Denison Family Vacation

We survived the first ever Denison Family vacation!!!! We took Saturday through Wednesday to go explore Branson, MO. We stayed at Big Cedar Lodge on Table Rock Lake. We left Saturday morning and hit the road, first stop being the "Biggest Bass Pro in the World!!" Savannah loved saying this as we were checking out the store. It was nice to get out of the car and stretch the ol legs. From there we got to our final destination, got our bearings and got a little dinner. It was an early night for us all as we were tired from driving most of the day. Sunday we woke up and Daddy did a little fishing. After breakfast the whole family did some fishing and Savannah caught her FIRST FISH!! I don't know who was more excited, Savannah or Daddy, but it was pretty cool nonetheless! After the big catch of the day, Savannah and I enjoyed watching Daddy catch a nice bass and catfish on the Barbie pole as we were heading back to the dock. Sunday afternoon we met up with Matt and Brooke. Matt and Cameron went to SIUE together and he and his wife Brooke have a place down here. They showed us a GREAT time on their boat for the afternoon. Savannah was a little hesitant at fist of being in the deep water, but she had a wonderful time and made a new friend with Brooke, who played tea party with her on the lake! She took a great nap on the boat on the way back to the resort. On Monday we woke up to rain and weren't sure how to spend the day. Savannah and Daddy went to get ice before we headed out in search of something to do and Savannah fell and started screaming. Turned out she fell right on a wasp and got stung. Her thumb immediately swelled, her arm was incredibly hot to the touch and she started to run a fever. So yes, we were THOSE parents and took her to urgent care to make sure it wasn't an allergic reaction. And you guessed it, it wasn't and she was fine. Better to be safe than sorry! From there we got some lunch and then all three of us took a nap. After that fun filled morning, we checked out the kiddie pool and Savannah had some fun playing there. After getting cleaned up, we headed out to downtown Branson in search of dinner. Well, Savannah had some other plans for us and got sick on the way. A short stop to a grocery store to get crackers and Pedialite we headed back to the room and Savannah chilled out and mom and dad ordered room service. Quite the date night!!! We woke up on Tuesday to more rain, but decided to try out Silver Dollar City regardless. Thankfully by the time we got there, the rain was gone and it was a GREAT day. Sadly, Savannah was too short for the rides, but had fun shooting the big water guns, seeing the sights, playing in the water and of course the train ride! We got robbed but thankfully didn't have to give up our money! We then had lunch, saw a few more sights and headed back to the resort. We decided to take the boat out and do a little swimming. Savannah has not been in deep water as of this week and by today she was so brave and was swimming in between mommy and daddy like she had been doing it for years! Then we fished a little more and Savannah a champ and caught TWO more!!! One of them came off the hook in the boat and before we knew it, Savannah had picked up the fish and held it a little while before throwing it back. She was such a champ all weekend long! I even caught a few of my own and I had to remind Cameron a few times that he did marry a Huster and I know a little about fishing! We then got cleaned up and headed to dinner and put a close to a great vacation! The ride home was little long since Savannah decided a nap was not in the cards. But all in all, we are happy to be home, Chip is happy to be back to his own couch (although he was greatly cared for while we were gone thanks to Jen) and I am so grateful to have such a great family to vacation with!!!! But I think I can wait a little while before the next trip is planned!!!!!!!

