Okay...OK

This is a picture of a nuclear power plant we saw on our way to OKC. Ethan put his shirt over his mouth and nose just in case it was leaking radiation! Gotta love that boy!!

So we started making our winding way down the mountain to begin our arduous journey to Oklahoma City. Why Oklahoma City? Well, we knew before we headed up to Mountain View that Steve's grandfather's funeral was on Thursday in Colorado. So we began researching options of flights out of Arkansas so Steve could fly out in an airport close by and the boys and I could stay on at the center for another day. Not an easy task as we soon found out. There are not many flights out of Arkansas and therefore, they are very expensive. For a little under a thousand dollars he could have flown out of Little Rock. So we started looking for other alternatives. The drive to Dallas would have taken us about 8 hours so that was out of the question. Oklahoma City was about 5 hours and the drive to Dallas to pick him up at the airport from OKC was about 2 1/2. Another deciding factor was price. It was about $200 cheaper to fly out of OKC than it was to fly out of DFW. So, no brainer... we set off to Oklahoma. Oh yea, to further complicate plans, the funeral was in Denver at 3:00 and Steve had to be back at work by 7:00 am on Friday. So his day was going to consist of a flight out of OKC at 10am, funeral at 3:00, flight out of Denver at 6:00 pm and landing in Dallas at 9:30. Sounds like fun huh?

I have really never been to OKC. We have driven through on our way to Colorado but I have never stayed to enjoy the city. I enlisted the help of my fabulous homeschool group to help plan my and the boys day. I was really afraid that we were going to be stuck with nothing to do from 8:30 am til 9:30 pm. That would have be a long day!! My friends came through and we ended up having a great time in OKC and actually could have spent a couple of more days there!!

I had originally picked 2 big things to do and 2 little things. On the agenda was first to visit the Oklahoma City Memorial for the 1995 bombing of the Federal Building. This was highly recommended to me by several people.




Then we were going downtown to see the Crystal Bridge Gardens,





and eat in Bricktown.


Lastly, the OmniPlex Science Museum!


Well, three out of four ain't bad!! The Crystal Bridge was closed due to remodel. So our first stop was to the OKC museum and memorial. Now, I was a little hesitant about this one. Not because I wasn't interested and definitely not because I didn't want my boys to know but I had looked online, seen the cost and thought, "Really how good could this be anyway?" Due to the fact that the memorial sits on the exact spot of the federal building site, its right in the middle of downtown OKC. Had a little problem finding it but once we got there, it was well worth the trip for sure!! You first pull up to the front where you see this huge granite pass through before you head down to what was the basement of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. The inscription on the wall says:

"We Come Here to Remember
Those Who Were Killed, Those Who Survived and Those Changed Forever.
May All Who Leave Here Know the Impact of Violence.
May This Memorial Offer Comfort, Strength, Peace, Hope and Serenity."

It was incredibly moving walking down those steps! I can't describe it but I knew this was going to be an amazing trip.

As you walk to your right and down the steps, you can see this wall. This is the only piece of the original building that they have left standing. It was the wall of the basement.

This is called the "Survival Tree" It miraculously survived all of the rubble that landed on it!

Outside of the Museum this was spray painted

As you walk through the passway and down the steps, the first thing you see is a giant reflection pool. The pool is in the exact location of the 5th street where Timothy McVeigh parked the Uhaul truck that housed the bomb. The park ranger told us it was to create a peaceful feeling as well as a way to show the reflection of all of those that were impacted by this tragedy. Which is everyone!! He had the boys look into the pool and said, "Although you guys weren't even born when this happened, your lives were effected by this. You were born into a world that lives every day with the knowledge that this could happen anytime, anywhere to anyone."

Then he had the boys go dip their hands into the pool and place it on the memorial passway. This was to remind the boys they not only do they leave a mark in this world but that they too can impact the world!! The boys loved this and it was very moving!





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Next thing you will see is a grassy field with many glass and concrete chairs in even clusters. These chairs are in remembrance of the 149 adults and 19 children that were killed in the bombing. The larger chairs are in back and the 19 smaller chairs are closer to the water. There are also three chairs of to the side that symbolize the three people killed that were walking outside of the building at the time of the bombing. The memorial is very touching and surprisingly calm! Very tastefully done!

