Dad's birthday

Today was dad's birthday! He has been wanting to go camping/fishing for months now, so to celebrate his birthday we packed up the kiddos, did a little research on the best places to fish and started on our 2 hour trek to Antelope Lake.

We arrived at about 6 p.m. set up camp, built a campfire and enjoyed the stars. I felt like such a lame-o, because in all the caos of getting 4 kids ready, packing myself and my hubby, and getting the car ready, I forgot dad's birthday presents! UGH! The night was filled with darkness, bright twinkling stars and large rocks that I was continually trying to work my way around. At the start of the night it was rather warm in the 70's but as the night went on it became very cold and after asking John a few times if he was cold and him responding as no, I decided to make my way over to the very large sleeping bag that all 3 kids were sleeping in, it was nice and cozy. I dozed off for a short while and then woke up to my mom telling dad to keep her warm, very soon after we (the adults) were all awake and none of us could go back to sleep, this was about 3 a.m. Dad got up at 5 a.m. ready to try out some fishing, mom got up and started a campfire, and then shortly thereafter I made my way to the campfire and enjoyed some hot pero with mom.

John, Jaidyn and dad went off exploring for the perfect place to fish, but finding out that most of the fishing was done off shore in boats. So we packed up and headed for Susanville in search of a better fishing spot.

We decided to take a different route to Susanville, and our navigator was leading the way. We took a road that looked a little less traveled but was paved and clear. The terrain was beautiful with a river flowing nearby and lots of trees. Then as we came around a curve it was quite obvious that there had been a very large fire previously, it was so desolate and quite earie. We kept on going following the directions of the navigator, the road went from a nicely paved road to a semi used dirt road, and then it began to change into a 4x4 road. Knowing that it was too late to turn back now we had already driven about 20 minutes, and we were enjoying the adventure. We continued on the road crossing rivers (yes rivers) dad was a stud in his nicely just polished and waxed white pick up truck (that wasn't 4x4) crossing without any hesitation the rivers and many divits and channels. We came to a spot where the road narrowed quite drastically, but continued to forge on. As we kept going up the hill we finally came to a paved road and saw some civilization (this was more than 30 minutes into it), there on the side was this crazy jacked up station wagon and we had to stop for pictures!

We finally made it to Susanville and stopped for some lunch at a local mexican restaurant. Then started our journey to Frenchman's Lake.

We arrived at Frenchman's lake, unloaded the kids and headed for the beach. The kids were all so excited to play in the water and immediately ran out to jump in, only to find that once they entered their feet stuck in the the gooey mud that was more like cement, and grandpa set up the fishing poles. Jaidyn was so upset when the mud decided to suck up her favorite shoes and they were no where to be found. Dad tried to help but then quickly decided to get out of the water when he saw what looked like a long, clear think like worm swimming in the water (could it be a parasite!) yikes! So all kids were immediately ordered to get out of the water.

Dad's one wish for his birthday was to see Jaidyn and Luis catch a fish. They had lots of luck and caught quite a few catfish that they quickly released back into the water.

We had a great time and even though there were some things that didn't go quite right on the trip it was fun just to be with family and enjoy being with each other.

Thanks dad for including us on your birthday, we had such a great time!