fishing zion's camp

This is a late post by Rich.  Ava and I went on our fishing trip on July 5th 2013.
While Lisa was at girls camp I took Ava on a fishing trip.  We went to Zion's Camp.  It is a church camp near Challenge CA.  This was a camp that I grew up with.  I attended several fathers and sons outings, and service projects there.  The past several years my dad (Ava's Papa Bruce) has been stocking the pond with trout.  I knew it would be a great opportunity for Ava to catch some fish.  After our disappointing trip to Rancho Secco I was determined to have both of us catch something.   Ava was excited to go fishing with Daddy.

Ava did well on the long winding drive.  We listened to lots of Raffi and Disney songs to keep her occupied.  The camp hasn't changed much from when I was a kid.  There was a Hmong branch camp out there this weekend so there were plenty of other kids there.

Ava caught a fish right away.  I was excited because her first fish was a native rainbow trout.  We let it go so it could have a chance to grow up.  Ava quickly caught 2 more nice big fat planted trout.  That was great because she had reached the end of her attention span for fishing.  After that she was ready to get on the paddle boats and the raft.  We even found a salamander for Ava to play with.  It was a great trip. It brought back memories from my childhood.  We were able to create some new memories together.  We did miss Lisa, but it was nice to have a big long Daddy Daughter day together.

After we were done fishing we headed down the hill to spend time with Papa Bruce, Nonna Alicia and the rest of the family in Gridley.  We had fun swimming in the pool and playing.  We were wiped out when we made it home.

Have reeling in her first fish.

Ava holding her first fish!

Photo taken by Ava.  Me holding up my first catch of the day.

Ava decided to take a spin in the paddle boat by herself.  Good thing I still had a hold of the rope.

Ava standing on the "pirate island"

Swimming in the freezing water.

Ava's first look at a salamander

One last look before we let it swim away.