Olivia's Art

 The kids have both enjoyed having art as an exploratory at school this year, and they have both had an opportunity for their art to be displayed.  In February, I wrote about Owen's art being shown at a museum in Valdosta, and now Olivia's is being shown at the local heritage center through the month of April.  The students were asked to draw a picture that showed what was unique about them.  Olivia drew herself in a dress playing basketball.  We made a trip to the Heritage Center to view her work.

Young Author

We were recently informed that Olivia won the Young Author's writing competition.  Here is an announcement that appeared on the school district website:

We are excited to announce that 3rd grader Olivia S. has won the Young Georgia Author’s writing competition for the local RESA district.  Olivia’s story was initially selected as the winning entry for her class and then for the entire 3rd grade at her school. Competing against 3rd graders from each of the other schools in the county, Olivia was again selected as the school district's 3rd grade winner. Her story was then sent to the next level, where it was selected as the winning entry among all 8 counties in our RESA district, which includes Coffee, Atkinson, Clinch, Bacon, Ware, Charlton, Pierce, and Brantley. Olivia’s story will now compete at the state level.

Olivia’s story, The Woods, describes a magical hideout in the woods “where dragons flew, unicorns roamed, and a giant apple tree stood.” When her father decides to cut down the trees surrounding the hideout for firewood, Olivia comes up with a plan to save it. Olivia’s teachers at say that they are proud of Olivia for combining her creativity with the writing skills she has learned in class. We wish Olivia the best of luck in the state competition. State winners will be announced May 2016.

James's Baptism

 My nephew James was getting baptized on the Sunday that we would be passing back through Atlanta on the way home form Missouri.  Brian had to be at work on that Sunday, but he dropped the kids and I off in Atlanta so that we could attend the service and then we rode home with my mom and dad.  Bonus #1: Aunt Connie and Uncle Mike were also there so we got to see them.  Bonus #2:  Owen finally got to hold James (he's been waiting for that).

Graceland

The drive home from Missouri was going to be a two day affair, so we decided to break it up by stopping at Graceland along the way.  Had to- love Elvis. We arrived at Graceland (which is in the hood) and signed up for self-guided tour of the house and grounds.  They gave us each an ipad and a pair of headphones.  We used our ipads for the interactive tour.  Not only were we able to hear the audio, but we were also able to click on different icons on the ipad to access additional content (photos, video, etc.).  This was our first experience with ipads on a tour.  It was pretty cool.  

Graceland was a large-ish house with some interesting decor.  As we moved through the rooms our audio tour told us about the life of Elvis Presley.  There were a lot of things about him that I did not know prior to the tour.   

 Some of the most interesting rooms included the media room with three TVs...

 ...the billiard room with carpet on the walls and ceiling...

 ...and the jungle room (of course).

 The old raquetball court building has been converted into a trophy room.  We got to see a lot of Elvis's awards and a couple of the sequined jumpsuits.

 The tour ended with a walk though the memorial garden to see Elvis's final resting place.  After paying our respects, we loaded back into the car and continued our journey back home.

Silver Dollar City

On our last day in Branson we visited Silver Dollar City.  This amusement park is owned by the same company as Wild Adventures, so we were able to get in for half price with our season pass.  Silver Dollar City is a great amusement park.  It won five Golden Ticket Awards last year (the Oscars of the theme park industry). Among those awards was one for having a top ten wooden roller coaster- Outlaw Run.

 Outlaw Run is my new favorite wooden coaster.  It was unexpectedly amazing.  After riding it the first time, Brian and I looked at each other with a "Wow!  What was that!" expression.  This coaster was fast, smooth, and had inversions- very unusual for a wooden coaster.  The kids also loved it.  Well, they loved every ride in the park and they were BOTH tall enough to ride them all.  Owen even made it onto the 52" coaster.

 We were at Silver Dollar City from open until close.  We even stayed for the closing show.  The show lasted 70 minutes but didn't feel like it because it was very entertaining.  At one point there was a Beach Boys melody and my kids went crazy.  They love the Beach Boys (their Greatest Hits CD was in my car on repeat all of last summer).  We had a great day at Silver Dollar City.  This was a perfect way to end our time in Missouri.

Hiking in the Ozarks

We made a day trip from Branson to Arkansas to do some hiking in the Buffalo National River area of the Ozarks.  There are tons of good hiking trails in this area. The plan was to hike two trails- the Whitaker's Point and Lost Valley trails.  The forecast had said that it would be partly cloudy when we checked the day before our trip, but we woke up to find that there was a decent chance of rain. While it did rain some in the morning, it had ceased by the time we began our hike

 The first trail on our list was Whitaker's Point trail (aka Hawksbill Crag).  This trail leads to the most photographed spot in Arkansas, so it was definitely a must-see.  What we did not realize was that in order to get to the trail head you had to drive six miles up a road with loose gravel and an incredibly steep grade.  We discovered rather quickly that my two-wheel drive vehicle was just not up to the task of getting up the road, so we had to abandon our hopes of hiking that trail.  Feeling a little disappointed, we headed to the local outdoor supply center to ask about other ways of getting to the trail head.  There were none.  The lady at the counter also has a two wheel drive and she said, "I usually just baja it to the top".  We did not feel good about "baja-ing it" so we just went to the second trail that we had planned for.

