Rocky Falls

We all recovered from the reunion and illnesses and decided that we needed the healing powers of water. It has been several years since we had gone to Rocky Falls. Too much fun! A stream flows down over a rock face that has been carved over many years and makes a small pool area before moving on down to another stream. The pool starts out shallows for quite a while and then drops into a deep hole, perfect for swimming or diving from the rocks.

Baby O really enjoyed floating around in the pool and swimming on her own.
All the boys wanted to jump from the rocks and swim to shore. They did great!

Go Av!

We were only there for about an hour before a thunderstorm came up and forced us out. Swimming and thunder/lightning don't mix. So we bailed and decided to go to Alley Springs. Check back tomorrow and we will explore a natural spring that produces 81 million gallons of water a day!

Reunion

Family is a wonder, right?!

Leave it to my family to make a already eventful and busy day, even more exciting.

First, little E came down with a 103 degree temperature in the early morning hours that Saturday. So, he was thus confined to the camper so as not to infect the masses with whatever he had. We still are not sure what he came down with. Brad and I took turns hanging out with him and all his sadness. He fell in and out of sleep all day, mumbling through his fever induced sleep with crazy comments like: "Isaak don't do that, I'm sick. You don't do that when someone is sick." Or my favorite, "WOMBAT!"

Unfortunately, my baby O, my nephew, my niece and our oldest all became prey of the same virus over the next week.

Second that day, we required a visit from the local 911 responders for a family member who had a diabetic seizure. She and the two family members that followed the ambulance to the hospital spent all the morning and a good portion of the afternoon away from the festivities.

All this before 9:30 am. Oh yeah, it also stormed and rained most of the early morning. That was not good since our plan was for outdoor dinning. The weather did clear up and the sun came out, but so did the humidity. However there was a nice breeze, that was redeeming.

Family began to arrive around 10:00 and the visiting and consumption of DELICIOUS food began. It was a great day. Grown-ups visited and talked, talked and laughed. The kids were everywhere playing together wonderfully and having a great time!

Here are all the kids in the family!

It is amazing to me how people who have not seen each other for so many long years can just pick right up and chat, like they had just talked yesterday.

I am so proud and honored to be a part of this legacy of Barnes.

River Recap

We have made it back to the land of wireless high speed internet, word processing, and my external hard drive. I failed to pack it down to the cabin as well as my laptop which prevented me from posting anything of substance. So I have decided to use each day this week to post about the last two weeks down in the country.

Our time in the country is always precious. This is the area of the state where both of my grandparent's grew up.

It is where we always went as a child to see family and commune with nature.

It is where some of my greatest childhood memories were made swimming, floating, canoeing, and boating the Current River and surrounding springs.

It is where I will provide my children the same opportunities.

We started our week with some quick swimming trips to the river and a day of breaking in a new slip and slide at the river house.

There is never a lack of nature at the river. Whether it is catching minnows and crawdads, or watching schools of fish swim by, there is always something to observe and discover. There are tons of turtles and even snakes to see as well, but I'll tell you more about our snake adventures later in the week.

My sister Jessie and her husband took E on an environmental adventure one day and they came back with this monster.

Can you guess what 9 out of 10 of us said?

Yes, you are right. We said he looked tasty and we should take him home and cook him up!

Lucky for him, E is about conservation as well as exploration, and sent him back to his home.

Did I mention snakes earlier?

We did encounter a snake on our first day at the river. But that is a story for another day. I'll just leave you with this...
When we were aware of the snake, I had flash backs to my childhood at the river and the speed at which people can vacate a body of water. I think people are faster now a days. At least I am, and I was carrying two kids.

Technical difficulties

Well, my computer problems continue. We have invested in newer technology and it is just as uncooperative as the last.
Could be because we are in the hills of Missouri and our wifi or 3G or whatever has a hard time picking up signals between all the hills. Whatever the case, I feel the need to take some kind of computer class about Internet, networks, connections, etc. Just so I can feel like I am in control of this machine. Or, I will just pay some kid to do it all for me while I sit around and eat Bon-bons and read trashy magazines.
You are right, I should just go with option two.

So, despite. My technology woes, vacations is moving right along.

