Crappie Fishing on Lake Greeson

Today, Rosie, Wayne Jensen, Delmadge Pharr and I went crappie fishing on Lake Greeson with fishing guide, Jerry Blake. We fished from about 8 am to 1 pm. We caught 63 crappie and 1 bass. We threw back many small bass and bream.

Here's our guide, Jerry, and his boat.
Here's a shot of most of our catch. We didn't have room to put them all on the board. From left to right our crew was Delmadge, Bob, Wayne and Rosie.Here's pictures of me with our biggest crappie.
Rosie is holding up one of the crappie she caught; it just happened to be the biggest of the day.
We had a great time. Jerry really makes fishing easy. We hope we can do this again next year!

Fishing on Lake Granada - HSV

On Tuesday and Thursday of this week, Rosie and I went bass fishing on Lake Granada; less than 5 minutes from our house. On Tuesday we caught a good number of small (11"-12") bass and decided to go back on Thursday since the weather was so nice. On Thursday, Rosie's first bass was about 14.5" long - a nice catch. Unfortunately, being "brain dead" we forgot to take a picture of her first bass. Here's a picture of the second bass she caught (using a wacky worm).I caught 2 nice bass on Thursday (nice by our standards); one was 14" and the second 16". They were both fun to catch. I caught the 2 bigger bass on a "Pop-R" top water bait. It's always fun to see bass hit a top water bait.Overall, we had a good morning of fishing and were home for lunch. Hopefully the weather will cooperate and we can get a few days of fishing in next week (and more photos!).

Charles & Mary Barham's 50th Wedding Anniversary

Rosie and I drove from HSV to Longview, TX, to attend the celebration of Charles and Mary Barham's 50th wedding anniversary. We knew Charles and Mary from our days in Japan. Charles was pastor of KIBC - Kobe International Baptist Church - where our family attended church while we lived in the Osaka/Kobe area. We have great memories of our time in Japan and were glad we could represent KIBC at Charles and Mary's celebration.

Here's a picture of the happy couple.

Also of picture of Rosie and me with Charles and Mary.

Congratulations Charles and Mary! We wish you many more happy years.

PS - we really enjoyed the wild flowers on the drive down and back.

Fredericksburg, TX - The EASTER EGG HUNT!

On Monday the kids got to make Easter baskets and have a brief Easter Egg hunt. The baskets were plastic buckets the kids put stickers on. They had fun decorating their baskets.

Gram is helping Lottie and Kayleigh decorate their buckets.

Amy is helping Adam with his basket.

Logan and Bapa are working on his Easter basket.

We're off to the hunt! Out of the way!!!

Adam was quick to "zero in" on a plastic Easter Egg.

Logan headed straight for the eggs.

Lottie had a fun time finding Easter Eggs.

Kayleigh was ready to go. Hey, let's go find some eggs!

WOW - there's candy in these eggs! This is great!

Even without candy, Kayleigh enjoyed playing with the plastic eggs.
The kids had a fun time finding eggs. Enjoying the candy later was even more fun.

Fredericksburg, TX - The HOT TUB!

Our cabin had a nice hot tub; all of us - especially the kids - enjoyed it. Karen and Lottie are enjoying the warm water.

Shane, Logan and Kayleigh are relaxing in the hot tub.

Chris and Adam are having a good time.

Looks like Adam and Logan are getting "well done" in the hot tub.

Amy, Rosie and I also enjoyed the hot tub, but I didn't have any pictures of us in the tub. Rosie and I especially enjoyed the tub at night with the full moon over head. It was great fun!

Fredericksburg, TX - Our Cabins

March 29 - March 30 we stayed in Fredericksburg, TX, with Chris, Amy, Adam and Lottie and Karen, Shane, Logan and Kayleigh - we missed you, Doug. Chris has found these great cabins outside of town. It was really nice and a great place for the kids. We had 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, kitchen, pool, internet access and a hot tub - great for the cool nights. Here are a few pictures from the outside. We had the bottom floor of this old farm house. There is another cabin on top, but no one was staying there.

There were several other cabins near our cabin.
There was also a nice fireplace/chimney on the compound. This would be great on a cool winter's night.
We had a nice long driveway. The entrance is the white gates in the distance.In addition to the hot tub, the cabin also had a small pool on site. It was a bit cool so we didn't use the pool. We did, however, enjoy the hot tub.
Just across the driveway from our cabin was a field of yellow flowers.
I'm sure you noticed in all of the pictures the absence of other houses/cabins outside of the few in our compound. It was very quiet and peaceful where we stayed. I did hear a few turkeys in the morning and saw a small herd of deer (about 30) run through the field.

We had a great time with the kids. Chris, thanks for finding this place.

Tour of the Ranger Boat Factory, Flippin, AR

On 24-MAR, Rosie and I had the chance to tour the Ranger boat factory in Flippin, AR. We were having our Ranger boat serviced in Bull Shoals which is right down the road from Flippin. Our tour guide was Mickey Woods; the Woods family started Ranger boats.

The plant typically employs about 800 people. However, with the downturn in the economy, the employment has been cut to about 500. It was also interesting that Ranger doesn't build inventory anymore. Every boat made in the factory has already been sold via one of the Ranger dealers. Each boat is being made "to order."

It takes about 6 days and 400 man hours to make a Ranger boat. That's a lot of labor. The making of a Ranger bass boat is very labor intensive. We didn't get to take pictures in the areas where the hulls and decks were made due to the solvent fumes. However, the process was very interesting.

I really thought how the hulls and decks were painted was really unique. Each deck and hull has a mold. The paint is sprayed into the mold as it is designed to appear on the surface of the boat; followed by a coat of black paint. After the inside of the mold is painted, the polymer is sprayed into the mold and allowed to cure. There are multiple steps and layers that form the deck and hull. However, when the cured polymer hull or deck is removed from it's mold, the surface is painted. That was really cool.

Here are some pictures from the "finishing area." The deck has been mated to the hull and the electronics, motors, etc. are being installed - all by hand.Here's a picture of Rosie and me with Mickey; he was a great tour guide and as you would expect, very knowledgeable about the boat business. Ranger makes not only bass boats but also salt water, walleye, and recreational boats. The walleye boats are their biggest seller with last year's number one dealer in Minnesota. Behind us are new Ranger boats being finished out per the new owners' requests.Here's a cutaway from a finished Ranger boat. All the open spaces between the deck and hull are filled with foam.Finally, here's a picture of Rosie by a 1974 Ranger bass boat. Obviously, bass boats have changed tremendously on the past 30+ years.We had a great time touring the Ranger factory. We both came away feeling even better about our decision to buy a Ranger boat. They really build a quality product from start to finish. It's a bummer that they didn't give out free samples - we would have been glad to take one.