Fall Break

The kids have been out of school for Fall Break and we have taken full advantage for some time off with lots of fun! We started Wednesday night with Adeline's daddy daughter fishing and dinner date for the achievement day girls. Everyone came over and we had a great time with lots of food, fun and fishing!! And the best part was I wasn't in charge! Thanks Kara for a great avtivity! We ended up with wonderful fall weather, a little chilly, misty and foggy but perfect to bundle up and be outside! They even brought over a fire ring so we had a nice campfire right at the edge of the driveway to keep warm! Thanks!!

Adeline had a friend sleepover and Zoe decided to make pancakes in the morning. I think she was confused on if she was going to make the pancakes, or eat the mix like cereal! After I took her outside to brush her off and clean her up, put a new diaper on and then put away the bag of mix...I found her back in her spot finishing the job! What a good helper!

Next was Thursday, our official start to the break. We went and saw G-Force at the dollar with Sarah, Juli and friends. It was hilarious....14 kids with us! Half the movie theatre was full of day cares and I'm sure everyone thought we were a daycare too! Nope, just our kids and a couple extra friends! The movie was cute and we all enjoyed the yummy movie theatre popcorn in the bags...crinkle, crinkle, crunch, crunch that we would fill up and pass down the row! Then that night we skipped football and went roller skating! Sarah and the cousins came along. Adeline and Jackson both had a friend, but Miles' friend had a football game and never made it. Adeline almost won one of the races but wiped out coming around the last turn, it was pretty impressive! Sarah skated most the night while I talked with Jill who was there with her boys. Gee...I would have skated too but somehow we lost Adeline's socks on the way so she had to use mine! :) It was "carload skate" so our whole car got in for only $10. What a deal!!!

Friday was my favorite day! We got up in the morning, sent Jackson's friend home from sleeping over and packed up for the Wichita Mountains!! I've heard there was a mountain down there, but for 15 years we never went. Come on! We're in Oklahoma, it's not a REAL mountain! Literally 30 seconds down the road Harrison started asking if we were to the mountains yet! How long until we get to the mountains! And when will we be at the mountains!! He was soooo excited when he finally spotted the mountain!!!

We had a BLAST, it was a great family day and I wish we would have gone down sooner!

We started at Mt. Scott and drove up to the very top. It was a little scary right on the edge looking down with big huge bolders and rocks. But not quite as scary as going to our favorite camping place at Salmon la Sac! We got to the top, brought the cooler out onto the rocks and had lunch and explored all over! It was so fun climbing around on the rocks, even Zoe was getting after it and climbing up and down. After a while it was time for a potty break so we packed up and headed down to the nature center. That was really cool! We watched the movie and learned that the wilderness reserve was created a looooong time ago....early 1900s? to preserve the land and the disappearing buffalo and longhorns. They researched and located pure-bred Oklahoma buffalo at a zoo in New York and shipped them back to Oklahoma to put out on the range. Then they tested thousands of Texas longhorns and found the most pure bred and brought a bunch of them up here too. Now they are just out on the range, you drive right pass them as they're walking around, chomping on some prairie grass. They'll cross the road right in front of you and just keep on going. They also have some elk and of course deer.

The kids loved the prairie dogs which Harrison called the CHERRY dogs! Oh I love that kid! After checking out the cherry dogs farm and being told by the nice ranger to not chase them and stay off the grass because we're killing their food source, we left and headed down to Sunset for our hike. It was beautiful! The trees are turning fall colors, there was a nice little river and some creeks. We all had so much fun! Zoe hiked part of it, then rode on Thad's shoulders for most of it. It was a nice level hike on a nice path, I have no idea how far we went but we ended up at another mountain of rocks and the kids climbed it and showed off their muscles at the top!

Finally it was time to go. Everyone was getting a little tired and cranky, they didn't want their picture taken anymore and we were ready for a hamburger at the famous Meers Restaurant! We packed up again and headed to Meers right outside the animal reserve. It didn't look like much from the outside, but it was pretty crowded inside! This store/restaurant has been around since 1901 and we've heard it has the best hamburgers. We waited and waited and finally got our table then waited and waited some more! This is real country folk, take your time and enjoy the view I guess! :) But then we discovered the bowl of Halloween candy at the cash register so that kept the kids busy for 30 minutes while we were waiting for our waters and to take our order! We got hamburgers which were super yummy, but the best part was the dessert! Homemade peach and cherry cobbler with homemade ice cream! It was HUGE!! And soooo delicious!!! A great way to end our family outing! We piled back in the car, turned on the movie and headed back to Norman. Only had to stop once to ask for directions! Hey, at least he asked!