Our vacation: Day 2

Don't have a whole lot of time right now. My entire dining room table is covered with school books that need to be put onto shelves and breakfast is ready. I have a nursing baby on my lap, though - which is the only reason I'm sitting down.

I'm trying to figure out how to do put all of Day 2's photos into a photostream on flickr. And I was just looking at them, I discovered that Big P has a ton of photos on his phone - so I'm going to ask him to upload those today.

On Day 2 we spent almost the entire day at The Passion Play. Our first even there was the New Holy Land tour and that was at 10:00. Rebecca (our GPS), took us down a very weird way to the grounds and thus we were late. This was literally the wildest road! There were people that lived down there, but it wasn't really paved at all. It made our road to our home look like the highway! We passed some people and asked them if we could get there on that road. They said we could and that the view was beautiful. They were right!!

We were able to get on the next tram ride for the tour.

Later that afternoon, in between doing things on the grounds, we went into Eureka Springs. Rebecca, once again, got us around the "locals" and we got views of beautiful homes built into the sides of mountains and very small backyards with very big houses! It was really incredible. We visited the railroad there. As Big P was driving by he said "oh no", knowing that the little boys would see the train and want to check it out closer. So, we pulled in and checked it out. It was great. They had one of those rairoad turnstile things, many train cars, an engine and caboose. All for free. Big P tried to leave a donation because we had taken a mini field trip, but they wouldn't accept it!

Oh, I have to mention that we happened upon all of this while looking for a coffee shop. Eureka Springs does not have a Starbucks, that we could find!

On the way home from the play that night, we were driving and heard something hit the van. Pete thought it was a rock, but I knew it wasn't unless someone had thrown it at the van. Sure enough, he pulled over and found that we had been attacked by a pink paintgun! (You are probably thinking at this point that I must have had a whole lot more time than I originally said in the beginning of my post. NOT! I saved and am resuming this post now!). Big P was going to play Commando and went back to look for the guys (assuming here! why would they choose pink?) that did it. He got out this HUGE flashlight and starts looking all over the place. I couldn't help but laugh. He's been hit by one of those things before (and was a Marine - I know once a Marine, always a Marine!) but wanted to scare the bejivvies (his word - not mine! Heehee) out of the guys. No luck - they were long gone or really quiet!

We then headed to the car wash - after asking "Rebecca" to find us one with no luck - there was one about 2 blocks down the road on the way back to the campsite! Hello!

A very full day indeed! We LOVED the Holy Land Tour, the sacred arts center, the Museum of Earth's History, the gift shops, and of course the Play! The buffet that night wasn't bad, either. y in-love's (mother and father) were the ones that blessed us with tickets to go to all of these things. We got a package deal and they took care of the bill. What a blessing!!!! Today is my mother-in-love's birthday! :)

I'm going to try to insert the pics here - let's see what happens.

Okay, coming back to this post and trying again. all books have been put away that were on dining room table! :)

Our vacation: Day 1

I wanted to post about the vacation that we just returned from. I'll probably only add a day at a time - for an 9 day vacation that may take me a while! LOL

Day 1 - we drove and drove, and drove, and DROVE some more!!!

When mapquest tells us that we will arrive somewhere in 7 hours and 58 minutes, we should just go ahead and plan for at least 10 hours. And that's about how long it took us. Actually, I think we made it in just under 12 hours! Hahahaha

We drove from Texas (northeast) to Eureka Springs, Arkansas via Oklahoma. We actually left the area (straight from the Walmart parking lot) around noon that first day. We arrived at the KOA in Eureka before midnight! Everyone was tired and we set up in the dark. Actually, Big P and the two oldest set up in the dark, while I sat in the car with the three youngest and tried to stay awake.

We are very thankful for our hardside RV, because it makes setting up so much easier and much less time consuming - a perfect thing when you are setting up camp 15 feet from your neighbor at midnight - with 5 children and a cranky mama! LOL

And, NO, we did not allow our 2 year old to sit without his carseat! LOL