You Say Punjabi, I Say Pajama

Our missionaries from India were in town this evening and were able to worship with us.  They brought the customary clothing that a woman would wear in India (a punjabi) and allowed me to pick one to keep!  Of course I picked a green one.  Then I had to take a picture of me with our missionary's wife wearing our punjabis.  It  worked out perfectly that they brought these tonight, because although I liked the outfit I had picked to wear this evening, the capris were super tight on my stomach (it's been a long winter) and my cute necklace was itching me and as soon as I changed into the punjabi, I felt like I was in pajamas, and it was wonderful! 

Every time that Ron preaches about the work in India, I'm ready to get right on a plane and head there...and then they remind me that it's sweltering hot there for most of the year and the food is pretty spicy....and I rethink the plan a little bit.

Get Out More

Here are some random pictures that have been taken lately.

We'll start with a picture of all the kiddos at church that are loosing teeth because they knocked them out or had to have them removed!  Good times...every time Levi falls now, all I say is "Do you still have all your teeth?"

Here was Levi dressed as a spy, I guess.  I think he's equipment was a little too heavy to be hanging on his shirt collar, but that's a problem you have when you have no pants on, and therefore no waistband to hang stuff on.

I am so very thankful for the wonderful Spring weather that it seems has been longer coming that most years!  We are getting outside as often as possible and getting our bare feet dirty and enjoying the warmth.  Here we are at one of our local parks and this picture is just beautiful, thanks to my friend Valerie and her artistic eye!

 On this same night at the park, we ran into other friends from church.  Her and I were dressed very much alike.  We both have on Life Is Good shirts: Mine says "Girls Night Out" with a girl in a tent under the stars and her's says "Happy Place" with a girl and a dog roasting marshmallows.

Friday, keeping with the "Get-Outside-Because-It's-Finally-Not-Wintery-Anymore" Theme, we headed to another local park to try our luck at crawdad fishing.  It was fun to watch the kids have fun.  We only caught 10 this time and decided to release them back and wait until we caught more to take them home! 

Later that night, Shawn found a little metal bucket/tub we had been using as a fairy garden in the backyard, filled it with some small pieces of wood and we had a little backyard campfire and roasted marshmallows.  It was perfect.  I can't wait to do that again.  It was just cool enough outside for the fire to feel so good.  I could have stayed out there for hours, but that fire was eating up the wood very fast....and the kids were ruining our quiet. 

Happy Spring to you!  Get out and soak up some Vitamin D!

Spring Break Part 6: Tyler and Home Sweet Home

Friday night, we met my sister and her family for dinner and then headed to my parents house for icecream.  I'm so mad at myself because I forgot to take pictures.....but we were pretty preoccupied with catching up and eating large quantities of icecream.

Saturday morning we woke up early and packed for the last time.  We stopped in Jacksonville and visited with my grandmother for a little while.  It was weird and wonderful to be the only ones at her house.  Usually that house is filled with lots of people and noise.  It was very calming and nice to talk with her.  

Then we headed to Lufkin to visit my brother family, and meet my newest nephew Griffin.  He lives up to his Facebook picture cuteness!  I wanted to snuggle him forever!  We had a great visit with my them and then, it was time to hit the road once again.

We had one last vacation hurrah by eating Olive Garden for lunch.  In keeping with that vacation frame of mind for just a bit longer, we had dessert, which is a big deal since we NEVER get dessert when we go out to eat.  It was delicious.  With full bellies we headed south in the pouring rain.  About four hours later, we finally pulled into Home Sweet Home.

While getting everything unpacked and generally ignoring our children (we HAD just been together nonstop for a week), they found ways to entertain themselves which we thought was funny enough to get pictures of.

And now, we are back in the swing of things and have a Spring Break to remember forever.  It was wonderful and I'm so glad it all worked out just right!

Spring Break Part 5: Hot Springs

Thursday morning we headed out very early to drive to Hot Springs.  What a beautiful drive descending out of the Ozarks.  I would absolutely love to drive through the Ozarks again as the leaves are changing!  We arrived in Hot Springs right at lunchtime.  We ate at a place called The Purple Cow.  We heard it was a neat place to eat.....um...not so much.  It wasn't horrible but it was definitely over-hyped.  But, as usual, from a kids point of view purple icecream is awesome!

We headed straight downtown and right to the hot springs to see if they really lived up to their name...THEY DO!  They are HOTTT!  We had a contest to see who could hold their finger in the water the longest.  I lost big time.  Ava won with somewhere near 10 seconds.  The water is supposed to be about 140 degrees.

It was chilly in Hot Springs too so we found this drain grate and realized the hot springs water flowed under it.  We were able to warm our hands up a lot!

We stumbled onto the visitor center which was a converted bath house from times past.  They had left the inside mostly intact from what it used to look like and we were able to tour the entire building and see so much.  All of us loved this place! 

This was the women's dressing area for the spa.

After meandering through downtown, we headed to a cupcake shop called Fat Bottom Girls.  Hilarious name I know.  This place had been on Cupcake Wars sometime back.  By the time we go there, they only had 4 flavors of cupcakes left for the day, so we just had one of each and gorged ourselves.  Somehow, even with all of us sugar addicts, we weren't able to finish all four of them!  They were really good though.

