The Fish Story

On the fourth weekend during my time in Idaho, I was trying to figure out what to do. Grig and I didn't have enough money for him to come up for the weekend, which really stunk because it was Labor Day weekend, and Grig didn't have work on Monday. I hated for him to be home all alone on a holiday.

It turned out that my parents were going to Utah for the Ogden Temple open house, so they offered to give me and Kevin a ride. They were going to Utah on Friday, and back to Idaho on Saturday, so I was expecting a short visit with my husband.

However, after really enjoying being home, I was reluctant to leave. I called my brother on the off-chance that he had come down to visit his in-laws and I could hitch a ride with him. He told me they were visiting in Utah, and wouldn't be heading back to Idaho until Monday. He told me that I could ride back with them! That was fantastic news!

My parents dropped by before they left, and they brought us a house-guest. They found a random monarch caterpillar just cruising along the sidewalk, so they brought it in. I knew where some milkweed was, so we fed our hungry little caterpillar. He ate about two of these huge leaves a day. He is currently in a cocoon turning into a butterfly. Hopefully it happens soon.

We had a few really busy days. Saturday afternoon we agreed to watch my husband's friend's kids while he and his wife went fishing. They were supposed to be over by 2:00 p.m., but as the minutes ticked by and they didn't show, we began to wonder if they were coming.

Finally, we got a text from his friend. He told Grig to come out because he had something to show him. Grig went out and when he walked back in, I was pretty surprised.

Grig was carrying three very large catfish. Evidently, Grig's friend and his wife couldn't wait for us to finish the other things we had to do that morning. They had already gone fishing. That meant that instead of spending the rest of the afternoon watching kids, we spent the rest of the afternoon gutting fish.

Two of the fish were still very much alive, and we had a very small kitchen sink. So we decided to stick the two live fish in the tub until we could get to them.

They were pretty fun. Kevin was taking a nap when they came over, but when he woke up he was pretty excited to find some huge fish in his tub.

I hadn't brought my camera back with us because I'd only been expecting to stay for two days, but we borrowed a camera from a friend of mine and were able to take some pictures.

Kevin kept waving at the fish and saying, "Hi!" He would reach down and pet them too. They were pretty chill about it, and by the time that Grig had finished cleaning the first one, we were having second thoughts about killing the next two.

However, they weren't our fish, and we couldn't let them live in our bathtub. So, I made Grig kill the biggest fish for me, and then I gutted it. That was nice of him to do that for me. He also really liked them, but he grew up on a small farm, so he's better at killing things than I am.

After I had gutted the last fish and their heads and entrails were in the trash, Kevin came walking up. He looked in the trash, and I wondered how he would react when he saw his fishes' heads.

My funny son surprised me. He took one glances, lifted his hand in a wave, and said, "Hi!"

Good kid.

We haven't eaten the fish yet. We are waiting for a good time to get with the friends who caught them and eat them together. Hopefully next weekend. Meanwhile, they're cooling in our freezer.

Crazy fun times.