Buford Hatchery and Clinton Nature Preserve

Today (technically yesterday, now) was kid day. Me and the kids wanted to do everything that's fun to do outdoors.

First up - fishing. According to the fishing forecast, it should be pretty horrible right then, but the kids wanted to go Right Then. Ok, sure. Who knows if the forecast applies to our little pond anyway.

Well, apparently it does. It was bad. Sophie got lots of casting practice though.



It seemed like she had it just fine for a while, then lost the trick of it. After 20 minutes of craziness, I watched her very closely and it turns out she didn't realize she could push the button down and hold it, or she'd forgotten, or something. She was trying to click it like a mouse, mid-cast. Oh boy. Now she's got it, and what a difference!

There was lots of nibbling, but Iz made the only actual catch.



"Congratulations Isabel, you won at fishing!"

Next up - softball. Actually, next up was driving to Douglasville, then softball. We'd bought one of those ball-on-a-flexi-stick things so they could practice batting. That was pretty fun. Actual batting didn't go so well, nor did actual throwing and catching. They've discovered how to half-ass softball, and they pretty much refuse to do anything else. Iz turns to the side and tries to catch the ball as it's going past, with random success. Sophie just kind of whacks at the ball with her glove, again with random success.

They are getting good at kicking the soccer ball now though. Iz can kick the crap out of it. Sophie's still making progress, but she's doing a lot better.

We were playing in a field a Clinton and a family was there for a photo shoot. They had a horse, and one of them was riding it all around, bareback.



Is that an Appaloosa? I wish I knew horse breeds.

When the kids were tired of getting hit with the ball, we rode bikes for a while. I taught them about bike-horse ettiquette and we had a few opportunities to practice it. We rode once around the lake, then on the second lap we tried to ride one of the more singletrack trails. Iz could have done it just fine, but Sophie needs gears to ride anything that isn't dead-flat, unless it's paved. She's just too little.

Both of the girls still have some work to do on trying. It's, unfortunately, pretty pervasive with them right now. It's fine to make an actual effort and fail because you didn't understand what to do, or you made a mistake, or you're pysically incapable, or even because you were too scared. Those things still count as trying. Making crazy noises while intentionally doing what you know is wrong because you're too lazy to even want to learn how to do it right does not count as trying. They've both got some work to do on that. Sophie more than Iz.

After that fiasco, we caught up with my brother and his family in the old Downtown D'ville area, where they have this cool fountain...



...and ate at the Irish Bred Pub, which was really good. The kids fell asleep in the car on the way home. If nothing else, they got plenty of exercise.