2011 summer Road Trip - Day 5

Today we went to Garden City to check out the awesome zoo.  The most amazing thing is that it is FREE!  We looked at all of the animals, found a geocache and ate some fried chicken at the playground pavilion.  It was so nice to spend some time with Bart, Melody, Jordan, Jenna and Jordan.  It's hard to believe how grown up the kids are!

Katie sure loves her baby brother.  He's crazy about her, too!

Reese likes anything to do with animals.  She's our little dog whisperer!

2011 Summer Road Trip - Day 4

We slept in today.  It was awesome!  After everyone was up and around we let the kids go swimming.  The wind was so awful!  It was literally blowing the water out of the pool!  The kids didn't care, and Jack looked cool sporting his sunscreen mohawk!

Later that afternoon we went to visit Melody's brother, Travis.  He cooked an awesome meal for us, then we went and flew kites in the baseball field behind his house.  Let me tell you, if you ever want to fly a kite, Kansas is the place to do it!  My kids had such a great time!  I don't think we've ever had enough wind in Arkansas (without a thunderstorm) to fly kites like this!

Reese LOVED flying her kite!

Katie was SO good at keeping her kite in the air!

Bart, Melody and David watching Jayden reel in the kite Katie put so far in the air.

Reese and Jace were fast friends.

David and Jack watching the show.

2011 Summer Road Trip - Day 3

We definitely paid the toll, in more ways than one!  No more 8 hour days in the car!

This day was our LONG day!  I try to never travel with the kids for more than five hours, but David was anxious to get to Lakin to see the Garcias.  Since we wanted to do it in one day, we left Tulsa for Lakin, Kansas, around noon.  Overall it was a good trip.  I have to say, driving through Oklahoma and Kansas isn't the most scenic or exciting thing to do with your day.  It's flat.  It's dry.  In a word, boring...

We were very impressed with Greenwood, Kansas.  When we drove through there about four years ago the town was completely destroyed.  A tornado had totally devastated almost the entire town.  They have rebuilt, and it looks great!  You can still see little reminders of the storm, like an empty house foundation, but, for the most part, the town looked great!  I was so happy for them!

It took us until almost 8pm to get to Lakin, but the Garcias were happy to see us!  David swore he would never again try to drive that far in one day with our kids.  It was really hard to resist saying "I told you so", but I did!  Believe me, I've never been so glad to see someone's front door in my life!

Mileage:  413
Total Mileage:  781

2011 Summer Road Trip - Day 2

Today was a really busy day!  We got up and I went to see my friend, Karen, who recently had surgery.  I didn't stay long, but I was really glad to see her.  She looked great and seemed to be recovering well.  After seeing Karen, the whole family, minus Katie, met my old friend, Amy, for lunch.  I hadn't seen Amy in over seven years, so it was good to catch up!

We had intended to be at Rhonda's house to help prepare for the party by 2pm, but the fates conspired against us and we didn't make it until 4pm.  We had a little snafu at the pharmacy.  I won't go into details, but they were considering not refilling my antidepressants.  NOT A GOOD IDEA!  In the end we got them refilled, but it took a lot longer than I thought it would!

After picking Katie up from Grandma's house, we headed out to Rhonda's.  We hung out and chatted, and thoroughly enjoyed the party!  I am SO happy to see her married to such a great man.  They seem to really love one another, and that makes my heart smile!

Since we wanted to get on out to Bart and Melody's house in Kansas, we went to Tulsa after the party.  We found an amazing Groupon for the Hyatt Regency, so we snatched it up!  After we got there I was surprised by the clientele at the hotel.  The entryway was lined with kids (ages 15-21) dressed like thugs and prostitutes.  They were mostly polite, but having to run the gauntlet to get to the front desk was a little unnerving.  Fortunately, the room was pretty clean and we all slept OK.

Today's mileage : 135 miles
Total trip mileage:  368 miles

2011 Summer Road Trip - Day 1

Almost to Grandma Smith's house!

Katie was supposed to go to school today, but had a doctor's appointment in Little Rock, so she missed. The doctor cancelled at the last minute, so that meant that we were free to begin our trip! We headed to Springdale to see Grandma and Grandpa Smith, my friend, Amy, and most importantly to go to Rhonda's wedding reception. David had flown in Thursday night to attend Katie's doctor's appointment, so he rode along with us.

We had a great visit with the Smiths, and Katie, of course, spent the night with them. David and I headed to our hotel, the Homewood Suites, in Fayetteville, AR.  We grabbed a rotisserie chicken and some veggies and settled in for dinner with Reese and Jack.  That was about it!  We had to gear up for Day 2, which promised to be busy!

Katie is almost as tall as Grandpa!!!

Awwww... We love them!

Mileage: 233 miles

We're about to float away!

Here comes the rain again... Is it ever going to end? We have widespread flooding I several parts of Arkansas and it seems there is no end in sight!