Oklahoma City

Writer's block.

I have been holding off writing this post for a variety of reasons, slow wi-fi has been one of them, but the main reason I've been putting it off is that I have no idea how to summarize our week in Oklahoma City. I don't think any words could adequately express my feelings toward seeing our family again. So I will simply post pictures in no particular order hoping I will capture a little of what our week was like.

Since my brother, Adam, and sister-in-law, Joy, live in Oklahoma City we figured it would be the perfect place to meet up with my parents to start their three week stay with us.

The week flew by quickly...

We spent lots of time catching up over the many dinners we shared together. One night we went to a place called Pop's. Since my kids are sugar lovers they were in heaven. Pop's has every soda imaginable.

My parent's treated each of our kids to their own six pack. If you do the math that's a lot of soda we now have on board our bus.

They had fun picking out interesting bottles of soda...

silly names like Martin Poop.

We had BBQ at camp, the resort we stayed at was really nice.

At Uncle Adam and Auntie Joy's house we had S'mores...

and hung out with Nelson, their pet piggie.

Nelson has the best life, he's fat and happy just like a pig should be.

We went on a few outings while in OKC.

Here we are at the OKC Bombing Memorial.

It was so peaceful and serene, one of the most beautiful memorials we have been to.

The kids were able to participate in the Jr. Ranger Program.

Here is the Survivor Tree dedicated to those who survived the explosion. This tree was the only tree to survive the bombing because it's roots go so deep. This memorial is unique in the way the architect uses symbolism to tell the story of that dreadful day back in 1995 killing 168 people, several of whom were only children.

We spent almost a full day at the best Science Museum we have ever been too. Everything was very hands-on, making it so much fun for the kids.

This is something I am sure all kids in OKC learn about at an early age.

Speaking of tornado's we were able to visit the city of Moore and tour the area where an EF5 tornado went through last year.

This street used to be lined with houses...you can see the driveways. As sad as this picture looks we also saw many homes and a school being rebuilt. The city of Moore is slowly recovering which is a good thing.

One thing we noticed in OK is the beautiful clouds, you can see them in the picture above. Weather is crazy here, changing last minute. Thunderstorms would roll in towards the afternoon and the rain was different than we are used to, it was always a heavy rain with big fat drops.

With so much family around Justin and I were able to have some alone time.

We had dinner in Bricktown...

and walked the Riverwalk.

We finished up our night with a chocolate shake from Braum's, a local favorite.

The girls were happy, they have a slight obsession with Auntie Joy...

and so do I. She is the most amazing sister-in-law and spoils my kids with lots of attention and time.

We spent some time in historic Guthrie, just us girls shopping at antique stores while the boy's went golfing one day.

Joy scored finding these cute piggies.

On another day the boy's were able to go shooting...

I know they had the best time hanging out together doing what boy's like to do.

My Mom celebrated her birthday while in OKC, it was so nice to be able to give her a big birthday hug.

I almost forgot, we had friends traveling through the area while we were here.

It was such a sweet time of fellowship, we ate pizza, had S'mores and the kids caught fireflies. They are on a 35 day road trip so it was fun chatting about where they are going and road life in general.

Towards the end of our stay we were able to visit the church Adam and Joy go to. We loved it, the kids area was amazing too.

Sadly we had to say our good byes after church.

Reagan had a really hard time letting go of Joy.

As difficult as it was to leave Adam and Joy, we are grateful we still have Nana and Papa with us. We have been driving non-stop lately making this part of our trip really exhausting. I will post more on our adventure soon, when we get somewhere stationary!