Another Month Gone... March

March was a pretty busy month, but with the weather the way it's been we didn't get to go outside too much. We started the month off with a visit to my cousins in Rolla. Thanks to Tammy, JD, Sherry, Mary and Simon for a great visit. We spent the afternoon with them and had a great dinner. It was nice to catch up with what they have been doing and we got to congratulate Mary and Simon on their new home. Unfortunately we didn't bring our camera, so we don't have any pictures to share. That same weekend we had my other cousins out (Rae, Charlene, Carla, Barbara and my Aunt Betty) to my Mom's house to go through it one last time before we turned it over to the auction company. Father Time Auctions did a great job setting up and taking care of everything related to the auction. But more on that later. My crazy cousins were wanting to surprise Savannah with a new bicycle, but Savannah wasn't with us at my Mom's that day, so we had to surprise her with their gift when we got home. She absolutely loved it! Later that week we had a whole lot of fun making Pizza! Savannah loves pizza, so, as a family, we rolled out the crust and put all the toppings on ourselves. Savannah, Mommy and Daddy all had a really good time putting it all together. Savannah was very proud with the final product and had no problem eating a whole bunch of it for dinner. The following weekend we had the Schneider’s over for dinner. They came out mid afternoon and we lucked out, it was a fairly nice day. Since they moved out to no-man’s-land Illinois, we don’t get to see them very much except when the Rolla crowd gets together and Linda and I missed a couple of those gatherings this year, so it was a lot of fun hanging out and catching up. Savannah and Cayden played really well together and pretty much wore each other out. Their youngest, Delanie, is just cute as a button, but for some reason, I didn’t get any pictures of her. Sorry about that Jay & Jen, I don’t know what happened. The next weekend was the big auction at my Mom’s house. I didn’t go. It was just a little too weird for me. But my lovely wife went to represent the Denison’s and to make sure everything went well, and it did. Father Time Auctions did a tremendous job. They came in and set everything up. From taking things out of the drawers and closets, cleaning them up to be shown, setting them on tables and then conducting the auction and cleaning up. They were a one-stop shop and 100% professional. If anyone is ever in need of these types of services, I highly recommend them. The week after the auction was a very exciting week here at the Denison House. See, the Denison’s were going to purchase a piece of ground with the money from my Mother’s estate (a small piece as there wasn’t much there). But as we discussed it, with Savannah growing up, and as she starts getting into sports and other activities, we probably wouldn’t get any use out of ground. So, we decided to save the majority of it and take a small portion and get Daddy that fishing boat he has always wanted. I cannot be more happy about this decision. We got a 2009 Skeeter ZX190 which is a 19’ (18’-5”) bass boat. Complete with electronics and a Yamaha 175. We haven’t had a chance to get it out very much as the weather hasn’t been very good, but we have gotten out a few times. Matt Maher and I took Savannah out last weekend. She LOVED it. When we first took off she started to scream and cry, but once we planed off, she was cool. Then she played with her toys and had a snack while we fished a bit. After we made the 65 MPH run back to the harbor, she was laughing. She had a grin ear-to-ear and kept saying “Go Fast Daddy, Go Fast”. It was awesome. That was the near the end of March. The following weekend I fished my first tournament at the Lake of the Ozarks with Steve Moore. We caught fish where some people didn’t. It was just a work tournament so the there wasn’t a lot of pressure and we had a really good time. That was March in a nutshell. Hopefully we will do a better job in the coming future keeping this Blog up-to-date. My work laptop quit working and we have been without for quite sometime. Without having a laptop, it’s not as convenient to update this thing. However, we hope to have another laptop for our use soon, thus more updates!

Canada 2008

Saturday, June 28, 2008
Les and I fished East Bay. We were going to fish the NW side of the little island straight across the bay from where you enter but the wind was too strong and we couldn't hold a spot. We pulled up next to Roger and Alan on the SE side, out of the wind, but didn't do very well there. We didn't stay there very long and ran up to Pindor Creek. We anchored next to Gary and Jeff, in the wind on the SE side of the opening about 30 yds off the shoreline and did really well.

Sunday, June 29, 2008
Les and I headed back to East Bay but went up to the cut just past Abalard Creek. James and Steve had a lot of luck there the night before. However, today was not good. We were anchored on the NW side of the cut and then drifted along that same side back into the cut and the decided to replicate the same conditions as the night before and fished the SE point of that cut. We were once again anchored in the wind about 30 yds off the shoreline and we caught a lot of fish. We did notice that the fish finder showed a structure every time we blew a certain direction and when it showed up we would catch fish. The Les brought up a log (the structure) and the fish stopped. So from there we went up to Abalard Creek where James and Steve were. They had caught some 22" and 23" walleye in the same general location we had been having luck with so we pulled in there and each caught nice fish. Then we tried the NE side of the little island but only caught dinks. Next we stopped in a little cove just outside of East Bay. Les caught 2 fish and we got prepared to troll the Post Narrows. We trolled the Narrows from the NE to the SW and decided to jig fish on the SW side of the little beach on the N side of the Narrows and I caught a 23" walleye.