 The Lost Valley Trail was so great that it quickly erased our disappointment at not getting to do the first trail. This trail started off on a rather flat and even trail through the mountains, but it got rocky (literally) rather quickly.  We hit a sign that said to "exercise extreme caution beyond this point" and it wasn't lying.  The flat ground was replaced by large boulders which we had to traverse.  The kids LOVED it.

Outside of the natural bridge

 At one point the trail came to a small waterfall that was coming out of an opening in the rock.  To continue with the trail you had to climb up beside the waterfall and go through the natural bridge in the rocks.  There was another way around, but no one wanted to take the "wimpy" way, so up the waterfall we went.  On the other side of the natural bridge was a large area filled with boulders and caves.  Brain had a head lamp, so we poked into some of the caves and saw the rock formations.

Going through the natural bridge

 Further along the path was the larger Eden Falls which had a cave at the top.  There were stairs leading to the cave at the top of this cascade. We had heard that there was another waterfall inside of the cave, and we tried to get back to it.  It was really dark inside of the cave and we only had one headlamp, but we carried on.  We finally gave up when the cave got super narrow and we realized that we were going to have to crawl through the mud the rest of the way.  We did get a good view of the outdoor cascade though.  This picture shows how close that I said the kids could get to the falls...

 ...And these next two shows how close that their daddy said that they could get to the falls.  All in all we had a good time on this trail.  The testy weather kept traffic on the trail at a minimum (we pretty much had it to ourselves).  Brian and the kids all said that this was there favorite trail to date.  It was definitely the most physically challenging that we have yet to attempt.

Branson

 After spending three nights in St. Louis we traveled south to Branson for three more nights.  Branson reminds me of the Gatlinburg/ Pigeon Forge area in that there's a lot of "touristy" stuff but there's also a lot of natural beauty.  We had a lot of fun during our time in Branson.  On the afternoon that we arrived we visited a go-cart place.  This place had several tracks- each having a height requirement.  The only course that Owen was tall enough to drive was the Rookie Track. He loved driving the go-cart and had a smile on his face the whole time.  After a few laps he started waving or making faces at us each time that he passed by.

 Olivia was tall enough to drive the Road Course Track.  She also liked driving the cart but seemed to be more serious about her driving.  She started off slow but sped up as she went.  There was also a four story wooden go-cart track that had 1 full spiral, 2 mini spirals, and a blind peak.   It looked like something off of Super Mario Kart.  There was no way that we weren't going to drive on it.  The kids were both too short to drive on that course so Brian and I drove while the kids rode as passengers.  It's been a minute since I've driven a go-cart.  It was pretty fun.

There were many miniature golf places.  We played a round at Dinosaur Canyon.   

 Our hotel had a indoor-outdoor pool.  There was one afternoon where we spent three hours at the pool. Olivia really liked going down the waterslide.  I think she ended up going down that thing fifty times.  Owen went down a few times but he mostly just worked on his swimming (which is getting better).

 Branson is known for its shows, and there were plenty of them to choose from.  We saw The Haygoods and hey, they were good.  These six siblings sang songs from a variety of genres and played various instruments.  The kids gave me a hard time about "making" them go see a show, but they ended up enjoying it as much as Brian and I did.  It was a pretty interactive show and the group sang several songs that the kids knew.

 We ate at several really good restaurants while on vacation but two of the most memorable were in or around Branson.  The first is an Italian place called "Pasghetti's". I'm not going to lie- we picked this place because there was a giant meatball outside that you could walk through.  I thought the food was "meh", but the kids just really liked it.  Because of their insistence, we ended up eating here twice.

 We also ate at Lambert's Cafe.  This place is famous for being the "home of the throwed roll".  Basically, they don't put rolls on your table.  They have a guy who walks around with rolls and if you want one you signal and he throws it to you from across the room.  The food here was good.

City Museum

 I cannot even say enough good things about St. Louis's City Museum.  This is one of the most unique, quirky, and fun places that I have ever visited.  The term "museum" is a misnomer.  This place is really more of a jungle gym on steroids.  The museum uses reclaimed materials to make the most wonderful things.  There are dozens of tunnels, slides, and interesting places to explore.  We spent hours climbing, crawling, and sliding.  There are even tunnels in the floor and in the ceiling.  There are nooks and crannies everywhere- and you can explore them all.  Several times I saw Olivia point out a hole in the floor or wall to Owen, to which he would reply "Let's go in it".  There are no maps, so getting lost was pretty much guaranteed.  But, that was part of the fun.  We all liked the slides, and we went down as many as we could find- including the ten story slide.  I felt like such a kid at this place, and I was not alone.  After all, the City Museum was designed with adults in mind.  We stayed late- almost til closing time- and there is no way we saw it all.  Should fate ever take us through St. Louis again, a return visit to the City Museum will be at the top of my list.