Lake of the Ozarks

Chris had part of Labor Day weekend off, and we thought it would be fun to head out of town for a couple of days. We couldn't decide where, though. We contemplated Omaha (their zoo is supposed to be great) or St. Louis but wanted to be outdoors since the weather was supposed to be nice, and when I say nice I mean only in the upper 70s, amazing for this time of year!

We thought about hunting for mozarkite (the offical rock of Missouri and probably the only one worth collecting), but the one and only location to gather (in a tiny town called Lincoln) was closed for the weekend.

So at noon on Friday we finally chose Lake of the Ozarks. It's been a long time since we've been there, don't ask me why we haven't gone there more often, I don't know. If you're not from this area, Lake of the Ozarks is beautiful--rolling hills, trees in every direction, I just love it. Kansas City has a lot of the same characteristics, especially on the Missouri side where we used to live. Our development in KS in on what used to be farmland so it lacks the mature trees I enjoyed while living in Missouri (how I miss the giant oak and maples in my old backyard!!).

We scrambled to pack and make reservations and were off after the kids got out of school. Had we thought about all the traffic headed in that direction for the holiday weekend we would have pulled the kids out of school early. Oh well, we still got there in good time, it's only about 2 1/2 hours from our house.

We thought it would be fun to explore the caves around the area. Missouri has a huge cave system, there are at least 6,000 known caves in the state. Four large ones are by Lake of the Ozarks. Have you ever been in a cave? There was a great cave by BYU called the Nutty Putty Cave. A friend of a friend had splunking equipment so we went there a couple of times. At one part of the cave you had to crawl through a small space called the birth canal that opened up into a large room, I remember the cave being so dark that if you turned off your light it was absolutely pitch black. I loved it.

We started with Ozarka cave which is run by the National Park Service.

Abs looks so grown up!
Trying to keep the cave as natural as possible, the park service hasn't lit the cave at all. Everyone held lanterns to light their way. The great part of this was that you really got the feeling of being in a cave and we were able to see a few bats and other animals.

We were at the back of the line most of the time with Lisi's little legs, and when you looked back into the cave without any light it was pretty cool. I felt like Tom Sawyer.
Lake of the Ozarks has really changed since we were there last. We looked for some of the places we'd been before, but they were gone. But we certainly had a lot of chain restaurants to chose from for lunch:)

Afterwards we went to Bridal Cave, a touristy cave right off the lake. Talk about the total opposite experience, we went from a cave whose mantra was "save the bats" to one where comments like "look at the rock that looks like the Energizer bunny" were the norm. It was well lit, the advantage being that we could easily see the incredible rock formations, the kids really enjoyed it. We're glad we did the national park one first, though, the kids wouldn't have been very impressed after the 2nd cave!

Yah, it's pretty amazing.

Looking up at the ceiling. I think the guide said we were about 100 feet underground??

The kids fed huge catfish right off the dock.

We spent a couple of hours playing at the lake. Abs and Lisi had a grand time, Kierst for some strange reason has decided that lakes aren't her favorite. I think it's time to take her camping and toughen her up a little:) Chris is, of course, looking for rocksThere's a huge outlet mall at Osage Beach (like the one in Destin) and in the evening we wandered through a few shops. I think this was one of Kierst's favorite things to do. Should I be scared? She's turning into a teenager!!

Sunday we drove back. We stopped at a lake near Clinton, Mo., for lunch. The playground was completely shaded by trees and so the kids gathered acorns and pecans.

We passed through a tiny town called Tightwad, population 200?? or something like that. We had to laugh at this place:

I don't think we'll stay away from the lake as long as we did before. We're looking at condos on the lake with fishing and beaches, I think we'll go back next year!

It's Tough to Say Goodbye

Today was a tough day.

We went through all of our baby items and packed them up for donation. Would you believe that most of our storage room was filled with baby things?

Sigh.

I guess this means we're done having babies.

We thought for sure that we'd have one more, I've always wanted four children (growing up in a family of 3 girls I learned there's always one person left out and always one can from a six-pack of pop left over, do you get where I'm going with this?? Four is just convenient!).

Having a miscarriage last year, though, changed our plans. We weren't sure anymore, we've struggled since then to know what to do. We turned to God, where we always go for direction, we believe that God will guide you on the right path if you ask Him. We got on our knees and asked.

The answer was no.

I don't know why. All I know is that He's guided us many times and we've always been grateful that we've listened, things have always turned out.

So we packed up the baby gear today. Everything brought back memories, visions of Lisi falling asleep in her exersaucer and Abs as a 12 month-old pushing around her toys while trying to run, and Kierst playing with the same spinning toy until we thought we'd go crazy.

