Each summer we take a day trip with the Horkavys since they’ve declared an annual holiday of Stephen’s birthday called “Statewide Stephen Day.” This year, our original plans changed, so Ryan invited us to drive up to Prescott to go fishing for the day in early October.

We adore Prescott, and the little city was charming as always. Prescott was in the middle of its Great Outdoors Festival, so the town square was filled with vendors booths and people. We wound through the historic Victorian and Craftsman homes. Made me want to move in.

Stephen chose Goldwater Lake, so we unloaded our picnic lunch and ate among the trees in the cool outdoors (at least it was cool to us). Ryan scouted out a fishing spot for us, and we set up by the water’s edge.

I say it was the boys’ first fishing trip–which means that they fished for about all of thirty seconds (Coop) and three minutes (Silas). I would’ve loved it if Cooper’s vacant fishing pole had caught a fish!

Ryan spent most of his time getting the fishing lines ready for everyone, but in the end both he and Elizabeth managed to each catch a fish. The boys loved playing in the water and climbing on the rocks with Ben. Little boys should be out exploring in nature.

Afterwards we walked around the historic town square and found a burger place for supper. Because our rescheduled date for Statewide Stephen Day was closer to Ryan’s birthday, the holiday morphed into “Regional Ryan Day,” and we celebrated Ryan’s birthday at supper. Good memories with good friends.