ponchos

This is our family icon of Jesus. It is hand painted and we bought it in Russia at a monastery. Elijah knows exactly who it is: "Gheekah". In fact, seeing the icon often prompts him to request the Jesus song.

Before a fishing trip in Ludingon, MI, we were at a Walmart to pick up a couple ponchos. They promised rain the next day, and we wanted to be ready. Naturally, the poncho packages featured a person wearing one with the hood up. As we placed a couple in the cart, Elijah turned around to take a look, and exclaimed "Gheekah!" That seemed a bit out of context, so it took us a moment to figure out what he was talking about. I guess the halo does look a bit like a hood... I can't think of anything else that would have caused Elijah to think the guy on the package was Jesus.

In case you were wondering, the fishing trip was a success. Between the five of us on the boat, we caught 10 fish, including two 16 lbs salmon. Ryan's weighed a mere 0.5 lb more than mine, but was enough to earn him the "biggest fish of the trip" award. If you look at the picture below, the longer of the two largest fish is Ryan's, and mine is next to it, and it's fatter. I also caught a lake trout which turned out to have been hatched at a farm. They knew it from a missing fin near the tail. It's head contained a micro-chip, so I had to fill out a form and freeze the head so they could analyze which farm it came from. (For the record, it's the second fish from Ryan in the bottom row.)