We're Back!

After a week-long family vacation down south, and after a few days to catch up on life once we got back home, I am finally getting around to writing another post. Our drive to Texas went as well as could be expected. Banana was quite fussy as she was “trapped” for hours in her car seat and the boys were alternating having to go potty every 20 to 30 minutes. Needless to say, the 8 hour drive took us 12 hours. We scheduled an “in-between” stay in Oklahoma to camp at a lake we have passed and admired many times during drives to Texas over the years. Lake Eufaula is a great big gorgeous lake in the middle of Oklahoma that usually looks like this:

I took the above picture as we were crossing Lake Eufaula in 1991. (The old scanned picture has an eerie glow to it, doesn't it?) The lake has been absolutely beautiful every time we have crossed over it. Its size and its beauty inspired us to want to do more than just cross it, which is why we decided to spend a couple of days on this awesome lake on our way to Texas. We thought it was the perfect idea. Until we got there and saw this:

Because of recent heavy rainfall in the area, the water level was up and the reddish-brown dirt that surrounds the lake had soaked into the once clear water. We were so disappointed to see that our lovely lake had turned brown, but we were even more disappointed when we visited the beach area. It had been trashed – literally. There were milk cartons and plastic water bottles lying around.

Not to mention the beer cans and several dead fish.

We were so disappointed that we didn’t even stay in Oklahoma for the two days that we had planned. We got into Texas on Thursday, a day earlier than we were supposed to. Luckily there was a campsite available at the campground in Texas even though our reservations were for the next day. We were also able to surprise my grandma on her actual birthday and go out with her for dinner. So it really worked out well in the end.

Even though Texas had experienced similar heavy rains and the water there was also up, the lake at our campground looked just fine. On Friday we enjoyed fishing and swimming, simply loving the fact that the lake was about thirty yards from our campsite.

On Saturday, we visited Whataburger, a regular stop for us when we are in town (man, those burgers are BIG) and we spent some time at the Mall out of desperation to get out of the sun for one afternoon. On Saturday evening we were fed by my aunts (thanks, ladies) and we got in lots of quality visiting time with the family. It was great to see everybody – to catch up with my cousins was awesome. I also enjoyed watching the kids having fun with everyone. One of my cousins has a little boy the same age as Big D. Both of my boys loved playing with him. I also have a cousin that is close to Miss M’s age, and they had a ball together too. On Sunday we went to brunch after church with Grandma’s “Breakfast Club”, where my kids ate on china with real silverware and drank chocolate milk from glass glasses. And no one spilled anything!! We also took the kids to see Shrek 3 (it was so-so in my opinion) and some of the male members of the family managed to squeeze in nine holes of golf in between rain showers.

We avoided most of the bad weather since it stormed either at night or while were away from the camper. On Monday, however, we were lucky enough to squeeze in a quick visit with a friend we haven’t seen in seven years. Little did we know that a fast-moving storm swept through the area while we were visiting. We returned from dinner to find that our canopy had been moved to the other side of our camper. In case you were wondering, that is NOT a good thing. Metal had been ripped from metal and parts of the canopy were actually laying next to the camper, no longer attached. We had to do some interesting maneuvering to remove the canopy altogether so that we were able to transport the camper home with us. It was a bummer of a way to end a good vacation, but we decided that it could have been worse. That storm was powerful enough to break a nearby tree in half, so it really could have been worse.

The drive home was much more peaceful than on the way there. We figured that Banana must have gotten the idea that she truly was trapped in that car seat, and for some reason the boys timed their potty stops much better. It was wonderfully uneventful. We did pass the World’s Largest McDonald’s on the Will Rogers Turnpike in Oklahoma, so I guess that’s something. We decided to break the trip home into two days, so we spent one night in a hotel with an indoor pool. The kids were happy to eat delivery pizza and watch cable TV in the hotel room, but they were even more excited to swim in the hotel pool until10:00 that night. Now that’s what I call vacation! Click here for more vacation pictures.

We finally made it home exactly one week after we left. Within two hours of being home Miss M and Dad had to rush off to a softball game. It’s back to reality for the Reddy Zoo. We are still staying up too late and sleeping in, but that all has to change as we start the first of many busy summer weeks next week. Our week-long Girl Scout Day Camp begins on Monday, as does two weeks of "Safety Town" for the boys. It’s going to be busy, crazy, fun!!