This is a birthday I won’t soon forget - probably one of my best in years (of course, maybe that’s because I don’t quite remember what I did last year!).

We took the kids fishing for the first time. With a Spider-Man fishing pole and a Barbie fishing pole in hand, we drove to Woods Canyon Lake. My first thought was - how beautiful! My next was - how quiet! My kids are going to be too loud! But we found a spot between two families, put on the bait (worms and marshmellows) and Papa and Daddy gave a few tips. My daughter didn’t do it for long, but my son picked up on how to cast his line (even demanding no one help him when it was tangled).

I thought we would be there for 20 minutes - it was nearly two hours. He really got the hang of it - throwing it quite far into the lake (and only once catching it on a log that nearly put my husband into the water). We saw dragonflies, butterflies, boaters and kayakers. We watched white clouds in the sky and black beetles on the ground. I was so awed by my son’s determination. I loved the simpliness of it all, and the quiet.

Nope, we didn’t catch a bite. But as my daughter and I played “go fish” with a found deck of cards and my son loved his new-found skills, I was at peace, even as I remembered I was one year older.