Diamond Diggin' in Arkansas!

"Crater of Diamonds State Park"... just a short 6-hr drive to Arkansas brought us one of our most treasured and memorable family vacations ~ digging for diamonds in the DIRT, I mean MUD! It's the ONLY 'finders keepers' diamond mine in the world, and the 8th largest. We kind of forgot to think through the packing, as evidenced by the fact that we wore our new school shoes, Mom's new crocs, and totally forgot to bring any digging shovels or buckets. Lucky for us, it was all rentable. Except for the shoes... we just fire-hosed them down at the end. Like with a real fire hose.

In our brains, we saw it going a bit differently ~ more like sifting dirt like gold prospectors, rather than sludging thru mud. The rain sort of changed it all up. 

And yet the mud made it so enchanting.

 



 

Daron LOVED this vacation.

 

And look at all the nice Arkansas folk we got to hang out with. (Neer na neer na neer na neer na neer... sing to the tune of the backwoods banjo song)

 

Stephen and random duder, hearing other lucky diggers excitedly yelling over their finds.

 

Exchanging gems

 

Fire hose provided by the site

 

 

Kas: "Dad, where's the ipad?"

Daron: "Didn't bring it. Look out the i-window."

We took our kids to the Texarkana First Baptist Church for a riveting experience ~ they had never been to anything other than our church services, so it was fun to watch them enjoy it all ... passing the money collection trays, having the band and orchestra play like we were at a rock concert, and hearing the pastor intro his sermon with country song lyrics like "If you can't live without me, why aren't you dead yet?" It gave us much to discuss, including how great it is that people worship God, everyone in their own way. We had to stop when Kenny asked, "that was such a cool fake church!" - didn't know where that came from, but he explained he thought it was fake because it doesn't have ALL the truth ours has, just part. So we helped fix his terminology. 8-)

"I am SO glad for photosynthesis..."

"Without it, we'd all be dead." (Kassie's comment this morning as we drove to school.) Love her unique brain.  She and Kenny set up a mock American Ninja Warrior obstacle course and reenacted the event ~ including hitting the button and the awards ceremony.

 

Geneve enjoys getting to know Kerrigan...

Moms and Muffins at Theiss!

 

Kas putting up the morning flag

 

The kids love their new skating/blading class!

 

It's all fun and games...

Til your kid gives the dog a big bowl of milk. Oh it's sooo funny - he he he, ho ho ho, watch her lap it all up because she loves that milky taste on her furry jowels, oh let's give her more, and let's give it to her everyday. Yeah, it's all fun and games til the NEXT MORNING AT 4AM when the dog starts proclaiming in her high-pitched doggie yelp "let me out of this laundry room because something's about to shoot very fast out of my rear!" Real nice for Mommy, who gets to fall out of bed, still asleep but partially terrified by the alien noises the dog is making, only to release the Cracken from her cage, and watch her whiz past me to the back door, then leap in ONE single bound to the grass where she proceeds to squat and excrete nearly TEN TIMES before she apologetically ambles back to the door, with a look on her face that says 'it's your kid's stupid fault, thank him.' All that was super-neato this morning.

Perspective

I was checking out of Walmart last week.  Suddenly from the line behind me, a woman who was larger than me, and sitting in a motorized wheelchair, said kindly, "You're lucky you're thin." I was completely taken back; I had literally JUST been standing there thinking about how much bigger I was than the lady in front of ME, and how I shouldn't have skimped on my workout that morning.  It made me think about how easy it is to forget all the blessings we have, as we rush around wishing we had more (or less, in this case!) of this or that.  I thought of it today again, as I watched little Kenny happily run around the Children's Museum with his cousins and friends... I'm so glad I pulled him out of school to go make that fun memory. Especially when he said tonight, going to bed - "Mom, that was the most fun place in the whole world!!" So grateful he's so easy to please. 8-)

 

 

My favorite ~ chicken fighting with Sterl. I totally won.

 



 

Here's Steevie, about to watch World War Z with his grandparents and Great Aunt Margaret, after convincing them it was about a mass sociological pandemic (rather than zombies)... luckily they were sucked in and loved it!

 



Kenny, bringing treats to Grandpa as he swims laps in our pool

 

My sister, Abish

A very important thing happened last week. My sweet sister Stephanie was asked to play the role of Abish in her ward's young women's program.  She was phenomenal, as you can see here. Stellar Steph rocked the house. Hats, I mean, cloths off to you, Abish! 

 

 

In other family news, Kenny enjoyed his first Cubscout Raingutter Regatta!

 

 

 

And we enjoyed giving our 3rd public performance of "The Countries Song" at our ward talent show!

 

 

Kas rocked on her "You Belong with Me" rendition

 

A fun weekend in Lousiana at L'auberge du Lac ~ "the barge on the lake", or, the floating casino that's attached to the hotel. We had fun floating the lazy river w/ Mom and Dad!

 

You can see all the drunkards also pictured here... we were regaled with colorful, eyebrow-raising conversations as we floated by groups of severely inebriated people. We were grateful... as we looked at them, then at our little innocent kids, then at them again... that we've got a whole different set of standards. Great fodder for conversation about how the bachelorette party inflatables can entertain for only so long. Then the cigarettes and alcohol highs wear off and there's just lots of empty.

 

Surprising Kas at Theiss lunch with her little 'friend-that's-a-boy' Brennan. 8-)

 

Happy First Day of School, 2013!

So excited to go to school today! Well, mixture of excitement and anticipation... 2nd, 5th, and 7th grades.  Stephen did his first mustache shave this morning! He was pretty happy when he found out today that the principal hand-picked him to be her front office aid "because he was so friendly and would best greet everyone who came into Doerre" - cute!

 

Glad that Kenny was happy this morning; he sobbed himself to sleep last night after realizing that Geneve was taken from her mommy. "How could we do that to her? She doesn't have a mommy now mom! She must be so sad and lonely... why did she have to leave her mom?" It was so seemingly random, but after much discussion, it all came out that this stemmed from him not wanting to leave me for school for 8 hours, and on top of that, not ready to leave for 2 years for his mission. It was all quite traumatic... here they are finally asleep hand-in-hand. Not posed.

 

Helping with an eagle scout project - building a huge deck at a park