What friends are for

Two years ago this past weekend would have been filled with dressing up in costumes, going to dance parties, eating all the candy that I could hold down, and washing down the candy with ice cold root beer while staying up until four in the morning. Now that I've gotten married, things have slightly changed....in a good way.

The weekend started off great with our team winning our last flag football game of the season on Friday night. It's been tradition this year to go to Denny's afterwards and reward ourselves with our outstanding play (even though we only won half of our games this year, we still like to give ourselves a pat on the back). Then comes Saturday, the day that is supposed to be set aside as my designated homework day. Instead of homework though, two of my best friends and I decided to go fishing up at Strawberry reservoir. It was a good decision. I feel like I haven't taken too many weekends off from school this semester and fishing was exactly what I needed. I've really only been fishing about three times in my life, as opposed to my friends who are pretty experienced fishers, but who could pass up a good relaxing trip to hangout with some old time buddies for the day. On the way up, we stopped at a gas station to fill up on snacks and junk food and just talked about old times as roommates. When we got the the reservoir, we set up our poles and headed off to our spots to catch some trout. Within half an hour, Nate had the first bite and ended up reeling in a good 20 inch or so rainbow trout. Nate (who is definitely the most experienced fisher out of us three) got the second bite of the day and called me over to come real in the fish. As I was reeling the fish in, we realized how big this sucker was. After a good 5 minutes of tiring the fish out, we got it to shore and labeled it the "trophy fish" of the week. It was a big 24 inch cut throat trout. Even though Nate did the work of getting the fish hooked, he still labeled the trout "Aaron's fish". It was kind of cool because it was the definitely the biggest fish that I've reeled in from anything outside of the ocean. Even though it wasn't really my catch, he let me take the pole and real in the biggest catch of the weekend. I guess that's what friends are for. The rest of the day was filled with a few hours of only a couple more bites, some chilly weather, and a lot of time to think while staring at my bobber to see if any fish were taking the bate.

Even though this weekend wasn't filled with dance parties, haunted houses, candy, and soda, I still had the best weekend because of the time spent with friends, family, and my best friend, Jilly, who I was with pretty much the whole time--except for fishing--sorry Jilly, guys only. Who needs dance parties and costumes on Halloween weekend when you have friends and a wife like mine--who really make every weekend the best weekend.