BassMaster's Battle on the Bayou

If you know Chris, you are familiar with his passion for bass fishing.  As BASS lifetime member he is occasionally given the opportunity to serve as a Bassmaster's tournament  Marshall.  He was selected two years ago but the tournament was the same month Chase was due at a lake that was 7 hours away so needless to say he passed that one up.  This time it was for a 3 day event, BassMaster's Battle on the Bayou, in Many, Lousiana.  He was unsure of what to expect but after hearing the excitement in his voice after the first day I knew he was having the time of his life!  The Marshalls were randomly assigned to a differnet Professional Fisherman each day.  Over the 3 days he rode with Randy Howell, Ben Parker and Boyd Duckett who was Angler of the year 3 in 2009.  As you can see from the pictures Chris was on cloud 9! 

Chris and Kevin Van Dam

Chris and Boyd Duckett

Chris and "Ike"

Chris and Ish with a bif ol' fish!

Chris and Jason Quinn.  Chris actually had dinner at a mexican food restruant near thier hotel. 

Hoppy Easter!

We spent a fun and relaxing Easter weekend in Dallas with my family.  Chase got to spend a lot of quality time with Nonna, Papaw, his aunts and cousins.  We hauled the boat in hopes of Chris getting some fishing in but the Dallas weather didn't cooperate, it was too windy or rainy most of the time.  We attending Easter Mass at our church we were members of when we lived in Corinth.  I love and miss the preist and deacon terribly, simply walking in the door brings so tears to my eyes.  The service was the perfect start to our Easter Sunday spent with family.  Chase had so much fun dying at hunting eggs with his cousins! 

Super EGGcited to dye eggs!

Pretty good looking bunch of eggs

The Easter Bunny stopped by Nonna & Papaw's house!

Family Picture 2011

He quickly got the hang of hunting eggs.

A mouth FULL of jellybeans!

Never ending home improvements....

 I wanted to share some before and after pictures of our back yard after our latest home improvement project.  The back yard was less than cared for by the previous owners and was in need of some major tlc..  Over the coarse of a few weeks we had 5 dump trucks of fill dirt delievered, rented a bobcat for a weekend to level a few areas, laid 16 pallets of grass and cut down a tree.  Chase had a blast "helping daddy" every step of the way. We still need to do a bit more work and have plans to paint the house and build a deck sometime in the semi near future.  I can't wait to see the kids playing together in thier backyard.

Chris driving the bobcat while Chase directs him with his shovel.

The first of two truck delivering our grass pallets.

Our dirt yard,

The pallets wating for someone to lay them :)

Now thats a backyard!

Chase using his toy chain saw to "cut" the tree

Such a big boy!