Day 7: 5/29/09

Today we went to Fayetteville, AR to visit my sister-in-law, Jennifer. When we got there, she was not there. We had lunch at AQ Chickenhouse. They have some of the best chicken I have ever eaten. Each time we come to AR, we go over to AQ at least once. (We didn't get any pictures of the kids).
After leaving Fayetteville we went to Salisaw, OK. Marc lived there for a couple of years with his Dad, so they wanted to go "down memory lane". While we were there we went to Sequoyah's Cabin. Sequoyah is known for developing the Cherokee Alphabet. The original log cabin that he built by hand back in 1829 is still on the exact same spot of land that he built it on. When it became a National Historic Landmark, the state build a brick building around the original building to protect it from the elements. There wasn't a super good spot to take a picture of the kids, so we took it in front of a little fountain that was on the grounds.

Day 6: Fort Smith, AR 5/28/09

Fort Smith has a really nice park called Creekmore Park. There are 3 playgrounds, several picnic areas, some nice open green areas for running around, a pool, a mini-golf course, and a small train that costs $.25 to go around the perimeter of the park. Today's weather was supposed to be mid-seventies and sunny. The weather changes tomorrow and gets really hot, so we decided to go to the park today. Here are some pics of the kids playing.

Samantha swingingMarc swingingMarc playing in a HUGE sandbox that is thereWe met my mother-in-law, Pearl, my niece, Kaylee, and my father-in-law Marc Sr at the park for some good play time. Marc has had a lot of fun playing with his cousin Kaylee.We took Marc on the train last time we were here and he had a blast so we thought we would take him on it again..and see how Samantha liked it. It was a hit with them both!.There were some pretty flowers and trees so we decided to try to have a photo shoot. We got some cute pictures of Marc, but Samantha was not in the mood to have her picture taken. So here are the cutest of the bunch.....

Day 5: Fort Smith, AR 5/27/09

My Mother-in-law, Pearl, wanted to take her grand kids (and their parents) to Chuck E Cheese for lunch today. Samantha loved the pizza.....and Marc had fun playing the games.....After lunch we went and showed our cute kiddos to Marc's Grandfather (Papaw) and step-Grandmother (Nannie).
The kids with Papaw.......
and with Nannie......and with Lisa (who is technically Marc's Aunt. Nannie & Papaw adopted her)......
After some time with Nannie & Papaw we went over to Marc's sister & brother-in-law's house (Melisa & Paul) for dinner and so Marc could play with some of his cousins. They live in the country so Marc had a lot of room to run and play outside. He had a lot of fun, he isn't used to the amount of space to run free.and Samantha had fun playing with their Fridge Phonics letters.

Day 4: Fort Smith, AR 5/26/09

Last night samantha was sitting on Marc's Elmo Suitcase (which is about 4-6 inches from the ground). Next thing we all knew she was face first on the floor screaming. After a few minutes she settled down, played, and went to bed for the night. This morning about 7:30 we got up and got ready to go down and gey breakfast. She was completely lathargic, her eyes were kind of glazed over, and she had a few dry heaves. We called our doctor's office back in MI and they said those were signs of a concussion and that we needed to take her to the ER or Med Center. Our hotel is right across the street from a hospital so we took her to that ER. After 1 agonzining hour of waiting, the doctor finally came in and examined her. He said she had no obvious signs of a concussion, so he suggested we take her back to the hotle and keep an eye on her. While we were waiting for the doctor, we had to fight to keep her awake. the doctor told us that she would be fine to fall asleep...so we let her. We got the discharge orders and came back to the hotel. My father-in-law was here with Marc and he wanted to cuddle Samantha. While Marc Sr hel Samantha, Marc Jr got her some milk (we did not eat before we went to the ER). As soon as she saw the cup of milk she perked up. She slept for about 10-15 mnutes between the time in thed Er and the ride home. Within 10 minutes of getting back in the hotel room she was sitting in the high chair eating fruit loops and drinking her milk, back to normal, happy as can be. She has been fine ever since. Needless to sat, we took it pretty easy and slow the rest of the day.
We think we figured out that our ER health deductible is $500 so we decided that she has a "$500 ankle bracelet".

Day 3: Fort Smith, AR 5/25/09

We left Kansas City about 11:00 this morning. We drove the final 4 1/2 hours to Fort Smith, AR and arrived around 4:30 after a few stops along the way. We told immediate family that we would be at the hotel and "accepting guests" after 5:30. We have a room full! Here are some pictures of the kids with various family members.