One thing we knew we wanted to do was go to this Magic/Comedy show so we went across the street and bought tickets for later that night.  The kids were beside themselves with excitement!  We drove through Hot Springs National Park, and then headed back to the hotel for about an hour of relaxing.

The magic show was a highlight of our trip! If you are ever in Hot Springs, make a point to go see this show!  It's 1 1/2 hours long and worth every penny we spent.  We bought our tickets early in the day, then got there an hour early to reserve where we wanted to sit....front and center!  Elle was able to be a part of his show and being on the front row, Shawn and I did a few things too!

He was awesome and my kids have a new hero!

By the time we got back to the hotel is was 10 pm so everyone collapsed.  We were quickly coming to the end of a perfect road trip!. 

Friday morning we got up bright and early and ate breakfast and were swimming in the hotel pool by 7:45 am.  The hotel pool was probably one of the kids most fun things of the trip.

After showering and packing, we began the long trip back to Tyler for one more night away from home.

Spring Break Part 4: Eureka Springs

A cold front came through on Wednesday and it was CHILLY in Eureka Springs.  But everyone had a jacket and we hopped in and out of stores a lot so we were able to stay warm.  This was a fun little town to be in!

Here were are in the "Grotto Springs."  We did explore as many springs as we would have liked simply because it was raining off and on and so cold!  

This is the only picture we took at the Cresent Hotel.  The kids found a hotel cat and were mesmerized by it.  They love dogs and cats!  As far as the hotel itself....underwhelmed.  Maybe if we could have been taken on tour?

We also visited the Thorncrown Chapel which is pretty much all glass.  It is beautiful on the inside and out!  Kids were mostly unimpressed. lol

Then as we were driving, Shawn and I spotted this super tall tower off in the distance.  When we got up to it, we noticed that you could pay to climb it.  Well my legs were still shaky from the hiking I'd done the day before, and it was raining, and did I mention it was COLD?!  But Shawn wanted to do it and so did Ava so they jumped out and headed that way while Levi, Elle and I kept ourselves nice and toasty in the car.

Then we headed to Pivot Rock and the amazing natural bridge....except it was pretty underwhelming.  It cost of $12ish bucks to hike this short trail and see this rock bridge and the pivoty rock below....but we were all about the "experience" so we can now check it off the list. 

It was a beautiful trail for sure.

Ava's holding the entire rock up with one finger.  She amazes us.

For dinner, we ate at Bubba's BBQ.  I would revisit Eureka Springs simply for this.  It.was.so.good.  But what I really love about this picture is the "realness" that is shows.  One of our family members was not excited to eat at a BBQ place.  We told that child that when she started coming up with money to pay for all of us to eat, that she could pick the place.  She got over her sulkiness pretty quickly though.  I think she was mostly hangry. (so hungry you're angry)

We gave each of our kids a $10 bill in a ziploc bag as souvenir money.  They could buy whatever they wanted no matter how useless or dumb.  They each started off with a $2 jaw breaker.  BEST BUY EVER.  My kids spent HOURS licking that thing while we drove on and on and on.  The car was so quiet every time we let them pull those things out!  Two of the three had the jawbreaker finished by the time we got home and Levi's is very close!

Here's the cabin we stayed in.  It was much more spacious that the night before.  There were 2 king size beds, two bathrooms and an open room in the middle with a pull out couch.  All the kids were happy with the sleeping arrangement.

One last look at "Hickory Hollow" at the Dogwood Cottages.  Such a pretty little cabin.

Spring Break Part 3: Petit Jean State Park

We arrived at Petit Jean State Park a little before lunchtime.  We had to drive over Petit Jean Mountain to get to the actual state park so we stopped and explored to top of the mountain for a little while.  There are LOTS of sheer drop offs all over this area so I stayed a wee bit nervous most of the time.  

Then we finally made it to the State Park.  It was so pretty.  I can't even imagine what it looks like in early fall or when everything has bloomed out in the spring.  I definitely want to come back here again!

We headed to our little cabin and I started making lunch for everyone.

Then it was time to start exploring the park and trails.

This waterfall was worth the hike!

Great job Elle on taking this picture!!!

We found a little spot on the way back to do this little trick.  Elle did it first....

So of course, Ava had to do it too....

And Levi never wants to be left out. lol!

Then Shawn showed off and did it with Levi on his back....

Here's my attempt.  

Then I thought to myself, "I can not be outdone by all those people!"  So  I did it too...only for a second!

Hiking is tiring stuff.

We paid no attention to this sign at the start of the hike...we should have.  It truly was "strenuous!"

We did it!

Then after resting a little bit, we explored many more of the trails in the park.  There were so many neat things to see!

 This was a huge open cave.

After hiking all afternoon, we had planned to cook out hotdogs and marshmallows....but the wood that the park gave us was just damp enough that not matter how hard we tried, we could not get a fire going (we tried for 35 minutes!)  So we came back to our cabin and Shawn cooked the hot dogs on a piece of cardboard (because we didn't plan on needing plates!)  We were tired and hungry so it tasted great!

Shawn knew how badly I wanted marshmallows so he found some tiny sticks and used a whole matchbook of matches and made everyone fire roasted marshmallows.  They hit the spot!

Wednesday morning we woke up and ate as many bowls of Lucky Charms and our stomachs could hold and then set out for the next leg of our journey.  (This cabins looks crazy messy, but it actually was a great cabin!  Five people are a tight squeeze but it was wonderful for us!)