Catching Crawdads

Mike and Gina invited us to go out to Red Cliffs with them. It was really fun and made me realize that we need to be doing more of this kind of thing with our kids! I think we keep using Evie as an excuse, but she did great. Mike brought glow sticks for all of the kids. He would throw them in the air and all of the kids would run after them and gather as many as they could. Then they had their own "flashlights" to hold plus we made necklaces for them so we could always see where they were at. I thought this was the best idea ever and they had tons of fun with it. Then we sat by the fire and roasted hot dogs and made yummy smores. Afterwards the Alton's showed us how to catch crawdads! Crawdads are the ugliest things ever but fun and easy to catch. It was such a fun night.

Here are the kids picking up the glow sticks.

Yes my baby crawled around in the dirt. Yes, she is barefoot. And yes, she LOVED it.

The boys showing off their muscles.

Emily didn't want to be left out.

Taking a break.

Mike is quite the multi-tasker. He can roast marshmallows and hold a fussy baby at the same time.

Kash and Ella roasting their mallows.

Emily and Evie

Crawdads are nocturnal so we had to wait until it was dark and then we would look for them with our flashlights.

This is the first one Matt caught and when he showed the kids it bit him and they started screaming!

Ella took it very seriously.

It took Kash a while to catch one but in the end he caught a fish and a crawdad so he was happy.

On the way home Matt and Kash and Ella came up with a plan for next time. They decided they would catch a bunch of crawdads and take them home with us and put them in our fish tank and keep them as pets! Great.