End of Summer Family Vacation

Life has been a blur of one exciting event to the next lately. We started school, celebrated our 13th anniversary and  3 birthdays in our house as well as took part in a fun wedding of dear friends of ours.....then there's canning and Labor Day and youth camping and piano lessons and out of state family visiting for a week. All that since the 3rd week in August. no wonder I feel like life has been a little crazy.

But before it's just fuzz in my brain, I want to remember the very special 2 day vacation that our family took just before school started. We started out by heading to Boone, IA to the Kate Shelley Museum. Because I copied the wrong address down, we actually arrived at the old Moingona Depot first and got to walk the lovely, picturesque trail to the bridge. It was a perfect summer day and other than Annika getting a case of poison ivy later, we all had a grand time in the woods. It was hard to imagine Kate running through the storm in her heroic effort to save the midnight express and all 200 passengers on board. This has been a favorite story in our house for as long as I can remember so it was really special to finally get to see it in real life.

When we were finished there, we headed into town to eat lunch at Pizza Ranch. Then off to the museum. Museums can be boring, (yes, I said that b word and I'm a home school Mom, gasp!) but this museum really was interesting. Not only did it have Kate's actual lantern and a host of other interesting facts and items relating to Kate, it also housed a military museum. The entire upstairs of this old building was split into little sections. Each section had things from its era, starting with 1900-1910, and continuing on in 10 year segments all the way to the present. I felt a little old when I saw my segment of time, 1970-1980, and my children didn't  recognize all of  the 'ancient' items displayed there.

We headed out to see the highest railroad bridge in the world, the Kate Shelley railroad bridge, several miles out of town in the country. Then we were off to Omaha.....to our motel. Of course, the children wanted to go swimming immediately. Their kind father was all into that and hung out w/ them in the pool. I, on the other hand, am not crazy about water if I know I won't be getting any sun anyway. So I read my Bible, journaled, and started reading a good book, all while staying poolside. I felt naughty for not joining them, but Leon assured me that it was fine. I didn't argue. It was one of my favorite memories of the whole weekend. Relaxing.....

After showers, we all headed to Cracker Barrel in our pj's. Such fun!

When we got back, the girls were STILL hungry.:(( Seriously, let's not even go there!) So they ate fresh peaches in bed.

After a good night of rest, we were off to the zoo....

By day's end, we were so exhausted.
Here we are, waiting on the Imax to start...

And then we took our tired bodies home.....good memories, and a good last hurrah to summer!