It's tough saying goodbye to that phase of my life, not that I love staying up half the night with crying children (I've had my fair share) or the little annoyances that come with the toddler stage(like picking up cupboard contents over and over that they've pulled out). But there's nothing better than holding a baby in your arms, her little fingers curled around yours, her bright eyes staring into yours, or when your child tries to take her tenative first steps towards you, the whole world just seems to sing with happiness at those times!

On a positive note, it is kind-of cool to say that all of our 3 girls were born in the 3rd month of the year 3 years apart (on the 3rd, the 26th and the 30th--that would be in 2000, '03, and '06--yes, there are 3's everywhere). Chris says three is his lucky number!

I guess I'll have to be satisfied holding the babies of all my friends and family! To Lindsay, Kathryn, Tausha, Valerie, Jenn, and Sara: I can't wait for your babies to arrive!!

He's Got the Bug

It's official. Chris has been bitten by the tennis bug.

Hooray!!!

I'm a believer that tennis is an addictive sport, once it gets under your skin it's hard to get rid of.

If you read my previous posts you'll know that I always thought I'd marry someone who really liked tennis and that we'd play together as a family. Well, I married someone who didn't play tennis. At all. Seattle really isn't known for being a tennis hotspot (O.K., I guess Boise isn't either, but certainly more than Seattle) so I guess I can let that slide. The other day I had a conversation with someone in my ward who played tennis for BYU (he was Catholic at the time) and it hit me how few Mormons I knew who played competitive tennis when I was growing up. Really, in Boise I can only think of one other Mormon family who belonged to the racquet club that we did (and there are a lot of Mormons in Boise and the club was one of only two in the area).

We've been married 15 years and in all that time we've only played tennis maybe 5 or 6 times together. Don't ask me why we haven't played more, maybe it because he's always been kind-of interested, but not enough to do anything about it, maybe the cost of joining a club (that's a big one when you're in med school, etc.), the time commitment (another big one), maybe it's because I stopped playing for a long time???

But Chris has been taking lessons, since July and this week we hit together. He's liking that he can get a workout without being bored and that it's fun! He's more athletic than he believes he is, and in my opinion he's doing really well for the few lessons he's had. Anyway, Thursday he did a hit-and-run clinic and his response to how it went: "We started playing out points and I didn't want it to stop!"

Oh yeah, he's got the bug. I couldn't be happier!!

Super Trooper and the Start of School

Lisi finally got her cast off this week! Hooray!!!!

I have to say that she's been a super trooper all throughout the past (very long) four weeks of having to wear a thigh to ankle cast.

She's rarely complained, and has kept a smile on her face for the most part. Within a few days of getting her cast she started dragging her leg everywhere. She walked up and down the stairs (which made me pretty nervous) and tried to do everything she normally would.For example, one day she tried to vacuum, and did a pretty good job with it:

But yay! The cast is off and we can now go outside again! (Although with the humidity, I'm not sure how much I want to be outside...the pool's looking good, though).

School started this week, and just like I say every year I can't believe how quickly my kids are growing.

Abs started 2nd grade.

And Kierst started 5th grade.

Preschool and some of our extra curricular activites don't start for another week, but PTA meetings and other activities start this week. I'm ready for the fun and excitement of another school year. Here's to a great one!!

The Pirate Don Durk of Dowdee

As a little girl I loved laying on my mom's bed while she read children's books to me. We would put our heads together on pillows and she would start reading and the books would come alive. She was a wonderful. She had been an elementary school teacher before getting married and her voice would change with each character, would speed up, then slow down, her voice rising and falling, grow softer and louder. It was captivating.

Sometimes she would open her big, orange book of children's poetry, and read one of my favorite's (and one of her's), "The Pirate Don Durk of Dowdee." In my mind I can hear her reading that poem out loud (Ho--my mom's voice would raise here--For the Pirate Don Durk of Dowdee (a light lilt on the end of the phrase)...But oh, he was perfectly gorgeous to see--here my mom would get a little twinkle in her eyes--the Pirate Don Durk of Dowdee). I could picture this swashbuckler, his black mustache curving, his chest full of gold, his parrot named Pepperkin Pye.

I have a real love for reading to my children because of my mom.
.

Tonight Abs wanted to read to me and said, "How about the Pirate Don Durk of Dowdee? I know the right way to read that one because you've read it to me." She recited the first paragraph of the poem from memory and we laughed when I said that's all I could remember, too.

We layed down on her bed, our heads sharing a pillow, as we opened up our poetry book and she read aloud the poem, her voice speeding up and slowing down, getting softer then louder, falling and rising with the verses:

My mom would have been proud.

Rock Geeks

If you read any of my posts from last summer you already know that Chris and and I like rocks.

Growing up I had a few boxes filled with rocks, and these weren't pretty ones, mind you, these are ones you find on the side of the street in Boise, Idaho.

