Rushmore and Shoal Creek Living History Museum

I wrote an entire long blog and its gone.  How frustrating.  BLAH! 

Short version:

Ashy and Brit in Wyoming for the summer.  Miah went to pick them up.  Took Aidan and Liam.  Decided to take a scenic detour to Mount Rushmore.  Liam was so cute and said "which one is Rushmore daddy?"

Insert pictures....

I'm home with Elise, Julianna and Camryn so I took them to the Shoal Creek Living History Museum.  It's an authentic 19th century Missouri village.  The buildings are all real log cabins, homes, a mercantile, a church, a one room schoolhouse, from all over Missouri that were relocated to Shoal Creek to recreate a town.  There were volunteers dressed in 19th century clothes, churning butter, tending the register at the mercantile, causing ruckus in the street, and teaching at the school. Aside from being able to ring the bell at the church the highlight of the day was going to school. The girls got to go to the one room school house and participate in an arithmetic lesson complete with word problems, addition, and subtraction.  The teacher was so great!  The girls were sad when they had a little break and the lesson was over. They were really wanting to stick around for the next lesson.  Hope they are always that enthusiastic about school!  I'm so glad we made the drive out there because it was a super fun day!  

Hanging out at the chicken coop.  That rooster was a pretty vocal.

Churning some butter (which we got to try on saltine crackers!  Not bad)

It was seriously hot in that school room.  Blah!  Camryn was over it!

Next up,  Jeremiah returns from Wyoming with the rest of my kids and I can finally feel whole again with all my children under one roof.  It'll be nice to finally get a good nights rest because I haven't really slept well since they've all been gone.  

Is it too late to post about Memorial Day??

I mean I know it was back at the end of May and stuff....but I kept putting off this Memorial Day post because I hadn't had a chance to look at the pictures and now it seems like if I don't do it now it isn't going to happen so.....

Memorial Day weekend was a 4 day weekend for us because Jeremiah had off the Friday before. He gets every other Friday off with his job and we've been lucky enough to have them fall on almost every 3 day weekend so far! Anyway, we had no plans for Memorial Day and then decided last minute not to be lame and to actually get out and do something. So on Thursday Night we started brainstorming and decided to go down to Table Rock Lake just outside Branson, MO, do some tent camping and rent a boat. Big plans with only a few hours notice. It was so late at night that we had to wait until Friday to actually call around and see if anything was even available. By noon Friday we lucked out and found a Campground with one tent site available and they also had a pool and hot tub...perfect. Then we found an evening-ish boat rental (4-7pm) available for Saturday...again perfect. So by 3pm we had packed up the van, gotten a cooler filled up with all our food, and headed out to Branson which was about a 5 hour drive since everyone else was headed out at the same time too.

Tent camping at 29 weeks pregnant was fun-ish. Uncomfortable at times but I made it through. Jeremiah and the kids had no problem sleeping...well except for Aidan. Aidan is one of those kids that has to have his own bed to sleep so he spent all night crawling all over Jeremiah and I the first night. The next couple nights we took long drives until he fell asleep in his car seat and then brought that into the tent and he stayed asleep in the car seat all night. Thank goodness for that! Also our camp area was a favorite spot for the millions of billions of daddy long legs that inhabited the area. The first morning Ashlynne, Brinton and Elise woke up in their tent and couldn't even get out because their were so many covering the front entry. We had to go out there and slap them all off just to get the kids out. It was actually so funny we were laughing so hard. What's nature without a bit of nature?!

We spent most of the day Saturday swimming in the pool at the campground. On Saturday evening we went Boating out on Table Rock Lake. Boating was a BLAST! Although trying to keep Aidan from jumping out of my arms and into the water was an awesomely fun 3 hour wrestling match. We rented a tube along with the boat and let all the kids take turns being dragged behind the boat (well everyone except crazy Aidan). We brought food and ate on the boat. it was really just a fun fun time.

So I'll quit boring you with all my blah, blah, blah-ing... I'll just leave this by saying that it was one of the most fun, last second weekend trips I have ever been on in my life. Even with all the Aidan drama.

So now for pics...pics...and more pics...

30th Birthday Celebration Vacation...

