Playing in the Rain

We've had SO MANY thunder/lightning/POURING RAIN storms this summer! It has been extremely hot and humid to boot. Much worse than last year, so thankfully we've at least had a year to acclimate. Some days, even swimming doesn't help, because you get out of the water and never dry off! Owen is still a little nervous about thunder, but both of them have discovered the joy of playing in the rain (and no, I don't let them out there during an actual lightning storm). The rainstorms out here make the monsoons in AZ look mild, though watching the boys run around in it brings back fond memories of my sister and I getting our swimming suits on to go out and run in the rain and puddles during the summer storms.

Lake of the Ozarks

We did have one little local adventure in June... we drove down to the Lake of the Ozarks to check it out. It's a fairly popular tourist spot in central Missouri! The boys LOOOOOOVED the lake. Both of them wanted to be in the water, but wanted to have Brad hold them the entire time... so he had his arms full.




One very freaky incident occurred while all four of us were in the lake.... Brad was holding both boys and I was standing next to him, when a GIANT catfish surfaced literally an inch or two from Brad's elbow! You would expect a fish to catch sight of us and quickly swim back down, but this one took a long, leisurely look at us before slowly wiggling back down. Needless to say I SCREAMED my head off! I really have a phobia about swimming in lakes when the water is not clear. You never know WHAT might be swimming around your feet... well I tried to calm myself down and resist getting out, when no less than a minute later the fish came up AGAIN in the same spot right by Brad's elbow! I RAN SCREAMING out of the lake this time. I mean, that fish was hanging out below the murky surface right near our legs the WHOLE TIME. EEEEWWWWW. I wondered why on earth he didn't get scared away, when we finally figured out Owen had done a major poopy in his swim suit, and it was probably baiting that fish right up to him! Can I get a big EWWWWW SIIIICKKKK here?! Anyway, I had no desire to get back in after that, so Brad was stuck out there alone swimming with the boys. Thankfully some nice kids let them borrow some float rings.


After wrestling the kids out of the lake, and NOT drying off (it was so humid, it felt like we were still swimming!), we went for a drive through the state park. We drove down "Swinging Bridges Rd" and literally crossed some rickety swinging bridges! They creaked and rattled when you drove across, and were only wide enough for one car. Trouble is, you couldn't see if anyone was coming the opposite direction until you got on!

We saw some beautiful countryside, and this dead Armadillo. I know, gross. But I've never seen an Armadillo before... had no idea they lived out here!


The boys napped in the car and then we toured the Ozark Cavern. I was pleasantly surprised that the boys enjoyed the cave and weren't terrified of the darkness. The formations were cool, and we saw a couple of bats up close. Both boys walked around holding their little lanterns, and when Owen got tired he rode in the Ergo (I even nursed him while carrying him in it - thank goodness for dark caves! )
Don't these pictures make you want to come and visit us???

Walkabout Acres

This summer a friend and I from the ward helped organize a Fieldtrip Friday playgroup for the ward and any other friends who wanted to join in. Our first trip was to Walkabout Acres, a small family run bee farm. They sell honey products, including honey icecream, and have a few other farm animals as well. It was a fun day!

Oliver is the boy in red who is holding Owen's hand. We have had a separate playgroup at his house every Weds for the past year... he and his family just moved to Indiana though. We will miss them!


Ok, so family and high school friends who have known me a long time... doesn't this farm cat look JUST LIKE my cat Brighty???? She lived to be 22+ years old and only recently passed away. I have never ever seen another cat that looked like her... until now.

And this was not on the farm, but here is a shot of the Weds playgroup I was talking about. I call it my "crunchy hippy mama playgroup." We're the sort that like to wrap and cloth diaper babies, and exchange gentle parenting tips and in general just support each other and have a good time! We're trying to keep it going even though our group's original hostess and our dear friend has moved away. We all just sort of found each other in various random ways, and our friendships were meant to be!

Tadpoles

It seems with the warmer Spring weather we are more motivated to get out and do things - hence I take more pictures and need to get in gear with my blogging!