Brad and I spent last Friday and Saturday at the Lake of the Ozarks with a dear friend and her husband. It was much needed adult time. The kids went with my folks to a pirate festival in a neighboring town. I'll post some pics when I figure out how to get them from my dads camera to this device. They had a blast and spoke pirate talk for two days. They also brought home giant foam swords. My mom is now rethinking the purchase.

Now we are in the country with my grandparents at their river house. We are hosting a huge family reunion this weekend here and we all came down early to help. Well, Brad and the boys came down early to fish and boat the river. But Celie and i came down to help clean and cook. I love cooking with my Granny. It brings me such joy.

So, expect fewer entries the next few days until my brilliant brother, sister, brother-in-law, or sister-in-law get here and teach me how to do these things faster and more easily.

Thanks,
Me

What did you say?

What did you say? This has been a frequently used sentence lately. As I mentioned last week, this is the year for the 13-year cicada.

This particular insect spends 13 years in the ground, then emerges to mate and then die. It is much like an invasion of insects that are so incredibly loud that you might mistake them for a plane flying by, or when outdoors, have a very difficult time carrying on a conversation over their sound.

Here are a couple of pics from my Granny's back yard.

There are three in this pic. Can you spy them?

If you are interested in reading more about them, here is a link I found that explains more:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/13/us-cicadas-idUSTRE74C43A20110513

This is a video clip that has a good audio feed of their sound and some great close up video of the cicada in all of its stages.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7368155n

Soon their sound will be over and we will have to wait another 13 years to hear them again. But the good news is that the 7 year cicadas are due up soon, or so I hear.

Mom do you smell that?

Now that things are starting to slow down around here and we are slowly getting into vacation mode and I have found a way to get pics to this computer, I thought I would catch you up on the lighter side of our travels...

When we landed in St. Louis last Sunday and were outside waiting for the hotel shuttle Avery looked at me and said, "Mom, do you smell that? It smells like summer. I want to stay here forever." Yes, I wanted to stay too, but I am not sure how hot concrete and car exhaust made him think of summer. But I went with it.

Over the past week the kids have been fulfilling their summer check list. Here are some pics of the events.

Day one: Ice cream outside in bathing suits. We have to pry Celie out of hers each day.

Day two: Gang up on Isaak who choose the biggest water gun. Brother's have to stick together.

Day three: Celie and Poppy mulching roses.

Day four: Box turtle migration. Poppy found one to bring home for Ellis. He named him Bob. He let him go after about an hour because he though the turtle looked unhappy and needed to head on to his home. That is my little conservationist.

Day seven: Our breakfast was interrupted this morning by this little beauty hustling down the hillside. Quick lesson on turtle identification. DO NOT PICK THIS ONE UP! You may loose a body part. Snapping turtle that the boys and Poppy spent a good long while tormenting just to see it rear up and snap at sticks.

I think Avery was right. It does smell like summer now.

Get the army men out of the tub

The gall bladder is gone. My mother officially has one less a part of her guts. All is well and she is recovering.

Those 0f you that know my mom well, know that she is a worrier. So worried in her drug induced state of my that when dad called after she woke up she wanted to talk to me. People on drugs are funny! My mom is especially hilarious. She really needed to tell me that... "The army guys are in a green, no maybe clear, but probably green clear plastic tub. So find them and get them out of the tub." There were more words after that which didn't make much sense either, but don't you feel bad for the army men? I mean really, she didn't even know which tub they were in.

The report stands that the army men are not in a green or clear plastic tub. They have either escaped to try to make it on their own, or are in one of the 300 gray tubs that are stacked upon each other. I think I might just buy some at the store and tell her when she gets home that we found them. Think she'll know?

Seriously, all is well. Isaak had a pretty bad reaction to sleeping on the screened in porch the first night we were here. His eyes swelled almost shut, but are better today. Ellis might just have an ear infection. But that is expected since he never will blow his nose when he gets a cold. He just does the one thing that drives me NUTS, he sucks it in constantly. Celie and Avery are trucking right along. I have made more trips to Target, the grocery store and the hospital than one should ever do on vacation. Oh, well. Brad is loving his early morning jogs (minus the hail) and right now is on Papa's steroid lawn mower, mowing the whole county. He has his sunblock in one cup holder and a beer in the other. He is as happy as a kid in a candy store.

Still working on getting pics to this computer or getting ours wireless.

What a vacation.