*Adorable birthday gift made by my friend Melinda

All year long I've been thinking about how I wanted to celebrate my 30th birthday. To be honest I can't remember what I did on my 20th birthday but I had already been married for nearly 3 years and had 2 children by then. My 21st birthday was spent in the PICU (Pediatric ICU) with Brinton as he recovered in critical condition from his 3rd surgery in 3 months. For this reason I really wanted this new decade to come in with a bang and I really wanted to have lots of good memories to carry with me throughout my 30's. As the day drew closer and I had nothing big planned I started to feel a little disheartened and then I had the miscarriage which turned into an abdominal ectopic pregnancy which turned into me feeling close to death and two surgeries later I was starting to recover. I hate to be all "poor me" but I started to feel like my 20's were going to end in crap and my 30's were going to start in crap. I decided right then and there that I needed to do something BIG for myself. There had been enough tears, enough sadness, enough stress, enough craziness, I just needed to get out and enjoy life for a weekend. Relax and enjoy. I had a week to think about it and I decided a weekend Birthday Celebration Vacation to Branson, MO with my hubby was exactly what I needed.

We stayed at the Welk Resort (as in Lawrence Welk...don't tell me you don't know who that is...I'll tell you that you lack PBS Culture...and polka knowledge). Our room overlooked the pool and there was a nice flat screen TV. We don't have cable or basic television at all so this was a perk for me. lol. They have this great little indoor/outdoor waterpark located at the hotel called the Splash-atorium. We had so much fun on the waterslide like we were little kids! We went down there 3 times and I kept forgetting to bring my camera. So sad, because I really wanted a picture of me coming down the slide. Oh well. Typical Alida.

We went to the Titanic Museum which was super, super neat. You aren't allowed to take any pictures inside which I thought was pretty lame but they had TONS of Titanic artifacts and a whole recreation of the Titanic grand staircase. I totally felt like Rose Dawson walking up the stairs....and I couldn't help but remember the scene at the end of the Titanic movie when Rose dies and you see her back on the grand staircase and everyone is all together there welcoming her the captain the crew, 1st class passengers, steerage, and Jack. Jack was waiting for her. *tear* Yes, I know Rose wasn't a real person and neither was Jack BUT when you enter the museum they actually give you a boarding pass with the name and short description of a person that was actually on the Titanic. You carry it with you through the whole museum and at the end you find out if your person lived or died. I was Sarah Stapp one of 23 female crew members. I survived. Next year is the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. At the museum they had a memorial filled with red freeze-dried rose petals. In honor and memory of those people on the Titanic we were asked to take a rose petal from a large glass case on one side of the room and place it into the glass case on the other side of the room. Next year on April 12th, 2012 the US Coast Guard will be traveling with the rose petals to the site of the sinking of the Titanic and they release them over the ocean. It was so amazing to be part of history and to honor the memory of those people in such a way.



After the Titanic we went over to Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede. No, Dolly wasn't there but let me tell you it was probably the best, most fun show I've seen in a long time and that's saying a lot considering I lived in Las Vegas for 9 years and got to see A LOT of shows. It's a dinner show and you are in an arena and it's like a horse show/musical show. It was great. The best part of the night was when Jeremiah and I were chosen to go down on the arena floor (a dirt arena...and me in ballet flats!) to "race horses" little did we know it was STICK HORSES! HAHA! It was hilarious. We lost but I still got a medal because it was my birthday. Sad that there is no pictures because again the LAME-o's wouldn't let us take any. We got a lot of photos outside though. :)






Other than some shopping and tons of relaxing we also went on the Showboat Branson Belle for lunch and a show. The food was good, the show was good, and the cruise around Table Rock Lake was perfect. The weather was AMAZING, the sunshine was warm and there was cool breeze off the lake as if mother nature was saying HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALIDA!










All in all it was the PERFECT way to spend my birthday weekend and welcome in a new decade.

Lastly, I just have to add that on my actual birthday I was kidnapped by some of my best girlfriends for a fun birthday breakfast. I was so incredibly surprised (and glad I had actually gotten dressed before I dropped Liam off at preschool that morning) Sadly, I didn't dry my hair when I got out of the shower thinking I would do it when I got home from dropping him off not realizing I was going to be whisked away for breakfast when I got back. Blah! I don't love the way I look in the picture BUT it was one of the greatest birthday presents ever!



Oh and lastly, LASTLY all of these photos were taken with my new little camera my husband bought me! Yay!! No more iphone pictures! Yipee!! Annnnnddddd.....I got these new hot pink sneakers to motivate me to work out more. Aren't they great??



The End. I promise.