Gone Fishing!

As you read above, I recently graduated. The same week, my brother finished his orthodontic residency. As a graduation present, my Dad sent us fishing. We chartered a small boat and went out to different locations in the Bay: Alcatraz, Angels Island, Emeryville shelf, etc. The day before, they were catching 30 lb halibut. Unfortunately, we didn't have that luck - We only caught one 23 in. 5 lb halibut, but we did catch some good sized California Striped Sea Bass. My biggest catch of the day was a 31" 12 pound monster. What a fighter! I had know idea there was such good fishing in the bay or I would have been going for the last 4 years. My brother and I each took home about 6 lbs of fillets. Delicious! I cut the fillets into nice thick strips and dipped them in a milk/egg mix, then coated them with a combination of flour, corn starch, fresh ground pepper, and various other seasonings. Then let it fry in a 50/50 mix of butter and extra virgin olive oil. Boy, that was a good lunch. Courtney got a little more fancy than me. If you want a really good recipe for potato, Parmesan and fresh tomato sea bass, ask Courtney. I have no idea what she did, but it was yummy.

Being caught off gaurd

Some of you who have talked to McKenna recently know that she is a little different verbally. She speaks with the diction and vocabulary of an older child. This often gets me (Dan) in trouble because I tend to expect older behavior from her, when she is still, emotionally and physically, a 4 year old. However, every once in a while, she catches me off guard with an insight I would not expect from a four year old. For example, I called in an order of Tiki Masala (a type of Pakistani Curry that is popular here in San Francisco). We hopped in the car and drove down to the restaurant, and Courtney jumped out to pick up the order while I circled around the block. When I first pulled away from the curb, McKenna said, "Daddy, don't leave Mommy!" I reassured her that I wasn't going to leave Mommy, and that we were simply going to circle around the block and pick her up. She understood, and after we had come around the block to pick up Courtney, she said, "Daddy, silly boy. That wasn't circling around the block. That was more of squaring around the block, wasn't it? Because you turned four times, right? It was a square." I'd never thought of it that way, but her view of the world is untainted. It is kind of refreshing.



She also views everything through a gospel lens with a tremendous amount of faith. She asked me today if everything dies. I told her that only living things died, not rocks for example, and not Heavenly Father and Jesus. She said, "Well of course, they already died Daddy." So we discussed what kinds of things were living and what kind of things are inanimate. I told her plants and animals were alive. And she said, "And people". I said, "Well people are a kind of animal. We are just a little smarter than all the other animals." She said, "but little fish eat the little bugs. Big fish eat the little fish. Animals eat the big fish. Bigger animals eat the little animals." Then she thought for a minute and asked, "If we are animals, what eats us?" "I told her that nothing eats us because we can think better than any other animal, so nothing eats us." She nodded, and responded, "Right, because we are people, not animals." Note that through this entire morbid conversation about death and being eaten, she was not afraid in the least. She has accepted the fact that some day she will die, and go home to Heavenly Father, where we will live again as a family. But, as she says, "that isn't for a long, long time." Her entire view of the circle of life is filtered through the gospel lens, and with that perfect faith comes a perfect lack of fear or dread. She amazes me.