it was off to the side of the road, across a sunrise lit field and seemingly not any more interesting than all the other rad bridges we had passed so far that morning.  with a meet up time for fishing with friends, it was a quick weight and balance of ‘good idea and be a few minutes late’ or ‘skip it and regret it later’.

so of course we stopped.  i mean, how can you not in a place like this.

the signs told us to cross at our own risk due to the hundreds of years of aging the bridge had already been through.  it was a hand cranked dam over a quiet creek next to a boat making shed.  it was quiet and beautiful and unexpected.  it was one of those places you could throw down a blanket, have a picnic and watch the kids splash around in the shallow, rocky waters.

it was the perfect way to spend a morning with my people.

but oh, the morning had JUST begun.  we spent a short bit of time in that dam magic land and then headed off to join up with our fishing buddies.  we were there to let the kids catch fish all morning so the parents could fry it up to enjoy that afternoon.  with the ponds well stocked, the kids just needed to learn that fishing isn’t as gross as it looks.

caelan jumped RIGHT in and caught her first fish within minutes.  from that moment on, it was just one catch after the next.

the kids were really skiddish at first.  they didn’t want to touch the fish or have anything to do with removing the hooks or clubbing them.  slowly but surely, they each warmed up to one task at a time and by the end of our day, they had each worked their way up to almost doing all of it by themselves!

corbin wouldn’t even hold a fish.  my big mouth promised him i would kiss his fish if he would just hold it.  sure enough…

ethan asked to stab the fish (this was the rules of the park.  you HAVE to kill the fish before it goes in the bucket.  so it doesn’t suffer.  humane fishing at it’s best.) and then surprised us all with a manly stab of the knife back into the bench. “to keep it there until the next fish” he told us.  that kid.

all of this fishing business was made especially awesome by our sweet friend Kristine.   not only did she help the kids bait, cast, net and kill the fish but she also gave them a fantastic biology lesson, even going as far as holding a still beating heart out for my kids to observe.  really, without her, the day wouldn’t have been even half as awesome!

at the end of the day, the kids caught 10 lbs of fish between them and would have continued on well in to the day, had we not reminded them that they probably won’t even eat what they caught.  so we took a field trip to the guy who guts the fish and watched him and his fancy equipment do the job.  the ride home was equally as beautiful as the ride there.

man, i just love living in germany.