"Misery"

It's not as depressing as it sounds...Bryan always jokes that Missouri sounds like misery. This one took a while, sorry! I have been doing a lot...yet not a lot has been accomplished! Fancy that! It's like I have toddlers. hehe Anyhoo....so after our trip to OK we drove to Springfield to see Stacey. The kids were so excited and asked every 5 minutes if we were there yet. The weather was really cold the first day but it warmed up after that so we didn't have to bundle up our thin AZ skin/blood! The first night we went to Kim and Jason's for dinner and got to meet their little girl! She is just a doll and the kiddos had fun playing with their boys. Even though she just had a baby she still made us all dinner...she's awesome! Saturday we went to Silver Dollar City which unfortunately everyone else within 100 miles had the same idea! It was PACKED! But we still had a great time and the kids really enjoyed all the activities, gun shows, and cool little shops. The weather was perfect, the leaves were GORGEOUS and all sorts of colors that I didn't know leaves could turn. I *almost* wouldn't mind living there...except for this pesky thing called snow! Colin was so funny with the train robbery reenactment! It was a total flashback of my childhood and how scared Stacey and I always were with stuff like that. You used to take us on rides knowing we would pee our pants....and at the time I thought you were so mean, but now I totally get the funny factor! Although, I secretly still don't like you for telling us the Pirates of the Caribbean ride had NO drops in it at all...yea it totally does and I almost tossed my cookies while passing out with fear! Anyhow, Cecily became quite attached to Cat-Cat (Cathryn) so they were buddies all weekend. She would help her with Macie including bossing Macie around and tell her "Sit Macie! Dood job Macie!" Owen pretty much just hit his poor head on everything that weekend...he was totally growing, mastering the whole standing by yourself thing, on top of his unusually large head...yea it was bad! He looked like he had been in a street fight...with the coffee table by the time we left. Sunday was our traditional Bass Pro Shop and Lambert's dinner. The kids LOVE the Bass pro shop and spent hours running from vehicle to vehicle trying them all out. Colin preferred the 4-wheelers while Cecily took a liking to the large boats. She got nice and comfy on one and I literally had to drag her off kicking and screaming! She was TERRIFIED of the large taxidermy animals which is funny because last year she thought they were great...this year she was in my arms shaking, crying, and burying her head in my shoulder. Poor girl! I bought the kids the little rubber hook-less fish that we used to have as kids to put in the bathtub. They loved it...except Owen who kept getting them taken away because he was trying to actually eat them. Stacey and I had a fun walk down memory lane looking at all the rubber bait worms. G and G Strunk used to get those for us and we would love to try and gross each other out with them! We used them for playing mountain girls too. Oh to be little again! In between the two outings Stacey took me to a really cool antique shop by her house. It was fun seeing all the antiques there because there were some very different pieces from what you see here. I always assumed all antique places have similar things, but it was a whole different set of stuff! I bought something for myself and something for Candee. How can you go to an antique store and NOT by her anything?! Dinner at Lambert's was delicious as always and we caught lots of rolls! The fried okra was great, and of course the chicken and dumplings was delish! It's a really good thing we have to travel 22 hours to get there or I would probably be obese! Well, there was much more that happened while we were there but since I took so long to write this...I have forgotten. Bummer!
  Today we went to the zoo with Megan and the kiddos and enjoyed the beautiful weather we are finally having! I thought it would wear them out for a nice nap...but I don't know what I was thinking because that never happens! They took short naps so Colin was a crab for Cubbies. But he said his verse and after getting to see Cubbie bear he loosened up a bit!
  I'm having a bit of an emotional setback...no particular reason...just because! Life has gotten overwhelming again which has affected my ability to function. Part of me wishes I could just quit everything and have this whole first year to just..sit...and eat. But I KNOW that is not healthy so I am relying on the Lord's strength to keep me going and to remind me that the pain is only temporary...Heaven is eternal!
  I love you daddy and I miss you so much my house looks like it got hit by a tornado!
 Your Favorite Second Born,
Carley
Lots of pics again! I will start with the zoo one because it's from today and the one from my girl date with Cecily...the rest are from MO (they are not in order sorry! This blog is hard to arrange photos in!) Oh and notice Colin was not cooperating with getting his picture taken! For some reason he was a punk that whole trip everytime I got the camera out!