Fishing Rodeo 2013

This weekend, Chad and I were able to fish in the Alabama Deep Sea Fishing Rodeo in Orange Beach, AL. My awesome cousin Cole, Aunt Felicia, and Uncle Jimmy invited us over to fish with them, so we had been looking forward to it for weeks! :)

Let me take you on our journey through the weekend..

I got all packed up ready to go Thursday afternoon!

 Gotta love selfies, right? I was just so excited for the weekend!

 Josh picked me up from my house (because he lives super close), and we met Chad at his house to head on over to the Gulf.

After stopping to eat at California Dreaming in Malbis, we finally made it over to the beach and just hung out with Cole, Aunt Felicia, and Uncle Jimmy that night before going to bed. 

Day 1:

The next morning we woke up super early to go fishing, but low and behold, it was storming! :( Because we couldn't risk going out in the gulf with all the storms, we decided to go to J&M Tackle and this place called Sam's to look at some fishing stuff and clothes.

Here's Chad pondering all the rain on the way to J&M, haha.

Photoshoot in the car. :)

J&M and Sam's had all kinds of cute clothes, so I just had to get something. Here is my cute Salt Life tank I got!

After shopping around for a bit, we decided to hit up the Gulf State pier to go fishing since we couldn't go out in the boat. Check out the storm out on the water.

Here's the boys out on the pier. 

We were out on the pier for about 20 minutes, and it started to storm. So basically we paid $8.00 a piece to fish for a total of 20 minutes... what a rip off, haha. 

To make up for our lack of fishing, we decided to go to the arcade and have some fun to escape the rain. We spent about an hour at Adventure Island playing all kinds of games. Wanna see the goodies we won with our tickets?? 

Brace yourselves...

Yep, a bunch of candy and an umbrella hat (which Josh is modeling, haha).

Of course I had to model it, too.

We got some sour warheads with our winnings. Check out everyone's "this thing is SOUR!" face.

And the color of our tongues as a result of the sour warheads (Chad's tongue didn't change colors at all, lol).

Time for another photoshoot once we got back to the beach house. Check out my "Josh, wait till I'm ready to take the picture" face. :)

With my sweet guy!

Chad and Josh with their new Columbia hats they got from J&M. They didn't want to get the same color, but it was the only one they had in the correct sizes, haha. 

Then we all decided to fish a little by our house in Wolf Bay.

Gorgeous sunset on the bay!

Day 2:

We woke up early on our second day to head out on the water, but guess what? It was raining AGAIN, so we slept in another hour. Thankfully when we woke back up, the weather had cleared up somewhat, and we headed for the boat launch.

Team Donzi all the way :).

Chad caught the first fish of the day, a Spanish Mackerel.

 Me and Josh!

 Me and Aunt Felicia!

The boys just being goofy, haha.

 More fishing shots!

The sun was trying its hardest to break through the clouds.

This is the condo where the teenager fell and was killed over the weekend. Please continue to remember his family and friends in your prayers. 

 Uncle Jimmy rigging up a new lure to see if we can catch some more fish.

C'mon sun, grace us with your presence. :)

Here's a video of me trying to capture the waves, haha:

 All the guys!

 Love this fella!

 Silly pics!

 Josh reeling in his bonito!

Check out his video:

Next, it was my turn to catch a fishy. I asked Josh to capture a video of me catching my Spanish Mackerel (which was pretty small, haha), and this is what I get from him...

I know, I know... I'm sorry to make you all sit through two such long videos, haha. Poor Josh didn't know it was on video and thought he was taking a picture, lol.

Here's Uncle Jimmy reeling in his big 'ole Jack Crevalle.

Check out his video:

On the way back to the launch, Aunt Felicia and I got soaked going through the pass.

 And Josh and Chad were dry as a bone, haha.

Now time for all of our pictures with our catches of the day:

 Chad almost really made me kiss that big 'ole fishy, haha.

 Here's the four of us with the fishies:

Weighing the Jack Crevalle to see if it qualified, but it weighed in at 22 pounds which wasn't quite big enough.

After we all showered and cleaned all the fish slime off (ew!, haha), we got ready to head BACK to the arcade to play some more. So of course we had to take some pictures...

Here are some pics of the boys showing their man love for one another, lol.

 Love these two guys!

Epic failure trying to hold me... lol

There we go!

Best friend ever!

Chad hit the jackpot on our favorite game at the arcade, so we won a ton of tickets, haha.

1,002 tickets to be exact, lol!

Then time for ice cream! MY FAVORITE. :) 

Chad and I shared a delicious banana split!

Day 3:

Finally a pretty, sunshiney day!! Yay!! Back to the water we go...

But unfortunately we did not catch a single fish; what a bummer!

Still had loads of fun though!

 Chad and Josh!

 Uncle Jimmy and Cole!

Love shots of the water!

We were all loving the sunshine!

So pretty!

 More scenery pics!

 The boys getting their tan on.

 Now time for a nap!

 Super cool modern house over by Robinson Island!

That ended our time at the Alabama Deep Sea Fishing Rodeo. Though the rain was a slight bummer and we didn't catch any qualifying fish, we all still had such a blast!

What a fabulous, fun-filled weekend! So thankful for family and friends! :)

Love & Blessings, 

Claire

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