Oklahoma trip

I've been a little out of pocket because we were on a trip!  Back in December or January Mom broached the subject of all of us going back to Broken Bow, Oklahoma to stay on the river again.  I was so excited!  We had a great time on our last trip two years ago.  Wednesday when I got home from work I set to cleaning the house and pack.  I got done by about 11 and I was off to bed so we could get going in the morning.

Thursday morning Dad came to pick the kids and I up, then we went over to Ashley's to meet Mom and all leave from there.  Ashley, the kids, and I were in one car while Mom and Dad made the trek in a second car.  With two car seats we don't all fit anymore into one car.  The drive up there was an adventure in itself.  Ashley and I laughed most of the way, seeing all kinds of random things on the road. Like 9 rusted dumpster arranged artfully and randomly on the side of  the road.  And a 90 year old man on a  Rascal scooter wearing an orange worker vest using a spear to pick up trash.  Ashley though he was just sleeping on the side of the road (think two lane highway in the middle of no where), and later she said she thought that was why we were laughing.  Goodness.  We also stopped in Paris and got a snack, fed the girl, and spent 20 minutes driving around trying to find this.

Totally worth it.  Finally we got there and it was early enough to throw on our suits and get in the water.  Well, they got in the water, I stayed with my baby.

Then I took my baby down to the river too.

(that's our house up on the bank)

After swimming we made a spaghetti dinner and relaxed.  There was a  garden tub with a jacuzzi in my room, so I headed off for some quiet time.  Mom had brought some bubble bath, and that's when it became apparent I was a novice to using bubble bath with jets.  Did you know the jets rapidly multiply the bubbles?  I found  out the hard way when the tub was only half way full of water but overflowing with bubbles.  Bubbles so dense I could leave hand prints.  Finally I played with my girl some more

and we were off to bed.

Wednesday morning Ashley, Dad, and I had reservations for a kayak trip.  We had the BEST time!  The people took us to a landing spot to park the car, then drove us three miles up the river where we put in.  There were rapids, waterfalls, and smooth spots all in those three miles.  Mom stayed back with the kids, and she had bought us one of those old school water proof cameras with no flash and a wheel that you wind.  Remember those we are going have to go get those developed to see how our kayak trip turned out.  Remember those days?  Anyway, we got back in time to make hot dogs for lunch and then it was nap time.  Later we took the kayaks that the river house had docked and I let Luke "paddle" with me.

He loved it!  After a hamburger dinner Papa and Luke started gathering sticks for a fire.

Why did we need to make a fire?  For s'mores of course!  We had to roast the marshmallows the right way.

Luke got to taste his very first s'more, and funny enough, he didn't finish it.

Then it was inside for baths (I took one with Evan, sans the bubbles, since she got so sweaty in the humidity) and after Luke went to bed the grown ups stayed up to play 5 Crown. 

Thursday we took some family pictures.

Then we went to the state park where Dad and I took Luke on the little train ride around the park.  Leave it to Papa to indulge Luke's still-strong obsession.  Lame train rides are getting to be a tradition in our family.  Ha! 

Eventually we got back to the house where Papa and Luke went fishing and I did a little more kayaking.  Okay, mostly I paddled to the other side of the river and floated there watching the fish swim.

Then I came in and took even more pictures of my girl

before we cooked a big steak dinner.  That dinner was the first one that we ate inside.  All of our other meals were outside on the deck.  Luke went to bed, more cards were played, and our vacation was almost over.

This morning we got up and lazily got ready to go.  We were back on the road by noon and made our way back to the home front.  I'm now totally unpacked, have one load of laundry down, and am so glad that I had cleaned the house before I left, it was nice to walk in the door that way (Cody had been out the whole week on his hitchhiking trip).  Tomorrow to work it is!  Thanks Mom and Dad  for such a great and fun vacation, it was much needed!

 (just to show that Mom did get in lots of pictures too, I just had to edit down the hundreds that we took to these!)