Camping in Missouri

The flight to Missouri was long since it wasn't a direct flight... and because the plane had a computer malfunction (on the ground before we took off). When we finally arrived, Mom and Sophia were at the airport to pick us up and it was so good to see them. When we got to the house, it was the first time I had seen it, so I got the tour haha. It is definitely a wonderful house.

We decided that we would go camping for a few days at a nearby park. La Wuera was excited - she had been asking to go camping ever since she bought her plane tickets. We left early afternoon on Thursday and got a wonderful campsite under some trees by the lake. Kezia and Sophia had already told us that they weren't going to be staying the night because they wanted to sleep in comfortable beds and not sleeping bags.

We forgot to bring Ella's leash and so in the meantime we had a makeshift one made of my dad's bike lock chain haha.

Wuera and I set up her tent as my Dad and Daniel set up my parents' tent. And then my Mom told us it was probably going to rain and we couldn't find the top cover for Wuera's tent and so we took it down and put up another one. But in the process of doing that, we found the cover and put up her tent again. In the end it didn't matter since she decided she didn't want to sleep there and returned with Kezia and Sophia to the house hahah.

Anyway, before anyone left, we had some fantastic naps, had bratwurst, went fishing at the lake and had marshmallows. Daniel's first catch was some grass (see photo). Sophia also caught a lot of grass.

Daniel and I then moved to another spot and he got a huge knot in the fishing line so I spent a good hour and a half untangling it while he fished with the other pole. Usually, I would have probably just cut the line and restrung it but I wanted the challenge and plus it gave me a lot of time to just think and unravel some knots in my mind as well. That was the intent anyway haha.

Daniel is new to fishing and so my Dad told him that when he saw his bobber go underneath the water he would need to tug on the line so he could snag the fish. Well, the first time this happened he jerked with all his might and the line went flying out of the water and zoomed passed my dad's face, my sister's waist and landed in front of my mom's feet.

Now that it was just Daniel and I, he still hadn't lost his excitement and did the same thing. This time it hit me in the face but luckily no harm was done. And as I was untangling the line, I was giving him advice and he caught his first fish ever! It was so cool to see how excited he was. It was like he had never seen a fish in his life (we have tons of fishes in the house) and he didn't know what to do. He wanted to run to the campsite and show our parents, but I told him the fish would probably die by then. And so it was even funnier when I told him to take it off the hook and throw it back in. "Uhhhhhh... how exactly can I do that?" So I ended up doing that for him, but not before I took a picture =D.

The line was so tangled that even after working on it for an hour and a half, it still wasn't done. By that time, it was pretty dark and had started to drizzle. So we headed back and the girls except for my mom left for the house. It rained all night but I kind of liked it. The next morning, I started untangling the line again and after about 30 minutes got it. Daniel had gone fishing while I was doing this and had caught the second fish of his life and it was even bigger. He ran with it about a hundred yards to the campsite and my Dad helped him take it off and throw it back in.

All the time that I had spent untangling the line meant that I hadn't really fished. So I went with Daniel and after about 45 minutes of not getting anything, I decided that after I lost the worm that was on my line, I'd go bike riding. It turned out that on what I thought would be my last cast, I caught a fish which made me super happy.

Mom, Dad and I then went on a bike ride of about 30 minutes and then they kept going to bike home and I turned around so that I could drive the van home with Daniel. I kind of wanted to stay but didn't really want to stay alone so ended up going home.

Today, we pretty much just watched movies. Kezia and I watched a documentary about a dance competition between 5th graders in New York public schools that was pretty good. And after dinner, we all went to see The Dark Knight which was awesome. And there were a ton of good previews as well: there is a lot to look forward to.

Oh, I also got my driver's license here. It was cool because it only took 30 minutes... not like in Georgia where it takes hours.

Well, off to untangle some more knots.