Labor Day!

We had such a wonderful Labor Day yesterday.  Jeremy took the whole day off from school work (yippee!) and we had a great family fun day.

We went up to Moraine State Park, located about 45 minutes north of Pittsburgh.  It was beautiful!!!  I love all the trees and rolling hills here.  Gorgeous.  So the weather forecast was looking terrible.  Every day leading up to the holiday it said it was going to rain pretty much all day.  We decided to brave it anyway, since the weather report is so hit-and-miss here anyway and usually when it rains it doesn't rain all that long.  Well, we woke up at 6:30 Monday morning and it was a gorgeous morning!  I checked the weather again (after checking it late the night before) and it was all clear!  Ha!  Good thing we don't make plans around the weather report. :)

So our friends, the Arnetts, met at our house and we all drove up to the State Park.  Tom is in the MBA program with Jeremy and they have 2 little boys too, so we do a lot with them. :) (Yea!) We had done some research beforehand and saw that Labor Day was free fishing day at all the state parks (meaning, you don't need a license), and that they have rods you can borrow also for free!  It was perfect.  We got there early so we'd be sure to get some, and sure enough, we got two, bought some worms and headed out to the lake.  It was really just a perfect morning.  It was cool and clear and we were the only ones at our little spot for awhile.  We didn't really expect to catch anything, but we thought it would be fun.  We ended up catching 6 fish all together!  They were all very small, but it was still exciting.  Eli had a great time and I think Jeremy was the most excited of all.

Giddy Jeremy.

 Ah, nature!!

 First catch!  Just a little guy. :)

Love.

 Tom's boys weren't too interested when he caught the first one, but Tom was excited!  They eventually thought it was fun...

 Tom and Moses.

 Another one!  Eli actually touched it.  I was impressed. :)
 Mary over yonder.

 Moses took it upon himself to return all the rocks from the shore to the lake.

 After fishing for awhile we headed up to the north shore of the lake for some "beach" time.  They had some sand and the boys had a blast playing in the sand and swimming.  

 

We then barbequed some hot dogs, enjoyed a delicious lunch, and then swam some more.

 
 Connor venturing out.  This kid is crazy in the water.  He loves it and has NO fear.  He went in head first 3 times and we had to retrieve him.  We discovered that he actually knows to hold his breath now though.  We'd pull him out and he wouldn't cough or sputter or really look disturbed at all.  He was havin' a ball. Oh boy.

 We left all tuckered out around 2:30, feeling very satisfied and happy with what a success the day had been.  Jeremy kept saying all day, "This is so fun! What a great day!"  It was cute.  It was so nice to just get out and do something together in the outdoors. (Can you tell we're not missing the southern heat/bugs/humidity?) :) We loved it!