Monday, June 30, 2008
Alan and I headed back to Pindor Creek with Les and Gary. We didn't do to well so we went to the next cut to the SW. We got setup to fish from the inside to the center of the mouth because we found a hump with a large drop but it turned out that they were on the other side where Alan could catch them. I couldn't catch a thing. So we went out and found the hump near the entrance to East Bay. We had to anchor 3 times, but we caught a lot of fish. In fact, earlier that day we decided that we were going to finish out our stringers before noon which gave us 15 minutes after we found the hump, but we did it with time to spare. After Alan caught a 34" northern and lunch we were getting tired of catching walleye we headed to the Post Narrows. Steve and Jeff were doing great trolling so we decided to do the same. After 3 passes and one lost lure we finished the day jigging the NE side of the beach. I didn't catch any.

Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Steve and I decided to go exploring to the E side of Martin Bay. We knew there were 2 humps out there and we found both, but no fish. Then we trolled around the islands just S of there. I caught one 22" walleye, but nothing else. From there we went to McNealy Bay and drifted from one point to another. Steve caught a few fish, but it was slow. Then we trolled around but had no luck and decided to head to the Post Narrows. We jigged the NE side of the beach for 20 minutes or so and decided to troll. We didn't troll but maybe 10 minutes and a storm was blowing in so we high tailed it for camp instead of beaching on an island. We almost pulled over twice but kept going and made it just in time. Between the lightning and hail we were glad to be back. Once it passed we went back out but stayed close to camp. We drifted the wall at the mouth of Martin Bay where Steve caught a few nice fish and one 23" walleye but again, it was slow. We went up into the bay but didn't have any luck. We made a quick run back to camp to find out what time we were eating and learned that James and Les weren't back from East Bay. It was late for them, but still early so Steve and I went back to Martin Bay and I finally caught my second fish of the day. By 7:00 we were back at camp. Gary, Alan and Jeff had left to go look for Les and James. By 8:00 or so they returned with boat-in-tow. Les and James had boat trouble, but weren't too pissed because they had a great day fishing.

Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Gary and I finally got to fish together. This is our second trip together, but our first day to fish together. After the day Steve and I had, I was ready to catch fish, and Gary didn't let me down. We made the trek to East Bay again and fished Pindor "Gary's" Creek. After getting there we made one small adjustment, moving from the middle to the west point, and caught good fish the rest of the day. I had two personal bests. I caught a 26" Walleye and a 32" and a 33" Northern. We spent the rest of the day right there catching one fish after another. Eventually I ran out of minnows and started throwing a crank bait, and still caught fish.

Wednesday Evening
I had never been to Parker Falls, and since James didn't want to go fishing, Jeff, Alan and I went up to Parker Falls. We nosed right up in the falls and started throwing spoons and crank baits. I only caught one 24" walleye, between Jeff and Alan they caught 11 walleye, smallest was 24" and largest was 28-1/2". It was AWESOME.

Thursday, July 3, 2008
While we were at Parker Falls on Wednesday evening, Gary and Steve caught a whole bunch of walleye just around the corner from Sunset Lodge so that's where Jeff and I headed. We caught about 8 walleye in a couple hours, all over 20" with a couple topping 25". After they slowed a bit we had to go find smaller fish so we headed to the Post Narrows. The first few fish we caught were still too big to keep for dinner so we moved off the east side of the south sandbar to the "rock" on the north side. We basically stayed here the rest of the afternoon. Jeff had a run-in with a Northern. It took his crank bait and then, later, we heard it come to the surface after something and you could hear the lure rattle. We did eventually get our dinner fish and headed in.

