Sorry for the silence. With officially homeschooling the boys, trying to sleep train baby girl, and then working on a pretty big project for someone my "free" time just isn't there much. Although, if I didn't care so much about the "news" and other Internet ramblings I could probably have a bunch of time to commit to this blog.
I have often wondered how my parents raised four kids without the Internet. It's so nice to be able to turn to Dr. Google when something comes up. The down fall to the Internet is that it's a time trap! I spend way too much time on it. With looking up home school ideas or curriculum. To free toddler girl clothing patterns. To pinterest for birthday ideas and themes. Need I saying anything about the resources for shopping and finding deals?? Sometimes I feel like my time on the Internet could last days and I still wouldn't be satisfied with everything I would want to read.
Onto the official post of the evening. It's been three months since we took our family vacation/road trip to Louisiana and I have one last post to finish up our trip for you.
I guess you could say this vacation was a two-parter. The first part being in Louisiana with family and the second part was spending time in Oklahoma.
We are not sure if or when we will go this far east again so we figured we should check out Oklahoma while we were over in that general area of the United States. We didn't have any plans to speak of but we did have some general ideas on what we might like to see or do. It's not easy to plan a trip when your mode of transportation is 40' long.
We were told the Oklahoma City Zoo was awesome so we figured we wanted head there. I can tell you we were not disappointed at all! It was big but not overwhelmingly big like the San Diego zoo. Through out the zoo there were several playgrounds for various ages and misters to help cool you off, a splash pad, merry-go-round, and even swan paddle boats. I would HIGHLY recommend to anyone going through OKC to stop at their zoo.
Once we left the zoo in O.K.C. we headed for Clinton, Oklahoma. We found that in Clinton there was an indoor water park connected to an RV park. This little ol' water park was the hit of the whole trip for the boys. To this day Bug still asks to go back there.
The boys riding their bikes at the RV park.
Bug using his serious cowboy look to show off his new boots we picked up for him in O.K.C.
Bug, by far, had the most fun at this water park. He was tall enough to ride on the three water slides. On one in particular he could go solo and really enjoyed the privilege of being able to do so. The park was big enough to not feel crowded but it wasn't so big that you would get lost so I had no problem letting Bug do his thing. Of course I would keep a good eye on him but I trusted him and the situation.
Just before we arrived in OKC the Daddy-O could no longer deny that he wasn't sick. By the second day at this water park Squishy was the next confirmed victim so he kind of had a second rough day there. We had hoped to stay longer our second day there but with two of the five sick and long, long drive home we felt it was time to get the show on the road.
Our two day drive home was a rough one. When we left Clinton for home I thought I just had just two sick with a cold however that night when we landed in Roswell, New Mexico Bug came down with a stomach bug and was sick. We spent a few hours there before we packed up and traveled on. We were afraid of being stranded somewhere with everyone sick so we wanted to get home as fast as possible. After an hour or two on the road the Daddy-O had to pull over for some much needed rest.
Off the side of the road in somewhere in New Mexico was this pretty little spot. Squish, Annie and I tried to make the best of the situation with ourselves while the Daddy-O and Bug rested in the RV.
Now it's been three months since this trip and my mind is a little fuzzy but I believe it took us somewhere around 12+ hours to get home that day from Roswell, New Mexico to Tucson, Arizona. The Daddy-O had to pull over several times for power naps. Sometimes I just needed a break but we finally did make it home.
I was pretty over this trip when we finally walked in our house that night but now I am able to look back on it and miss this time. My memories are now mostly of all the good times and not of all the trials we experienced.
In sharing the highs and lows of this trip with some friends recently they commented that they felt like this wasn't a good trip and I think maybe they even used the term awful. I was sad to here that. Yes, during times of this trip it did feel a bit awful. The last day coming home was beyond AWFUL but we survived it and it is now that I can smile and think back on this trip with some very fond memories. I am very thankful that we did this road trip with three little ones in our RV. I am thankful for every experience we faced, good and bad. And, I am just beyond thankful that we are blessed enough to be able to take on these challenges and trips for our kids.