This week for FHE (Family Home Evening- Monday nights are set aside to spend time together and to teach our children morals/manners/Gospel principles/family history etc, and to have FUN) we went to a park near our house to catch tadpoles. The boys and I had seen them earlier in the day on a walk, so we brought along the small fishnet we have, a pretend fishing pole, and a canning jar to see what we could capture. We talked about the beautiful world that Heavenly Father and Jesus made for us - Eli especially likes to tell us about how "Jesus made the Earth" and that we "live on the Earth." We sang some songs in the car and then set off into the mud! There were hundreds of little tiny tadpoles swimming around just near the shore, as well as big fat ones just resting on the bottom, trying to blend in with the mud. The boys had a BLAST, and Brad and I enjoyed watching their carefree adventure. I've never seen two boys happier for two straight hours! They were freaked out at first by the sight of the giant, slimy tadpoles squirming around in the net... but they soon caught onto the fun and wanted me to catch more and more! They even tried their own hands at it. We thought about taking the little tadpoles home and trying to raise them, but we decided just to release them afterall. I guess we aren't quite ready for the work of "pets" again =).

"Fishing" for Tadpoles

Giant Tadpole

Temporary Aquarium

Boys+Rocks+Water = Inevitable Rock Throwing

Our Stalker - this cat wouldn't go away!

Mystery Track: HUGE paw with big CLAWS

Hartsburg Pumpkin Festival

I realize I have been neglecting the blog lately. No real reason other than I've just been enjoying my kids (no really!), and trying to go to bed at night rather than stay up on the internet! I've finally got some pictures uploaded off my camera too, so I hope to post a few different things this week... so be sure and check back!

Well, the leaves are changing, a chill is in the air, pumpkins and mums are on every grocery corner, and I'm in the mood for some Fall festivities! Yesterday we went to the Hartsburg Pumpkin Festival - it's an outdoor fall festival in a small river town about a half hour from here. It took us TWO hours to make it through the traffic jam in the little town and get a parking place, but it was fun once we got there. It has been raining a lot so it was muddy and FREEZING, but at least we remembered jackets for the boys. As for Brad and I, we had to be tough. The first highlight was Eli's first pony ride. The kid is a lover of animals, and he was thrilled to ride a real horse! He wanted the BIG horse, not the little mini pony! I was surprised that he was so brave, and nervous that he was up so high, but he loved it. He didn't want to get off, and I had to bribe him with starburst to get him to move along to the next activity.




The little family farm out there was selling a gazillion pumpkins of all shapes and sizes, so we had fun playing around with them for over an hour. The boys climbed all over the big ones, and dug around in the crates of little ones.










We didn't do much else other than finally taste the famous "funnel cake" that shows up at every festival out here (basically fried sweet dough with powdered sugar on it), and we played with some puppies that someone was trying to sell. There were a ton of craft booths, but we weren't there to spend money. When all was said and done, it was a good time and it totally wore the kids out. Eli ate some kettlecorn on the walk back to the car, and that ended up being his dinner because he passed out on the ride home (about 6pm) and was out for the night!

Soybean (I think!) Field

Toad

We're all feeling a bit better around here, and spent some time enjoying our backyard this week. I even found a sandbox for FREE that someone was throwing away - one of those cute turtle shaped ones with a lid. We had a bag of sand sitting around that the homeowners left, so the whole awesome sand set up was FREE. Did I mention FREE??? I LOVE free! Lol. Also free this week - an adjustable height basketball hoop by Little Tikes. People throw the craziest things away around here - Fridays are trash days and yardsale days around here, so if you go driving around to the sales you'll inevitably find free stuff along the way....

But this post is about the TOAD. We have a little visitor in our backyard. He's dug a little hole right by our garden box and is hiding out down there. It's been 3 days and he's still there! I was playing soccer with Eli and just caught a little movement out of the corner in my eye. At first I was scared to look in there - what with giant wolf spiders around here and all - but it's just a little toad. He doesn't scare me... though I won't be reaching in there to dig him out anytime soon =). Eli's had a blast going out to check on him everyday. We could have used his presence a few weeks ago to help out with thos darn squash bugs in the garden! Oh well.

Stephen's Lake Park

We visited a local park last Saturday... the weather was in the 70's and GORGEOUS! A nice break from the humidity. There's a little splash park (which my kids are too little for) and a lake with a beach. The sand was really gritty and the lake is manmade, which gives me the heebie jeebies (kind of a germaphobe) but the kids had fun. Eli enjoyed digging, and Owen loved the water! Good thing we got out when we did because this weekend we're trapped at home with sick kids.