One down, two to go!

Well today began the first of the 3 kids to go back to
school. Hannah was the first to go to school. She
went off with little excitement but no complaints.
So off to school she went with her piggy shirt (Pig being her favorite animal),
her Joe Jonas backpack (her teen heart-throb)
and mismatched flipflops (her fashion statement)
She is starting 4th grade.

Tomorrow, Lucas will have his first day back.
The 7th & 8th graders go back a day later in order to give the
6th grade students a chance to get used to their new surrounding
before being invaded by the older students.

Parker will have a half day on Friday for getting to
know the teacher and some assessments. He will begin
full days next Wednesday. After that he will go to
kindergarten all day on Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays.

Sorry!

Sorry if you have tried to read my blog lately and there have been no updates. Unfortunately, I have been in a "bad place" emotionally and haven't felt much like blogging. Anyways, Michael lost his job a few weeks ago with no real advance warning and no severance package. (Company just folded up and closed up operations.) Needless to say it has thrown our world for a loop. He is frantically looking for a job. This week alone there has been 5 interviews and it is only Tuesday. Bad part is that we have had no job offers yet. I unfortunately have slipped into a bit of depression that I am trying to pull myself out of, although unsuccessfully right now. Everything seems to get me down. I'll try to blog more soon. There were a few things prior to his unemployment that I meant to blog on but didn't. Maybe I will do those sometime.

Gators & More

Well off to the Alligator Farm & Petting Zoo, we went trotted off to today. Today was one of the days they feed the alligators, so it was fairly busy close to feeding time. We started with the petting zoo. The kids had fun feeding the goats and deer. Every time I see Parker with animals, the more I see his love for them. He was just adorable feeding the baby goats. Lucas has express an interest in photography (hey that is great for a scrapbooking mom!). We gave him our old camera
to use. We even have a challenge that to see who took the better alligator photo. Maybe I will post the challenge photos later.

All the kids also got to experience petting an alligator. It was amazing how smooth they were. Then there was feeding time. I thought it would be a little more wild than it was. It was interesting to see the alligators that were just basking in the sun, barely moving (to the point that the kids thought they were dead) come alive and active go get their food.

We had a good laugh in the gift shop with the bald man's brush. We laughed that Michael might need that in a few years!

Water

Yesterday's theme seemed to be water. We visited Bath House Row in Hot Springs and toured the bath house. Hannah was semi interested as she completed activities in a park ranger book they offered to get a badge. Lucas was thoroughly bored but trudged through it anyways. Parker & I went out to the porch and sat for part of it, as he was not having a good time and all he wanted to do was have his drink, which wasn't allowed inside.
We walked around the park area surrounding the bath houses and saw the hot springs. Man that water was hot! Way hotter than my hot tub! I think the thinks the kids liked best about this part of the day was seeing a man with his baby pet raccoon and the giant beetle we saw.

Back at the resort, we took a long dip in the pool to cool off. Hannah then decided to be adventurous and go swimming in the lake. She seemed to like it, although claimed it was very green, even underwater. Lucas finally after complaining about watching Hannah decided to jump in. His experience was much different, finding the water disgusting and horrible tasting! we told him this was another time he should have kept his mouth shut. Parker semi ventured in by climbing down the ladder and sticking part of his body into the lake.






Off to the Alligator Petting Farm today. This is something the kids picked out to do. I have low expectations, but you never know.

Letter F Day!

Yesterday was our Letter F adventure filled with flowers, fish, fishing & fun. We visited a botanical garden here in Arkansas. I was expecting more of it in terms of flowers, but the one few we say were beautiful, especially the hydrangea. Most of it though was just a walk through some pretty woods. We did encounter an interesting lizard with a bright blue tail and a green snake, that Hannah came inches from stepping on. The part that we experienced last at the gardens (last because some adult male,who shall remain nameless, can't read a map) was the most enjoyable for all of us. The kids enjoyed feeding the large number of Koi. They even decided to pick out ones that resembled each other. They also picked out their favorite Koi. The other fun part was the small waterfall. I think it was fun mainly because we were so hot and it was a an opportunity to slight cool off in the mist.

Later in the evening we discovered a fishing pier. Lucas caught the most with 3 or 4 bluegills, Hannah 2 and Parker 1. All were blue gills. The kids saw some men catching bass and tried their hand at that, only to get tangled up lines.



My favorite part of the adventure was messing around with my camera. I am trying to experiment with various setting and with photos other than people. Landscape pictures are my current favorite.

Gem Mining

For today's adventure in Arkansas, we went gem mining. It was a great experience! Everyone had so much fun. We stayed there over 3 hours looking for gems. We got to keep whatever we found. So we have 5 large bags of gems/rocks and some other cool ones for my new rock garden. Found a really cool large one I tried to convince Michael to bring home. I ended up slicing my knuckle open on it chipping away some dirt. That did in my desire for that large rock. I tried to clean the gems up to see the extent of our finds, but ended clogging the sink with dirt, so that will have to wait until we get home.

The only strange experience of the day was the drive there. The roads are horribly labeled and some looked more like goat trails than roads. My children got to see an armadillo for the first time. Unfortunately it was road kill, though.

Arkansas

Well after a long drive, we finally made it to Hot Springs, Arkansas late last night. We have spent today just relaxing, getting food for the week and enjoying the nice day. So far we have swam in the pool and enjoyed the views from our balcony of the lake. Later we are going out to explore more of the area and get more information on what there is to do, plus Parker wants to fish tonight once it is cooler.

Stay tuned, I am sure we will have more adventures to share as the week goes on.

Road Trip - Side Trip

Well on our road trip to Arkansas, we spotted a large dinosaur along the highway. Needless to say, it caused Parker to get very excited. Oh they know how to get the attention of a 5 year old boy. Needing a break from hours of driving, we decided to stop. Lucas, being too "mature" for dinosaurs, opted out. so, Hannah, Parker & I explored Dinosaur World. From the eyes of an adult, it was pretty lame and a big tourist trap, complete with an over-priced gift shop of anything associated with dinosaurs. From the eyes of Parker, the life sized concrete dinosaurs were pretty awesome. So it was well worth the hour delay in our adventure to Arkansas.

The picture of the kids actually on the foot of the dinosaur is the one we saw from the highway and one of the only ones you could touch/climb on. Hannah also was not scared as she appears in some of the pictures, she is just acting, something she seems to be good at, drama!