And you already know that last summer we went rockhounding in southern Utah with Chris' parents, and that it was a blast. And this summer we fit in a little rockhounding on our way to a wedding.

But we've reached the point of certifiable rock geekness.

Chris bought a tile saw to cut rock.

O.K., maybe that doesn't mean total geekdom, does that come when we buy a rock polisher? I don't mean a tumbler, I mean a rock polisher with belts (yes, we do want one, does that count?)

Anyway, we spent an evening when it wasn't over 100 degrees last week cutting rock. Or I should say Chris cut rock, I just ooohed and awwwed.

We had jasper and wonderstone to cut. Jasper is really really hard to cut through, but worth it--this was Chris' favorite piece:

Lisi kept her hands over her ears, cutting rock is really loud!

When you cut it wonderstone out of the hill in Vernon you never know exactly what you're going to find once it's cut; from the outside it may look like nothing, but once you slice through, you might find something like this:
Abs and Lisi picking out rock.

This is my favorite piece of jasper so far:

We've already been talking to Chris' parents about searching for thunder eggs next year in southwestern Colorado (google it, they're beautiful), and septarian nodules in S. Utah. And we made sure when Chris bought a new car last week that it had off-roading capabilities.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that we're rock geeks.

Fun in Utah (Except for a Broken Leg)

It's August, and I'm still catching up on July, but be patient...I'm almost done!

After my niece's wedding, Chris flew back to KS and the girls and I spent another week in Salt Lake City visiting my sister and her son (my bro-in-law was in CA). Hmmm, this always seems to be the way we work vacations, Chris flying back on a nice, comfortable airplane, reading his kindle all the way, I get to drive for 2 days, chugging diet coke and listening to my ipod trying to stay awake...I guess someone needs to work, haha! Truthfully, it doesn't bother me, I've been driving cross-country by myself since Abs was 2, and it always means I get to stay and play longer!

We started off the week at Lagoon.

You have to know that I went to Utah thousands of times growing up (I had relatives there), and even went to school in Utah but in all that time I never went to Lagoon. I figured it was time to go!!!

What I liked about Lagoon is it had a great variety of older kid and younger kid rides. Abs and Lisi were content on the tamer rides. Boy, does this picture capture their personalities!

Kierst and Kendon couldn't wait to get on the rollercoasters.
This was Kierst's favorite, I'm not sure how many times she and Kendon rode it, but it was a lot!
The great thing was that my sister could take Kierst and Kendon to the older rides and I could take Abs and Lisi on the younger ones, it worked out really well.

Little info about me: Growing up in Boise, the Idaho Fair in the summertime was a BIG deal. There were always tons of rides and of course I always went to the fair (who didn't?) but the rides were not my favorite. Give me some speed in a car or on the back of a motorcycle and I thoroughly enjoy myself. Rides at Disneyland? Love them. Rollercoasters that turn upside down? Not so much.

On the other hand, my sister, if memory serves me correctly, was always the one to go on all of the rides, the scarier and more stomach-churning the better. She says that's changed as she's gotten older, but she was still willing to go on a few.

The day we went to Lagoon turned out to be the hottest day of the year in Utah to date. Fortunately, it wasn't hard to find overpriced icees to slurp...

Or water to jump in...

The next day we met my sis-in-law and nieces at Jump on It, for a couple of hours of trampoline jumping fun. I think they should rename it Injuries on It.

Ten minutes after we arrived (and I'm not exaggerating), Lisi broke her leg.

We've never been injured on a trampoline, I keep asking Chris for one and he always refuses, claiming that he's seen too many broken bones in the ER. After our little trip, he now says, "Guess I'm right."

Guess he is.

Anyway, Lisi's leg-breaking ordeal changed all of the exciting things my sister and I had planned to do while we were in Utah. We had even planned to drive to Idaho, but realized that it would be hard on Lisi.

So my sister took the other kids to the pool for a couple of days while Lisi and I hung out in the air conditioning. Lisi didn't mind, my sister has some pretty cool toys at her house!

We did go to the aquarium which is close to my sister's house.

Abs spent her time petting the sting rays.

My cousin was in town from California and she joined us for the afternoon and dinner in the evening.

Kendon's favorite was the boat.

My sister, my cousin, and my kids.

We measured how tall Abs was against a penguin. They're a lot taller than you might think they are!

The day before we left, we went downtown to Liberty Park.

They have a really neat sculpture that recreates the canyons surrounding Salt Lake City, with water falls, etc., that end up in a pool.

All of the Nielson cousins: Lisi, Kierst, Abs, and Kendon.

We cut out trip short by a couple of days because we had to get Lisi's leg cast. Next time we hope to stay longer! Thanks to my sister for all the fun!!