The museum is in what used to be the Journal Record Building across the street. I can not express how wonderful this museum was. It is a must visit with your family!! It was so tastefully done. It honored the victims, living and dead as well as put blame on this tragedy where blame was due. No excuses were made to downplay how horrible these men were who orchestrated this! No political correctness when describing the horrific horror of that day and all of the days that followed! It made you proud to be an American to see the honor and bravery of those who helped and to see the judicial system in our country at work punishing those who deserved it! If only another bombing sight could be so patriotic. Okay, now my emotions are flaring and I will continue..

In the museum, many of the pictures and newspaper articles are displayed on the remains of the building

Enclosed room of what it would have looked like if you were trapped in the rubble.

They displayed hundreds of pictures, cards and mementos that children had sent from all over the world

At the end you were supposed to right down your name, where you were from and your thoughts on the museum. Isaac wouldn't let me read his but I will tell you, all of us shed tears in this one. The most moving part of the whole museum was the video testimonies of those that were trapped and survived. Words can not describe the emotions!!


Picture of the memorial from the 3rd floor of the museum.




Although we spent 2 1/2 hours in the museum, my parking meter was up, so we reluctantly left the site to move on to our next treat of the day. Believe me when I say the boys did NOT want to leave. They loved the museum. Ethan went as far to say it was his favorite part of our whole vacation! Although I had reservations about taking them, it was wonderful for them to see this. I had forgotten how awful that tragedy was. I hope I never forget again!!

So, our next trip was about 2 blocks away in Bricktown. This is an unique downtown for sure. The name gives away its main feature...bricks everywhere. Building, streets and canals are all constructed of bricks. Very cool! We didn't know for sure what to do, so we settled on an authentic pizzeria for lunch. The boys had their first real "slice" of pizza.

And yes, they ate the whole thing!

Next was walking down the canal

and a visit to the outside of the Sonic headquarters. Yes, we are that addicted to Sonic happy hour!!

I was not sure what else to do and a little afraid my car would be towed if I parked in the restaurant parking too long. We left Bricktown and headed out to Omniplex or The Science Museum of Oklahoma. Now we have been to many science museums in our lives. Dallas, Tyler , Houston, Shreveport, Denver, Little Rock and Hot Springs but never one as cool as this one! It was AWESOME to say the least. The best one I have ever been too! We spent 5 hours there and still didn't see everything!!

The first thing we did was go to their "Explosion Show" And yes, my boys volunteered me for one of the experiments. She had me dip my hand in some soapy water and lit it with a match. It didn't hurt at all but it made the loudest bang! Of course, I screamed and the boys thought that was great!

Not me blowing up but one of the many explosions!

Next we solved a murder! They had a forensics lab that helped us solve the case! Very Cool!

The Segway track

Ethan geeked out over the Tesla Coil
He LOVES anything invented by Nichola Tesla

Isaac being goofy on the missles

Both of the boys were able to test their flying skills in the flight simulator

I don't think I could handle two Isaac's :)

There is no way to include all of the amazing things they had in this museum. We are defintily going back soon~

So, when the museum closed at 5 we headed south to DFW to pick Steve up. That trip was uneventful and we arrived about 20 minutes before his flight. It couldn't not have turned out more perfect!

Needless to say, our vacation was great! Just what we needed as a family! Now if I can only get back into the swing of things here. I think the hardest part of a vacation is coming back to reality and of course all of the laundry to catch up on :)

It Takes a Village....

not to raise a child but to have 2 whole days of awesome fun!! In my last post I shared that Steve and I spent our first day tooling around the quaint town of Mt. View. This was only because the Craft Village closes every Monday to give the craftsmen and women one day off a week. So Tuesday morning we dropped the boys off at camp, visited with the Akins in their camper for a while and then headed off to the village. Now in my mind, although my memory of the village was exciting and magical, I really only expected to run through for a couple of hours, look at all of the crafts, listen to some music, have a homemade fried pie and then be bored and head back to the cabin for an afternoon nap. Only because I was foolish to think that the only reason I like the Ozark Folk Center when I was a kid was because of my 10 year old mind! Really until this point I really only wanted to go back to the Center for the boys! The first thing we did was walk through the gift shop. Now if you are like me, I love gift shops! So I looked around and saw a few items that looked good. We bought of few of these books; Herb growing, Bread Making, What to do When the Power Fails, etc. I love these Storey Country Bulletins. If you have never read one, you should.