Samantha with BumpaSamantha with Grandma PearlSamantha with Grandma DebbieMarc with cousin ParkerSamantha with cousin ParkerSamantha with Aunt MisseyMarc with Bumpa (Grandpa)Samantha with Cousin AceleySamantha with Uncle Paul

Day 2: Kansas City, MO 5/24/09

We started out today at the zoo. The weather was warm, sunny, and muggy. The zoo prides themselves on giving the animals large habitats to roam in. Since the animals have large habitats, that means lots of walking for us. It was a very nice zoo. It was divided into 2 different sections; Africa and other. We started in Africa, which is a mile walking tour. We took a tram over to Africa.We sat down to rest for awhile about half-way through Africa. Samantha fell asleep at some point in Africa.

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We only did Africa because we were hot and tired.
Marc was getting a little bored walking around looking at animals so we decided to try finding characters from his favotire movies. We found characters from the Lion King and Madagascar movies. We found from Lion King: Simba, Nala, Timon, Pumba, and Rafiki. From Madagascar we found: Marty, Gloria, Alex, Melvin, King Julian.
This is a picture of the kids on Gloria.This is a picture of marc with King Julian.After the zoo we had lunch at Fiorello's Jack Stack House. It had the best smoked ham, sausage, and turkey that we have ever had. it was yummy!
After lunch we headed to Union Station.
Union Station was huge!!Included in Union Station were the typical shops and restaurants along with a science museum, a theater/movie screen, a big train set to look at......a room for a traveling exhibit. Right now it is Narnia; The Exhibition. It was full of props from the movie. It took us about 45 minutes to go through the exhibit. We were not allowed to take pictures in the exhibit hall so the only picture we got was at the front gate.Outside of Union Station there was "Celebration at the Station", a celebration for memorial Day. The local Symphony Orchestra was performing so there was an instrument petter zoo. Marc walked over and immedicately found the percussion instruments.For dinner we went to the T-Rex cafe. This is a theme restaurant like Rain Forrest Cafe only with a dinosaur theme. There were anamintronic dinosaurs around each table. The food was so-so, and expensive, but we were paying for the experience. It was pretty fun.Part of the Celebration at the Station there were fireworks. Our hotel was about 2 blocks from Union Station so we were able to watch the fireworks from the parking lot of our hotel.
All-in-all, it was a good day.

Day 1: Kansas City, MO 5/23/09

We finally made it to Kansas City, MO. We woke up, had breakfast, and headed to their mall to explore it. After some exploration we had lunch at Fritz's restaurant. This is a restaurant where a train driving on a track delivers your food to you. The kids (and us) had a great time watching the trains go around the room. Each child got an engineer's hat when we walked in.This is a picture and a video of the train.
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After we had lunch we went to Kaliedscope. This is an open-ended art center provided by Hallmark. You walk into a room that is kind of sensory overload with art stations all around the room. There are "scrapes" of stuff from the Hallmark warehouse for the kids to create with. One example is there was a roll of gold foil wrapping paper that people were rolling into swords. There were ribbons and tissue paper among lots of other stuff.Kansas City is known for having hundreds of fountains through out the city. There was one by the mall we were at.After some more exploring in the city we went had dinner at Toby Keith's Bar & Grill. For dessert we decided to try a deep-fried twinkie.

Packing Day

Samantha's room was the "staging area" for packing for our trip down to Fort Smith, AR. I had stacks of clothes and suitcases lining the perimeter of her room. She enjoyed helping me pack for our trip. She had to inspect the inside of the suitcase before I could put clothes in it.After I got it packed, she enjoyed climbing on and off of the suitcase.

May 22nd: Day 0 - Travel Day

We are taking a trip down to Fort Smith, AR to spend time with my husband's family. The only family that have seen Samantha are my husband's Mom & Dad, no one else has met her. It has been 2 1/2 years since the rest of his family have seen Marc. So, we decided that AR would be our "big" vacation this year.
We left Friday after lunch. We drove to Quincy, IL. Our plan was to get to the hotel about 8:30. We left our house about an hour late and we got stuck in a back-up for about an hour so we didn't get to the hotel until about 10:30. We were exhausted.
The kids were actually very good. Marc spent most of his time watching movies on our small video player.And Samantha just sat there playing with her toys, munching on cereal, or looking out the window.
After some time in the car they both fell asleep.Marc watched movies on the video player. He was watching the CARS movie when we stopped for dinner. We "just happened" to find a place to eat on Old Route 66. Marc thought it was cool to be eating on the same road that Lightening was on.Afer getting some food in their bellys, we got in the car for the rest of the drive.