Father's Day - Salty Sea Dog Style

Here are the boys aboard the Texsun II, a fine boat available for charter into the Galveston Bay. The CFO at the hospital (Chuck - the guy in the hat and sunglasses right behind the boys) invited us to go on a charter fishing trip this Saturday with his church. The morning trip booked before we could get our reservations made, so we decided to book an afternoon trip. In this picture, we are leaving Pier 19 on the way to our first stop in the bay for a little fishing. With Cap'n John at the wheel, and Ken the Deckhand assisting the fellars in the back of the boat, greatness awaited one of us.


Turns out that the mighty fisherman among us was Austin, who was fishing beside me off the back of the boat. After catching a couple of 1 - 2 pound hardhead catfish, Austin hooked this beast which you see above. It hit his bait hard, and bent his rod so much I thought it might break. He try to control it for a little while, then said "Dad, I'm going to need some help with this one." I handed my rod to Chuck, asked him to keep Braden from falling off the boat, then started cranking on this stingray with Austin. Kenny had everyone on the back of the boat pull up their line, so we were free to roam across the full back end of the ship to try and keep this winged water-beast below us. We'd crank and reel, it would run and pull out line, we'd crank and reel some more. Eventually, we stripped the reel because we were trying to reel it in while it was running out. That meant I had the pole, Austin worked the reel, and the K-man held the line against the pole to keep La Pescado Diablo from pulling out any more line.

Once we wore it out, Austin and I managed to pull the fish up to the surface of the water, where Ken gaffed it and pulled it up onto the boat. By this point, all 10 or so of the fisher-persons on the back end of the boat were just watching the action, with Austin right in the middle of it all. The Horst family fishing record books will reflect that on Saturday, June 17, Austin caught a 50 pound Stingray in Galveston Bay. Not bad, considering his Class 2 Medical Form we just completed for scout camp lists him @ 84 pounds himself!


From spot to spot in the Bay, we would go inside the cabin and have something to drink and horse around. Here Braden is recreating the look on the face of one of the catfish he caught as he pulled it out of the water. Braden and I worked one of the fishing poles together, and everytime I would feel a fish on the line I'd have him reel it in - very exciting! "Hey Brur, you wanna see my fish?" A fellar four spots over from us caught a 4-foot long hammerhead shark, which (needless to say) Braden thought was very cool. After we watched them remove the hook and put the shark on ice, Braden turned back to me and said "OK Da-ee, now we catch a shark".


After how well they did on our trip (4 hours total), I took the boys over to the beach for a couple of hours while we still had some daylight. The beach was nasty, the wind was blowing, but Braden is a beach boy in his soul. He ran and played non-stop until we finally had to take showers, get back in the car and go home. After dinner at Chick Fil A, he was asleep in his car seat before I was able to get out of the parking lot. It was a quiet, happy trip home to hot showers and cool beds.

Now we just need to figure out the best way to prepare stingray filets, because I have about 15 pounds worth in my freezer...

11 Going on 25

Austin's birthday was a low-key affair this year. He wanted to go to dinner at the new PF Changs near our house, but when we arrived, the wait for a table was two hours. We took the beeper anyway, and went up the street to Academy Sports store, where - thanks to the generosity of Grandma and Grandpa - Austin had a gift card to spend. He bought a putter, and nearly got golf shoes, too, but they did not have his size in stock. By the time we got back to PF Changs, our wait had dwindled down to only an hour, so we turned in our beeper and said "thanks, but no thanks".

Chinese food? No go. How about Japanese, instead? We wound up at Hido's, a Japanese, hibachi-style restaurant. Once an older couple and two (very polite) teenagers on a date were seated around our grill, orders were taken and the show began! Sheila and Austin started with California rolls, which is like sushi for beginners. Next came the main event, which had Braden quite anxious because of the occasional bursts of flames coming from the other tables. Feeling safer sitting in my lap, we watched as our cook sliced and diced his way through our dinner. At one point, after the cook had flipped an empty bowl up into the air and caught it on top of his chef's hat, Braden exclaimed "you are duh greatest magician ub my life"! The older lady seated next to Austin offered to take our picture, and we gratefully accepted as she snapped the shot above.

Once home, we sang "Happy Birthday" and each had a slice of Sheila's Mississippi Mud Pie, which is Austin's favorite new recipe she's discovered by watching the Food Network. Then it was off to his room, to hook the the old eMachine's PC we had repaired, since his computer (2 generations ago) stopped working amidst a small cloud of smoke last week. He'll be happy loading iTunes and "Roller Coaster Tycoon" onto that computer until his summer bedtime of 11:00pm.

11 years ago tonight was an awful, long night in the waiting rooms of Northwest Texas Medical Center, worrying about my wife's recovery from a difficult deliver and my day-old son's response to the antibiotics our pediatrician said he needed to fight off a potentially fatal infection. Shelley's roommate was really hateful about me being in the room after visiting hours, but had the nurses bring her baby into the room, crying and waking Shelley all night. I remember trying to sleep on the chairs in the waiting room and on the floor of the waiting room, but sleep just would not come to me that night. I remember going to the nursery @ 5:00am hoping to see Austin, and being thrilled to see the pediatrician already there, holding him, remarking to the nurses and me how strong Austin was and how much better he looked than the night before. I remember crying different tears than I had ever cried before as I rocked him for the first time later that day, having been introduced to the countless anxious hours that would arrive at his expense.

He's so grown up now, so handsome, so funny, so damn difficult. I worry constantly that I am doing right by him, giving him the right environment for all his God-given abilities to mature and make him a good man. After all, I owe him. He made me a dad, and there's not anything else in my life which means so much.