Country Vacation

After our time in Searcy, we were on the road again...this time to see my dad and all of his side of the family in Northeast Arkansas.

Can't get enough of those 2 sleeping peacefully, side by side.

Now don't get me wrong..it's great to see all our family and spend some good, quality time with my dad, but I have to admit that one of the *best* parts of our visits there are being reunited with my first baby once again.

Oh, how I adore that Ozzie boy. At first I wasn't sure that he remembered us, but after a little bit of time went by it was pretty obvious. We still know all his favorite spots to be scratched and he got back into his habit of following me everywhere.   I could love on that pug forever. Titus could too apparently! He was obsessed with Oz and as much as we loved it, I think Ozzie probably tired of us after the first hour.

Poor Adam started running a low fever that afternoon.  Not even 2 weeks after his previous illness.  :(

He was definitely not feeling his best, but we had a big family dinner planned that night at my Uncle Danny and Aunt Vicki's house, so we just gave him a dose of Motrin and promised him he wouldn't have to get off the couch once we got there.  Once the meds kicked in, he felt much, much better and we had a great visit with a bunch of the fam.  My Aunt Lynn cooked an amazing dinner and I'm not ashamed to admit I even went back for thirds on some things!

Drew wasted no time in asking PaPaw to draw animals on his arm, like always.  I can see him being a 16 year old boy still asking for that Indian and zebra on his forearms.

We didn't stay very late that night since Adam seemed to be coming down with something.  After we got the kids to bed at Uncle Jon's house, a bunch of the family came over and we stayed up late playing cards.  Being able to sit at the big table and play Pitch is a rite of passage in that neck of the woods.  If there are at least 4 people in the room, then it's a given that a card game is in progress. In the several days that we were there, I don't think any adults watched tv, but you better believe we played about a hundred games of Pitch.  L-O-V-E it!

On Wednesday morning we drove over to dad's bright and early.  My Uncle Jon and Grandma Odena actually live a little further down the road (one town over) and we made that trip back-and-forth a lot while we were there.  (In fact we even got pulled over for speeding on that road on Thursday morning!)

Adam still had a low fever on Wednesday, but another dose of medicine had him feeling well enough to go visit PaPaw Wilbur on the farm.  And once we got there you'd never guess he was at all under the weather.  The boys were in heaven out in the country and within minutes they were all ready to ride on PaPaw's new (to him) tractor.

Titus only lasted about 30 seconds. Once that engine came on, he was SO done.

He much preferred a ride in the truck...with some Bono shades.

While Drew rode on the tractor with PaPaw (and probably learned a few less than desirable words when they got stuck in the mud at one point)...

...Adam got to drive the rest of us out to see the cows.

I know this goes against every car safety rule there is, but life is just different in the country. We were on dirt roads, out in the middle of nowhere, all by ourselves, so Matt and I were totally fine with it. And just look how happy he was. :)

I didn't think we'd ever hear the end of our ignorance in not bringing mud boots to the farm. My dad and Uncle Jim would simply not let it go, especially when they found out we don't even own mud boots.  It's just funny because when we were with our CA family in November they probably thought we were pretty country.  And yet when we're with this part of the family, we are teased mercilessly for being such city folks.  Oh well, who really needs mud boots anyways when you can just have Big Bub carry you around everywhere?

After we fed all the cows, Adam got his turn on the tractor as well.

And then PaPaw decided it'd be funny to play a horrible trick on me. Those of us in the trucks made it back to dad's house a little later than he and Adam did on the tractor. When we pulled up Adam was nowhere to be seen and my dad told me that he'd left Adam with some of the geese hunters they ran into down the road. This wasn't beyond the realm of possibilities because (1) that's the kind of thing my dad might do and (2) they'd been talking about going hunting all morning and Adam let me know more than once that he really wanted to join them.  As soon as I heard that, I jumped back in the truck and had my Uncle Jim drive me to the field where the geese were.  The whole way I kept thinking that maybe he was with 2 of my other uncles, who actually were out hunting that morning, but when we pulled up to their trucks my Uncle Jim told me that he had no idea who those men were.  I immediately ran up to the first guy I saw and asked where the 6 year old little boy was and he just looked at me like I was from another planet.  He then said that he had no idea but maybe he was with some of the hunters who were already out in the field.  I nearly panicked thinking of my Adam with total strangers who had loaded weapons in some field somewhere.  And then my dad pulled up in his truck behind us and Adam was behind the wheel and had no idea what was going on.  That ol' PaPaw had just told him to hide back at the house and of course Adam did what he was told.  I was LIVID and started crying immediately...which of course made it even funnier to those ornery turds I'm lucky enough to call family.

I guess that's what I get for ever believing my dad in the first place.  That's just the way they are...always picking and playing tricks on those they love.  And the more it bothers someone, the more they do it.  I often wonder how my mom put up with it for all those years!  They've always been ornery like that, they will always be ornery like that.  Perfect example...this is how we found our Christmas card when we arrived.

"This is what happens without regular dentist appointments."

God bless 'em, if I didn't love them to the ends of the earth, I swear they'd be really easy to hate sometimes!

But enough about all of that. The REAL excitement for Wednesday was the fact that we were picking up our puppy that day in southern Missouri. So once we got our boys back to the "big house" and put Titus down for his nap, Matt and I took off for a road trip, just the 2 of us.  It had been years since we'd been in the car for 4 hours with no children to keep happy.

I thought about just letting Matt go on his own since I hated to leave all 3 boys, but my family finally convinced me to let them babysit.  PaPaw was still in hot water, so I left them knowing my Uncle Jon and brother would take good care of the boys.  I'm so glad I joined Matt on that trip though.  It was such a sweet moment when we met Lily for the first time.  My heart absolutely melted when I first held our new baby girl.

We stopped in town after picking her up and let her run around for a bit. Of course I had to whip out the camera right away.

At that point we didn't even know what her name was. We kept going back and forth between Lily and Lucy. We really thought all along it would be Lucy and then when we met her we couldn't get Lily out of our heads. That night we took a poll with a big group of the family and Lily won by a landslide, so Lily she is!

Of course all 3 boys were excited to finally see her, but no one was as excited as Titus.

He made sure not to forget about Ozzie though.

Lily was loved on by EVERYONE that night. She probably didn't know what to think of all that attention.

Since PaPaw was back in my good graces again,

we spent that entire evening playing cards with the family. Abbi and Brian and their kids came over that night as well and we all had so much fun. We had 3 tables set up that night and there were card games going on everywhere you looked. Despite driving me bonkers half the time, I sure am crazy about that loud and nutty bunch!