Summer Vacation Eureka Springs, Arkansas 2006

About a month or so ago my oldest sister, Amy, asked if we wanted to join her, our niece Elysabeth, my parents, and my other sister, Susan on a family vacation. After only a little discussion, we decided to go and had a great time. We started out early, Sunday, July 17th and returned home very late, July 22nd. We drove from my parents house in Richardson, Tx to Eureka Springs, Arkansas. Amy had rented a family size cabin, we took turns cooking breakfast and dinner each day(had sandwiches for lunch), and did some outings together and some on our own.

Our main concern was how the kids would do in the car for that long. We stocked up on snacks for the kids, brought in a few of their favorite toys and books, turned on some music, and hit the road. The first hour or so were kind of rough. Emma fought going to sleep, but finally gave in. And Henry seemed to enjoy the scenery out his window until he also fell asleep for an hour or so. They did really well.

We all made it there in one piece. While we were there we enjoyed several outings with the family and then some on our own. The kids LOVED being able to run around outside. We thought we were headed towards cooler temperatures, but did not find it until the last day we were there. We shopped in historic downtown Eureka Springs, hiked almost every day, tried swimming in a very pretty lake, Jason went canoeing, and we explored a couple of caverns. And the kids had a blast. We have discovered a few things that they don't like. Henry and Emma don't like floaties/life vests and they didn't like swimming in the pretty lake. We think part of the problem was the lifevests. They didn't like them too much(sorry Aunt Amy). So we decided not to go on the canoe trip and sent Daddy out for a few hours of fun! Mamma and the kids stayed at the cabin with Nana and Aunt Suza and had our own kind of fun! We went and did some shopping in historic downtonwn one day and had a pretty good time. It ended up being a really hot day so the kids were taken out of their strollers and we allowed them to walk as long as they held onto someone's hand. This is a concept we are still working on. Both of our kids are very stubborn( gee- I wonder where they got that from) and are very independent(again, gee- I wonder where they got that from?) so this proved to be a challenge. They enjoyed a snack and some nice cold juice on a parkbench that was in the shade and then were good to go so we continued on. We went exploring in War Eagle Cavern. We took an hour tour and cooled off. The temperature inside the cavern is usually 58 degrees so we really enjoyed our hour tour. There were only three other people(including our guide) on the tour. The kids did okay. Our guide said that the temperature change sometimes doesn't agree with the little ones. Jason and I thought that they got a little upset more because of the lack of light. They normally sleep with a nightlight on and some parts of the cavern were pretty dark. The other reason was because we tried to keep them in either their strollers or carry them. There were some places we weren't allowed to touch because it would damage the stone and we were worried they might not stay on the path. They ended up having a good time we think. Before the tour we happened upon the owner's cat and the kids loved that. They both love animals and haven't been in contact with a real kitty cat since we had our cat Smokie put to sleep. We visited the Blue Spring Gardens which were very pretty-the spring water was a very pretty blue and the gardens were beautiful. And the kids got lots of free time to roam around. It's a good thing we had everyone with us on most of our outings because these two love to run in opposite directions and explore everything! The rest of the time we spent at the cabin or close by doing some hiking. I think everyone had a good time. On the drive back to Texas we took the scenic route through the mountains which extended our ride home to 12 hours instead of 7. We made several stops coming home, but enjoyed the view as we did. We finally made it in at around 12:30am Satuday night and slept in a little Sunday morning.

Last week I got an email from amy asking if i got any rest on the trip. I replied by saying that sometimes "rest" isn't always what one needs on a vacation. The change of scenery did me good and being with family was good too. We had a lot of help with the kids and they loved all of the extra attention! So thank you Amy! And thank you to the rest of the family(Richard that includes you too!). We had a wonderful time. I'll be posting pictures as soon as I can. Have made several attempts, but blogger is not responding well. I'll get them up as soon as I can. And I'll post more news soon too. We have lots more to tell you about out Henry and Emma!

Having Some Fun!

Happy 4th of July!

Happy 4th of July everyone! We had the family over for a cookout today and had a great time. The kids had their fill of hamburgers, chips, potatoe salad,and cupcakes. And had a lot of fun with all the famly as you can see from the pictures. It rained today on and off so the kids only played outside for a little bit and spent the rest of the time inside playing with all the "big" kids. And it also means that we may not get to see any fireworks. Doubtful that we'd be able to see any from our house anyway and the kids are already asleep. So if we decide to have a look; we'll just see what we can see from our balcony. We all had a good time today and hope everyone else did too.

We've been keeping busy here otherwise. The latest problems we've incountered are with sharing toys,getting easily frustrated with toys or each other, and learning about limitations. Most days Henry and Emma do really well with playing with each other and sharing toys. Both of them are crazy about books and reading! Jason and I have almost memorized some of their books from reading them so much. This is a good thing. It hopefully means that they will continue to love reading. They are also enjoying looking at pictures(family photos,pictures in books,magazines). So we've been saying hello to family in friends in the pictures that we have around the house trying to get them to remember and recognize family and friends that we don't get to see as often as we would like. We're still working on our "please" and "thank yous" and other manners. And we have almost completely graduated to sippy cups-still get bottles at bedtime. And we are going to graduate to tablefood within the month. The kids are now enjoying juice and snacktime in the afternoon and are starting to "help" with little things-picking up toys, picking out which books they want to read, turning on music for naptime and bedtime, etc. And the latest words are wow, cool, car, truck, duck, quack quack, drink, juice. They have both almost mastered getting up and down the two small steps into the back living room and are now stepping over and around thngs instead of plowing through things. And the wonderful adventures of climbing on furniture have begun. No major injuries so far! And they have started giving kisses and hugs to a few select people. I'm trying to remember all the changes, but I'm sure I've missed some. We're getting ready to take another trip in a couple of weeks. We're off to Eureka Springs, Arkansas for some rest and relaxation with my family. We're renting a large cabin for a week. This should prove to be interesting-it's about a 7 hour car ride. We aren't driving straight through, but we're a little worried about keeping the kids entertained for the time that we are in the car. I'm sure we'll have a great time. Hope everyone is well. More soon.