The Beach

Lake Charles has a pretty nice swimming beach, and that was the highlight of out trip for the girls. Unfortunately, I was rather icked out by the water, but I managed.


Daddy was much more of a trooper with regard to the lake water! : ) He spent a long time throwing Ali and Emma in the water and other kinds of fun stuff.


I spent some time turning Meg into a turtle. She thought it was pretty fun at first, but got tired of lying there! I tried to get a top view pic, but she busted out too fast.

Then, of course, Julie wanted her turn, and Meg was happy to oblige.

Time to build a sandcastle.

The (almost) finished product!

After the lake we enjoyed a neat little nature center on site. All kinds of "interesting" critters to enjoy. We even saw a Timber Rattler. He reared up and rattled at us. Pretty cool when he's behind glass! : )

Arkansas!

This past weekend we enjoyed another camping trip. This time we decided to go to Arkansas. Random, I know. But, we've never been to Arkansas before, and it isn't too far away. After a little research on some state parks, we decided to go to Lake Charles State Park in Powhatan, AR.

We left at the crack of dawn, stopping at my sister's house to drop off the pooch (Thanks Brooke!) We had a really great time, and are (once again) thinking about where our next camping trip will be : )


Okay, so I'm a dork! Yes, we got out at the state line to pacify a camera-happy mommy!



They all walked into Arkansas and gave me some silly faces!


About a half mile inside of Arkansas there was a really nice visitor center, so we stopped, again. More pictures. Of course, they're all squinting into the sun . . . but I'll take it.



And here we are . . .

Our campsite.

My groggy family after a night of not enough sleep.

Really, is there anything nicer than a hot cup of coffee by the campfire on a cool morning? It was heavenly! Obviously, Julie didn't need the coffee, but she still enjoyed the fire.

Julie spent a lot of time hanging off of the camp chairs like this. Weird kid.

Julie was contagious.

Foil pocket dinners on the grill. Yum!

The lake was beautiful, especially at sunset.

The one BIG bummer of our weekend was the insane bugs!! I grew up in Alaska, where the mosquito is the state bird . . . and I have never experienced such horrible mosquitoes! They seemed completely oblivious to bug spray and citronella candles. Yikes!

Bikes!

Okay . . . so I'm a few weeks behind in the blogosphere. School has been keeping us busy, but I have a momentous occasion to record!

Ali is FINALLY riding her bike without training wheels!

It's a miracle!

I can imagine that a few of you are doing some mental math right now. "Isn't Ali your 9 year old? Isn't she in 4th grade?" The answer is yes. That is why we are so excited! : )

Ali has never had a desire to ride a bike. She did it if we made her . . . but she's much happier when she's curled up with a good book (hmmm . . . I wonder where she gets that?) On top of that, we now live on a gravel road. Not a great place to learn.

Well, a few weeks ago I decided that it was time to MAKE this happen. We loaded up the bikes and went out to Route 66 State Park. I've been trying to convince Ali that once she is riding without training wheels she'll enjoy riding much more. It didn't matter. She was afraid of falling over. I started out with her and quickly realized that this was going to have to be Daddy's job . . . if I wanted everyone to live through the experience. Thankfully, Daddy is much more patient, and within a few minutes she was up and going!

Look at her go!


She was so proud of herself! "You're right Mom! It is more fun without training wheels!" Sigh . . .

As you can see from the above pictures, this bike is very much on the small side for her. (It's the largest bike that you can put training wheels on!) Our trip to the park was immediately followed by a trip to Wal-Mart to get a new one!

The other kiddos thoroughly enjoyed their bike riding experience as well.

Julie on her Dora bike. She does lots of riding in the basement, so this was really old hat for her.



Emma has been riding without training wheels for (literally) years. No big shocker to anyone who knows her!



Meg is next on the list to lose the training wheels. I'd really like to get rid of them before winter, but she's a bit timid on her bike. Maybe spring is a more realistic goal.

I think this one is cute. The whole caravan.

Before we left the park, Julie wanted her turn on Meg's bike. She's rearin' to go!

