Oklahoma pt. 2

I left off telling you about your vacation as the afternoon began....

Adam and Goober went for a mud bike ride, mommy and babies were painting and Goober joined when he got back.

We had already found one of the beach areas but we decided to go check out the other beach, about a 2 min drive away...we had to drive since it meant getting back out on a main road, otherwise we would have biked it, as we did other places that weekend.

Goober practiced his handstands.

Sooo relaxing

We cover the full spectrum of tan :)

This beach was an ideal beach for kiddos. It had plenty of little pools were the water would come in but never got more than ankle deep. It had a swimming area where you could see an obvious drop off. There was lots of sand and shells and it was flat, stretching out to woods on both sides. By that time of day 3:30/4 it was really warm and the water had warmed up slightly. It still took some gasps and getting used to but once again they plunged in. They loved talking about the drop off, petting dogs as people walked them by, building things in the pools with the sand that was just right for castles. They splashed one another, collected rocks and shells and wore themselves out. We could have stayed there all day but after about 2 hours we loaded up and headed back for our campfire dinner.

Dinner was a little rushed since we had little ones who still needed baths and were getting cranky. Once the men got the fire built it was all kinda a blur as we roasted hot dogs, mixed coleslaw, tore open pretzels, heated up chili and made sure all of the kids got a chance to roast a hot dog but stayed out of the fire. My kids are pretty comfortable around a campfire, especially with their daddy who is an expert at building them. They know where to stick the food and how close is too close. They all enjoyed their dinner and immediately asked for smores. DONE. We broke out all of the marshmallows, graham crackers and hershey bars. This of course meant that the kids really needed a bath as faces got covered in gooey marshmallow and hands got sticky. The grownups had a different type of smore. We cut back one part of the banana peel, scopped out some of the banana, filled in the hole with tiny marshmallows and caramel bits and then replaced the peel. Then we wrapped the whole thing in tin foil and threw it in the fire.

GOODNESS!!

TALK ABOUT GOODNESS, the banana just melted into the marshmallow and caramel bits and also got super sweet.

After dinner and dessert we all got clean and laid in the big bed in the living room to watch the first half of Toy Story 3. The next morning I woke up at my usual 4:45/5 time and did some reading, trying to allow everyone to get as much sleep as possible. Imagine my surprise when everyone was just starting to wake up around 7:20...i even took a picture because that NEVER happens. It was a vacation miracle.

I took this picture with the microwave clock in it to prove that people were still asleep at 7:12.

I am so jealous of this child's beautiful morning hair!!

I pray they never get too big to hold my hand.

One on both hands and the big boy up ahead begging us to hurry up :)

We ate cheerios and fruit for breakfast and decided to do some hiking early in the morning before it got hot. Daddy stayed behind to pack up the truck and off we went. We rode our bikes some of the way and when the trails got to narrow or rocky we went on foot. We found the floating cabins, beautiful wooden bridges, cliffs that jutted out into the water, beautiful round rocks and a BIG birds nest.

A trail that was hidden at first.

Baby Boy thought we had already moved on to silly face pictures :)

Adam says if we rent this next time then the kids have to wear life jackets at all times :), I would be a nervous wreck!

Look at God's creation!

We were missing church that morning so we decided to sing some worship songs as we overlooked the water. Their choices were of course, "God's not dead"....then "soul on fire"....then " hallelu, hallelu, hallelujah". We talked about how God created all of this for us, why water goes from blue to green to brown. We skipped rocks, talked about what it would be like to live on a house boat and why Oklahoma is flat. We also walked over to the waterpark and found out that we could rent a paddle boat...so off we went to grab Adam and help him finish packing.

Sibling worship time

The men at the dock tried to convince us to get 2 kayaks as they are less work for the parents but we decided we wanted to stay together on one paddle boat. The kids were a little timid at first about being out in the water but then we spotted the turtles! There were at least 30 of them on this tire, just sun bathing. As we got closer they all started to jump in and the kids loved to watch them splash. The paddle boat was in fact a lot of work but we were also going against the current at least 1/2 of the time. We stayed close to shore and watched as fishermen passed by, rocking our paddle boat. The kids took turns leaning down to feel the water and choosing which songs we would sing next.

The seating arrangement changed at least 4 times while we were out on the water.

Great weather!

Turtles!!

Touching the water.

We worked up a huge appetite after being out on the water for an hour so off we went to find an Ihop and head home. In DFW most Ihops allow kids to eat free, not so for the one we stopped at .... as hungry as were though it hit the spot. The kids all napped as we headed home and we had to wake them up when we got back to our house and immediately get them dressed for cheerleading and football. Ribbit ended up cheering her whole game but right as Goobers team made the first touchdown of the game the bad weather sirens went off and everything was cancelled. We all headed home and got to work on unpacking, dumping everything in the washing machine and getting ready for the next day of school.

We will definitely go back to Lake Murray, in fast we scouted out the cabin we want next time :).