Anyway, we walked into the Village and I quickly remembered why I loved it. It has such a calming effect. There are people working everywhere. Busy making, building, gardening but what is missing is the NOISE!! No loud machinery or electronics just the sounds of wood being turned on a lathe, small instruments being tuned before a show, bubbling of water on an open fire while soap is being made, rhythmic pounding of a blacksmiths hammer forging a new tool and all of the stories being told by the crafters in order to draw you into their shops!! Not to mention the amazing smell of fresh meat being smoked in the brick smoke house!! It was fantastic! Steve and I were in heaven!!

Needless to say we spent 7 hours there with no breaks and still wanted to spend more time~ The crafts are amazing and the people are even better!! They all were so friendly and eager to answer any questions you have about there trade. And believe me, we had a lot of questions!! The best part is that although they sell everything they make during the day, there was absolutely no pressure to buy anything. No matter how long you sat and talked to them about their amazing work, they never even hinted that you should buy something. So of course, that makes you want to buy something from everyone!!

So after a day of village fun, we picked the boys up from camp at 4:00 and so that gave them only 1 hour in the village. We thought that might be enough but it definitely was not!! So on Tuesday evening, we were faced with a dilemma. The boys camp was for 3 days with an evening program at the end of the third. We knew that we were not going to be able to stay all day on Wednesday due to the fact that Steve's grandfather had died and Steve needed to be in Colorado on Thursday. We had looked for a flight out of Arkansas to Denver so that the boys and I could stay at the Center but the closest and cheapest flight was out of Oklahoma City on Thursday morning. So our dilemma was thus; send the boys to their last day of camp and leave at noon to be in OKC by 6:00 pm or have them skip the last day of camp and let the boys experience some quality time in the village. When we asked them their preference, instantaneously they voted on the Village. So Wednesday morning we got up and headed over to camp to tell Mrs. Mary and Andrew and Abi that we were sadly going to have to leave earlier than we had originally thought. After collecting all of the boys crafts and goodbyes and hugs from Mrs. Mary. We headed out to the village for another day of fun!!

We spent a lot of time in this shop. The potters, John Perry and Judi Munn are a married couple who work together in creating the most beautiful pottery I have ever seen! Check out their website. We bought some of the red and black pottery! It's amazing. Steve and I are going back to the Center in March so Steve can take a week long class with John!

Isaac loves to work with this hands. Especially knitting and sewing. Ms. Dana spent a good hour explaining the art of weaving on a 4 harness loom. She allowed him to work a bit on a shawl too!

The boys in the Pioneer Village... this was a mud lean-to

Instrument Shop

Playing in the old school house

This man, Mr. Hoefer, makes incredible brooms. I never thought brooms could be beautiful but his were amazing! He is also a master story teller so while he makes brooms he tells fantastic stories as well.

Playing dress up!

The Blacksmith let Isaac stoke the fire...

Then pound the metal

This man, Philip Walrod, spent the better half of the morning teaching Ethan about photography. He taught Ethan to make a camera out of a shoebox and develop paper film with salt water! His pictures like this were beautiful. Ethan has already started to make his own camera

Random family pics

I had to share this weird experience we had too. We were staying in the Center cabins that were on one end of the park while the Akins were staying in the RV park on the other end. We found this quaint trail through the woods that lead from our cabin to their RV. While we were walking, we came up on these weird little items that were randomly placed on the trail. We have no idea why they were there but they were all up and down this 1/2 mile section. All kinds of "treasure" was randomly placed on the rocks along the path.

We joked that this was the bear we were hoping to see in the mountains

There were shoes...

A tea Kettle?

This Bible Verse

All kinds of ceramic statues

An over sized weeble

A dinosaur

There were so many other things that I just didn't take pictures of. It was a little creepy and I am sure there is a story behind it all but we didn't ask ;)

So ended our second whole day of vacation. The things we came away with: a broom, two coffee mugs, a bean pot, an apron, three prints from the photographer, handmade soap, books, postcards, muscadine grape juice and amazing memories that I hope last my boys lifetime!!

Because of the funeral, we left Mt. View at about 2:00 on Wednesday to head West to Oklahoma City. But again, this post is way too long and so that will have to wait until later!!