Back to School

Well, we are officially done with summer as of this morning! So sad, yet so nice! : ) We, of course, started our morning with our traditional "back to school" pictures.


Ali is starting 4th Grade

Emma is starting 2nd Grade

This was Meg's first day of Kindergarten!! It's hard to believe it's time for that already! On Ali's first day of Kindergarten, she came home with her own version of the following drawing and poem. I've reprinted it and had Emma and Meg do it on their first days of Kindergarten as well. It makes me tear up every time. I'm turning into such a softy!

Julie, or course, isn't starting school yet . . . but the littles have always been a part of our back to school pics.

Here's the whole crew!

Our school day has gone really well, so far. I am much busier, as I have added another student, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Meg was in tears once over reading lessons (and quickly learned school rule #1: There's no crying in school.) We are still getting into the swing of things. There is a reason why we start on a Wednesday . . . it's nice to get your feet wet for a few days and then tweek as necessary and really jump into things on Monday morning.

Bass Pro

We found two treats on our way to Kirksville:

#1) Highway 63 is now 4 lanes all the way to Kirksville (with the excpection of the city of Macon)!! Yeah!!! I would have paid a lot of money for that when I was in college!

#2) There is a Bass Pro Shop in Columbia!

We decided to stop and enjoy the Bass Pro experience on our way home.


(I do feel the need to mention that we did go to church in KV. It was so nice to see old friends at GCBC! We left town right afterwards. Hence the clothes. There's just something about experiencing Bass Pro in your Sunday best that is very funny to me!)


As we were wandering around the store we noticed that they had a deck out back over looking the pond, where the kids could fish for free! (We don't even own fishing poles!) When we went out there we found two boys with the fish they caught . . . the girls each got to pet them : )


Ali's turn to fish. She was very excited about this . . . it really kind of surprised me.

Emma's turn . . .

Meg waited patiently for quite a while and was very excited to get the pole in her hands!

Julie didn't want to fish at first, but changed her mind. I'm surprised that she didn't drop the pole in the water as she was more interested in looking at the turtles.

Aquariums are always fun and the was no exception.

I wish I could say that Bass Pro was the last stop of our trip . . . When we got out to our van we found a flat tire! Bummer! Aaron changed it and I felt overwhelming gratitude when I saw how the side of the tire was practically ripped out . . . gratitude that that didn't blow out while we were on the highway! It's amazing to see the little ways that God takes care of us. I've never been so thankful for a flat tire.

So, one more stop for a new tire at Sam's (we didn't want to drive home on our spare) and then it was clear sailing back to Pacific. It was such a fun weekend!! We are already thinking about what our next trip may be . . .

It isn't a swimming pool . . . but they sure thought it was awesome!

What camping trip is complete without swimming in a lake?

This was a first for my girls. They've done the river thing, and Ali has been to the Atlantic Ocean (as a baby) . . . but for the most part they are swimming pool girls. I think they preferred the lake to the pool . . . because of the sandy beach!




They kept asking if there would be shells there for them to collect. I kept telling them "no" because it's a man-made beach. I was really getting sick of the question to be honest. And sure enough . . . they proved me to be an idiot. Yes, they collected quite a few shells, here Ali was proud to find the first of them.


Enjoying the sun and the sand.

Seriously . . . is she the cutest kid ever? Okay, so maybe I'm biased.

"Look mommy! I'm doing what Miss Jodi taught me!" (Yes, Jodi tried to teach her to float on her back - never mind the fact that she's lying on the sand!)

The lady at the gate even let the girls borrow some sand toys (again, proving me wrong after I told them that there wouldn't be any toys there to play with!)

Poor Ali couldn't get her hair wet because she had a reverse perm on Thursday. She made the most of it though.

Emma, on the other hand, got her hair plenty wet.

That evening, after dinner, we went out to The Point to take some sunset pictures at the lake. Once again, I nabbed the opportunity to get some shots of the kids. It was too windy, but I still got some cute ones.

Meg's turn!

Ali . . .

. . . and Emma

Sunset at The Point