I got my iPhone last week and I am geeked in every sense of the term. Today, I downloaded an application to allow me to post to my blog from my phone. For those of us who are geeks… wow.
BIG thank you to my cousin Will for upgrading my blog to allow for this posting.
As you can see, my site is under construction a bit.
This is a test post.
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Wyatt returned safely home from his trip to Colorado last night.
He and his cousin Soren (9) got to fly by themselves to see their Aunt Danna (Kara’s sister) and Uncle Trey (Danna’s husband) who live in Denver, CO. While they were there, they got to do the following:
- Go to a huge water park
- Go white water rafting down some fast Colorado River rapids
- Go tent camping in the Colorado Rockies
- Hike up a mountain
- Play with big dogs
- Play lots of video games
- Oh, and fly on a plane without their moms and dads
They had a wonderful time and are already counting down the days until they get to go again.
Thank you SO much to Trey and Danna for making our kids feel so welcome and have so much fun.
While the older kids were gone, we flip-flopped younger kids between Pete and Sara’s house, Zach and Jodi’s house, and our house. The kids had a blast with their cousins for those days. They played so hard that every down moment was a potential nap time.
After one hard-playing day, I took this picture with my phone of Reese sleeping in the van.
Next week, we go to Lake Travis for the Parker Lakehouse trip.
We had a great time on our lakehouse trip over the Fourth of July weekend.
Since the trip is a long time in the car, we usually stop at a swimming hole water park in Little Rock on the way. (previous post) But since Wyatt had a large gash on his face (see below) we did not want to torture him by making him sit and watch us swim. Instead, we stopped at Burns Park in North Little Rock.
The kids loved climbing on this huge tank.
This is a large park with beautiful pine trees and lots for kids to do. (Did I mention that there is a disc golf course there too?)
While at the park, we stumbled upon an old, defunct water slide facility. The door was open so we investigated and when we did, a flood of memories came back to me. When I was a kid, I used to travel to Little Rock to hang out with my cousins for a week or so. My Aunt Jeanne (the same one that owns the lakehouse to which we are traveling) took us around to fun places in Little Rock. One such place was a park with twisting, concrete water slides. The defunct slides were the same slides I had visited long ago! I took lots of pictures and will post them some other time but the memories were so cool.
As we continued the long car trip, the kids enjoyed watching movies to pass the time.
(click to see the bandage on Wyatt’s face)
We got closer to the lakehouse and the sky grew darker. We ended up driving through some pretty heavy rain for the last hour or so but made it to our destination safely.
It was a bummer that, for most of the first day, there was rain. My mom had planned a really cool event - a treasure hunt complete with pirate outfits for the kids.
Parker Pirate
Arr Ashton
My mom drew a red train-track cut on Wyatt’s bandage…and, of course, a mustache on his lip.
This is my cousin’s daughter Ginny…as a pirate.
My task was to draw a treasure map.
The thrill of the hunt.
X, as a matter of fact, did mark the spot. “The Spot” contained lots of toys, some money, and new goggles. The treasure hunt was a great time for the kids while we were stuck indoors.
One more picture of Parker inside the house because I can’t resist the cuteness:
He and Ginny had a great time together.
Thankfully, the rain passed and we got some great lake weather.
Cut notwithstanding, Wyatt could not resist the lake activities. Above is him on the knee board.
Here is Wyatt and Jacob on the tube and ready to go.
He also jumped off the cliffs. Since the lake was very high, the highest cliff was only about 10 feet high. Still, the force of the jump made his cut start to bleed a bit…ouch! Again, he was a trooper as we sat on the boat together watching the other kids go. Even Parker jumped off a smaller cliff.
If you squint, you can see Kara and Parker at the top of the cliffs in the picture above.
All the other kids had a blast in the water as well.
Wyatt, Ashton, Parker and Jacob (my cousin’s other child)
Aunt Cilla, baby Carter, Parker and Ginny
Parker loved the boat.
Just before we left, Wyatt and Jacob pledged to wear the “disguises” that they had won in my mom’s bingo game the night before until they saw each other again…that lasted about 20 minutes. It did look funny while he was wearing it though.
We had a wonderful and safe time with my family and loved all the activities as usual. Thank you to my Uncle Les and Aunt Jeanne for inviting us and making us feel so welcome!
Next up, the story of Wyatt’s trip to Denver…stay tuned.
This past Monday night, we had three of the kid’s 4 cousins at our house to spend the night.
Wyatt and Soren wanted to climb the tree in our backyard but cannot reach the bottom branches. I made the now infamous decision to put a step ladder out there to ease their ascent. As I watched them climb up and into the tree, I knew they were going to have fun. I guess they did for a few minutes until they attempted to get down.
Soren came down first just fine but when Wyatt tried to step on the ladder from the tree, the ladder went out from under his feet. He lost his grip on the tree and fell onto the ladder. Unfortunately, the lower part of his face hit a sharp edge of the ladder pretty hard and he got cut pretty badly.
A head wound bleeds a lot. A two inch gash from the chin up the jawbone hurts a lot. Wyatt was crying, Soren was upset, Kara almost lost it, Ashton did lose it, Parker didn’t know what to think. Hysteria doesn’t really help in these situations so I tried to calm everyone as best as I could without getting hysterical myself. I had Kara get a towel and an ice pack and we loaded up to go to the emergency clinic.
Wyatt had to get three dissolvable stitches inside the wound but the excellent doctor was able to use a product called Durabond on the external part of the cut. This is basically glorified superglue that is safe for wounds. Because of this, the doctor believes, and we are praying for a minimal scar.
Through it all, Wyatt was an incredibly strong trooper. I think I saw three tears even when he was getting the deadening shot. While it is certainly okay to show emotion, I was proud of how he kept himself in control.
Obviously, I have no pictures of the incident to post now. I will, however take some pictures on our lake trip that begins tomorrow (7/3) and I am sure you will be able to see the band-aids in the pictures.
We are thankful to you for all the prayers and well-wishes. God is in control and we trust him for all things. We know Wyatt will be just fine.