Happy Easter!

 We started bright and early, but thankfully not too early.

 

 Ready to go!

 Hunting for Easter eggs at Nana and Papa's.

The weather was perfect!  The kids played outside most of the afternoon and evening.

Happy Easter!

Fun Friday: Movies, Geckos, Eggs, & More

 We had a busy but fun Friday!  We went to see The Croods.

 

 We cleaned Leo's cage and he started putting on a show for us.

 This stretched out leg makes me laugh.

 He even climbed up on top of his rock--quite a change from staying in his house all the time!

 This evening he climbed on top of SpongeBob's house and tried to jump over to Squidward's house.  He didn't make it, but we were impressed that he tried.

 We dyed eggs this afternoon.

My grandma came to spend the night and we played some Skip-Bo.

Happy Friday!

The Pensacola Dam (And Other Places)

 We started last week off with a trip to the Pensacola Dam.  This picture is a little blurry, which is how I felt after traveling all day Saturday and then leaving early Monday morning for another whole day out.

 It was so crazy cold and windy, which was a big change from the weather we had two days earlier when we went to Grove!

 This is the lake side of the dam.  It was built between 1938 and 1940 from the Grand River.

 I'm not sure how many different tour guides they have, but if you can, you should ask for Roy Heginbotham.  He was great with the kids!  Here we are about to get in the old fashioned elevator.

 

 We went 11 stories down to the power house.

 See those two green pipes at the top?  Those are the same ones you can see from the picture of the dam from the lake side.  We were behind a lot of water!

 These pipes are big enough to drive a school bus through!

 Inside we had to wear earplugs because it was so loud.

 Giant wrench!

 

 After we left Langley, we went to the Spavinaw Area.  This place must be really beautiful when it's not winter!

 Even though it was so cold we stayed for a while because the kids were having so much fun playing.  We've got to go back there when it warms up!

 The kids found lots of shells!

 After stopping for lunch and to check out the Snowdale Area (which was gated off), we ended up at a park in Pryor.

 It even warmed up enough that most of the kids ditched their coats.

We went home a different way and stopped by my grandma's house for a while.  I went to get some chicken for dinner and came back to find Alice with some new crazy feet.

We've gotten to stay in town for over a week now and it has been wonderful--trips start again next week, though!

How to Procrastinate

 Last week I was in the thick of several writing assignments and could not get motivated at all, which led to a Facebook post about things to do instead of writing.  Thanks to Kendra's suggestion, here is my list for the two days before my article was due!

 Unrelated picture of Alice in a cookie trance.

• order summer clothes for the kids (Don't forget to google for discount codes!)
• arrange lunch dates 
• look up old videos on YouTube 
• order books
• try Alice's Hello Kitty lip gloss
• send emails
• play with a glitter wand
• import blogs to bloglovin'
• look at hysterical pictures
• watch Splash (I can't believe I'm admitting that.)
• google Joey Lawrence's Hair because, whoa.  And not in a good way.
• try to remember who I've hidden from my news feed and see what they're up to
• remember why I've hidden people from my news feed
• clean the bathroom light fixture
• dust the living room
• watch (several episodes of) NCIS
• get a bajillion free books for the Kindle (thanks to this site)

 

 Jack hanging out next to Leo's terrarium.  He says he's going to make it into a terror-arium at Halloween.  I love that kid.

And then there were all of the regular things like school and cooking and errands.  Eventually, though, after a too-short night full of dreams about state parks, I got it all done and turned in.  Now it's time to catch up on posts here!

Class Pet

 A long, long time ago we decided to get a leopard gecko.  Today we finally did!

 

 I got a brief shot of him (well, we don't know if it's a boy or a girl, but we're calling it a him) right after Jay put him in, but he's been hiding ever since.

 The kids are not so patiently waiting for him to come out.

He's not going for it.

Hopefully he will have a name soon!

Fun Friday: Loose Ends

Today was spent tying up loose ends.  I finally finished up my state parks article, we worked on our final Cezanne project, and we finished up our latest Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle book.  We also made these flowers.  Jack's feet are so big now he needed a second piece of paper for his flowers!  It was a pretty low key day, which was exactly what we needed!

 Just because I think it's funny, here is Jack with his giant balloon.

Happy Friday!

Happy Spring!

 We saw lots of signs of spring this weekend and it was in the 70s.  By Monday we were wearing heavy coats again, yesterday we didn't need a jacket, and tomorrow it's supposed to be in the 40s.  So, pretty much a regular spring in Oklahoma.

 The schools here are on Spring Break but we've been chugging along with school plus some extras.  Today we had lunch with the cutest baby around!

 Alice made a jello burrito.  She ate it all.

Along with everyone else in town, we went to a life-sized Candy Land at the library this afternoon.  Nothing too especially springy, but fun anyway.

Now it's time for me to finish up my state parks article and then I'll be back with pictures from our last trip and some of the stuff we've been doing in school lately.

Happy Spring!

Grove, Oklahoma

 As part of our state park trips, we went to Grove Saturday.  We stopped at the big McDonald's over the turnpike for breakfast.

 Our first stop was Har-Ber Village.  My mom, sister, niece, and nephew went with us.  After the night of (non)sleep I got, it was good that someone else was driving!

 A group shot as we got started.

 Har-Ber Village is made up of lots of different buildings that show different aspects of life in the past.

 Alice recognized campaign buttons from the trip we made to Jay not too long ago!

 Grandma and all the kids!

 In the old-fashioned schoolhouse

 

 The kids finally got to see someone (or something) hooked up to the perm machines they've seen so many times before!

 They have a Kids' Cabin that just opened where kids can play with everything!  Alice loved cooking on the stove.

 The kids can even go upstairs into the loft!

 Churning butter just like in the Little House books!

 

 Alice was so glad to get to hold her cousin's hand!

 We had Dairy Queen for lunch.

 Next it was on to Honey Creek State Park to play for a while.

We finished up at Lendonwood Gardens, which will probably be beautiful in about a month!

Today is our last trip and then it's time to get writing!