Thursday Evening
Since we had such good luck Wednesday evening at Parker, we headed back, this time Jeff and Alan in one boat; Les, James and I in the other. We each caught 2 fish. Les had a 24" walleye and James had one about the same size.

Friday, July 4, 2008
James and I started the same place Jeff and I started on Thursday, next to the floating propane tank near "Jack's Island" at the entrance to Sunset Bay. Nothing was going on there so we headed out. Jeff and Alan were headed back to Parker Falls to jig fish instead of throwing crank baits. As we left, Steve and Gary asked if we were going to Parker but we were headed to East Bay. Halfway across the main lake I almost turned around and went to Parker, but we didn't, and we went to East Bay. We started in Alabador Creek but it was slow and the male walleye (small ones) were moving in. Next stop was the "Hump". We caught a lot of fish here, but again they were mostly males. This time we moved looking for dinner fish. Back to Pindor Creek to the spot Gary and I fished. Ah, we found our dinner fish and decided to troll the Narrows. We saw Les and Roger in East Bay and let them know of our plan. We figured if the guys that went to Parker didn't catch fish they would be in the Narrows. When they weren't there I was almost sick. At that point I knew we had missed out on the best fishing of the week. After trolling down one side and back the other we saw Les and Roger coming into the Narrows and let them know we were headed around the back side of McKenzie Island to Parker Falls. We got there as Steve and Gary were leaving. No one had minnows left, they had all caught 50+ fish, it was nothing for them to have 24" and 25" walleye and Steve had caught a 30-1/2" walleye! Yup, James and I screwed up by not going to Parker that morning. James did land a 28" walleye and a 32" Northern before we left Parker and it was a good day of fishing, just not as good as it could have been.

Summary
Everyone agreed that this was the best fishing has ever been. Not only did we catch a LOT of fish, but they were huge. Typically, a good year is consistently catching fish and being able to put 3 walleye on a stringer that are 15" to 17-1/2" (dinner/freezer fish). If one person in the group catches one walleye over 20", that's icing on the cake. This year we seriously had to look for smaller fish. We cannot count the number of 24" and 25" walleye caught. Everyone caught at least one 24" walleye or bigger. We may never get to see this kind of fishing again, but we'll keep going back in the hopes that we do.

Friends, 1st Communion, Back to Work

It’s been a while since we last updated the blog and that being true, a lot has happened. Three weeks ago I played golf with Les, Steve and “Sharney” (and did the bloody marries flow). We didn’t fare to well in the tournament, but we had a good time. That evening, although I was feeling a bit rough, Laura, Ashley and Abby came over to hang out and have dinner. They are always fun to hang out with. Abby is getting so big. She is just a cutie and such a good little girl. We have a feeling that Savannah and Abby may be getting into as much mischief as their mommies did when they were younger. The following Sunday we drove up to Bloomington for Emily’s first communion. This was Savannah’s first big road trip. She did really well. She didn’t make a sound on the trip there, and almost made it all the way home. About the time we crossed the Missouri/Illinois border she started to fuss a bit, but a little food took care of that. Emily was very cute in her first communion dress. The church services were nice. They had 50+ kids on Saturday night service and another 50+ kids on Sunday morning. By Sunday evening, after we got home, we were exhausted and made it an early night. Last weekend I went fishing up at Mark Twain Lake with Joe, Mike and Jeff from work. We had a great time and actually caught some fish. I can’t remember ever eating as much good food as we did on Saturday night. We had fresh crappie, barbequed pork tenderloin, goose sausage, baked potatoes, fried potatoes and beans. It was a little ridiculous. Even with all this going on the biggest event of the last 3 weeks was yesterday. See, yesterday Linda went back to work, and Savannah got to spend the day with Miss June. Both Linda and Savannah had a really good day. Linda stayed busy at work and wasn’t calling to see how Savannah was doing every 10 minutes, and Savannah, well, she’s always happy. We are really happy that we found such a wonderful sitter. Even her children are enjoying having Savannah over for the day. So this brings everyone up-to-date. Now back off, we’ll try to do better in the future.