced right underneath me and scared the bejesus out of me!!! I've seen them my whole life, but I guess his exhale spray combined with his length being equal to the length of the thing I was on really caught me off-guard!

Dining on some awesome Mahi Mahi (sometimes also referred to as "dolphin" or "dorado") overlooking the harbor in Port Aransas.

One of our local brown pelicans.

Not sure what kind of bird this is, but he was following us for a while so I snapped a shot of the little fart ;-)

This guy caught some good-sized reds from the end of the jetty and then had to drag them almost two miles over the jetty (which is mostly uneven blocks of granite) to his car!

We walked to the end of the south jetty which is around a mile and a half long.

I don't know if you can see it in this picture but there is a very unusual looking "V" in the sky... I joked around and said it was a black hole and would be used as a portal by the dreaded extraterrestrials the Marconians to visit earth ;-)