Getting to know The Natural State

The license plate tag for Arkansas is "The Natural State," so we figured we shouldn't delay too long before experiencing some of the state's nature for ourselves. I've heard from many of my co-workers that most all of the activities around here center on either the outdoors or team sports, so while our family might not be completely up for team sports right now (Maddie's a possibility, but since she had surgery on her nose in May, things like soccer, t-ball, etc. are on the no-no list this year), a family hike seemed like a pretty good way to get introduced to nature! After hearing that the weather was going to change substantially via a cold front coming through that would finally bring us down below 97 degrees - to a lovely 86 with little humidity - I jumped online and started researching hiking trails suitable for the crew.

We opted for a "moderate" hike as as opposed to one classified as "easy." Our kids have hiked before and part of the fun for all of us is climbing the hills and not having completely flat, paved trails. Since we're in the midst of the Ozarks, finding elevation isn't too tough. I chose the Tanyard Creek nature trail north of us in Bella Vista, since it was only a 15 minute drive and promised a little bit of everything: a waterfall, a creek, a dam, and decent opportunities for learning through volunteer-created placards detailing various wildlife and plants, as well as local history.

In spite of the best laid plans...it took us forever to get out of the house. You'd think I would be used to this by now, but it still seriously amazes me how long it can take to corral everyone and everything required for a day trip with three kids. Between packing up lunches, gathering swimsuits (just in case), sunblocking everyone, and trying to find appropriate shoes for hiking amidst the very limited selection of clothes and shoes we have here in the temporary house, it just took forever. So I was a little bit exasperated by the time we finally got on the road just before noon, but the kids grew increasingly excited as the drive got hillier and hillier, and of course their enthusiasm is always contagious!

Our hike was great. We did a loop that was just over 2 miles long, and we took just over 3 hours to do it. We obviously weren't hiking the entire time - there was quite a bit to see and do along the way. There was a beautiful meadow with wildflowers and lots of creeks and pools with frogs, fish, crawfish, etc. to check out, and the kids were really interested in stopping to read every sign. Maddie, in particular, is a nature nut - so this was right up her alley. We hiked up to the dam, and while Maddie was rather disappointed that it wasn't one made by beavers (the concept of a concrete dam was just not something she was willing to accept, LOL!), later evidence of beaver activity along the creek cleared that right up. We spent a whole lot of time walking along the shale rock ledges and through the shallow creek and waterfalls created by them, which was definitely the highlight of the day. The kids found some very large spiders (eek!!) and crawfish, and we literally had to tear them away from exploring in the pools.

The downside of the trip was the fact that we started just after lunch...sort of the witching hour when it comes to young children in our house. Lyla had napped in the morning, so we thought she'd probably be ok. But Sienna was yawning on the way there, and despite my attempts to convince her to take a short power nap, she didn't fall asleep. Lyla is such a walking kind of kid that we decided to leave the Kelty carrier in the back of the van when we parked. But, given that it was nap time, it didn't take long before she was asking for a ride every now and then. I realized how out of shape I've gotten pretty quickly, trying to climb hills while carrying my 25+ pound two-year-old! And about 30 minutes into the trip, Sienna started to develop a blister. So she ended up spending a decent amount of time on Brad's shoulders, which also made his hike quite a bit of work! By the time we reached the very cool suspension bridge over the creek at the end, we were all exhausted and ready for a nap and an ice cold drink of Gatorade!

Overall, I think the trip was a big success. The big kids must have thanked us for taking them hiking at least three different times during the trip, which I usually take to be a very good sign that they are super happy to be somewhere. I think we were all happy to be doing some good solid outdoor time after the heat of the past couple of weeks; it's still such an adjustment for our kids to be inside most of the day at this time of the year, as opposed to spending 5+ hours outside a day running around and enjoying the weather!

I had absolutely zero desire to cook by the time we go home, since my day had started at 8 when I took Madelyn and Sienna to the farmers market to stock up for the week and I hadn't stopped until we got home from the hike until after 4. So we got cleaned up, did a bit more research (thank God for the internet!) and found a pizza restaurant where nothing on the menu has any nuts or is made with any ingredients made in plants that process nuts , and we loaded up once more. Ironically, the restaurant was called CiCi's Pizza, which may be spelled differently but I assume is pronounced the same way as our most common nickname for Sienna. So we all had a good laugh when Sienna took a look around the very crowded restaurant in the middle of dinner and said, "WOW, guys! Everyone wants to come to my pizza restaurant!"

Blogger's remorse...

Ok, so I'm feeling sightly guilty that my last post was so, um... negative. I'm a fairly upbeat person and it takes a decent amount to get me down, so even I was surprised at how down I got by the kids' behavior at church. I'm happy to report that the kids were back to being their normal, fun selves and mommy was in turn in much better spirits towards the end of the day on Sunday. Phew!

We've added a new post-work activity to the daily routine. If it's not swelteringly hot (which seems to be rare!), we've taken to after work bike rides, now that the bikes arrived in our partial shipment from the moving truck. Yes, that means our things have arrived here in Arkansas - and are now in a storage area somewhere, eek! In any event, Maddie had outgrown her bike and we all headed to Walmart on Sunday afternoon to get a larger one that we had promised before leaving Massachusetts. She's getting pretty decent without training wheels and can go about 30 feet, but she doesn't often choose to try without her training wheels. So for now, she's graduated up to a 16" bike with training wheels. She picked a very girly Hello Kitty model, complete with handlebar streamers. She loves it and has had no problem switching to the larger size and is now trying continually to beat her own fastest record and go as fast as she possibly can. Speed demon!

Sienna is still on her Dora bike, and she too has gotten extremely fast on that little bike! Now that we have two of them able to ride for a decent distance, up hills, etc., we can actually go on a family bike ride and feel like we're getting somewhere - which is really fun!

Lyla enjoys riding in the bike seat on the back of Brad's bike, and I have to say...I'm relieved not to have to pull that big ol' bike trailer around all the time with two heavy kids inside. While we still like to use the trailer now and again, I much prefer the full family activity with everyone on bikes. In the neighborhood we're in, we can actually ride on the sidewalks up to the community pool, etc. so we'll probably try that at some point, though the life jackets and noodles add a bit of cargo that might take some configuring!

My newest obsession...

is farm fresh, local fruits and veggies. Ever since I read "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" by Barbara Kinsolver a few months ago, I have had a whole new outlook on fruits and vegetables. I highly recommend the book if you're interested in understanding the ins and outs of farming, produce lifecyles, and sourcing foods close to home. It's a bit extreme for me in some cases, but her premise is solid and it really taught me a lot about the benefits of eating locally sourced, fresh foods.

So...OMG! The Fayetteville Farmers Market is my new favorite place! Talk about a fabulous Farmers Market. You can tell we're in the middle of farm country by the fact that there were probably 100 booths, each filled with an individual local farmer selling his or her current crops, at today's event. There were booth after booth of fresh beautiful flowers -- gladiolas, zinnias, roses, huge sunflowers. The girls were really excited to pick out some fresh carrots (greens included, of course) and Sienna went crazy over a pint of green beans. We bought a pint of baby raspberries, also known as wineberries, and all of us pretty much couldn't wait to have them so ended up having a snack of wineberries and fresh squeezed lemonade before we left for home. Add to that the local animal shelter walking around with cute dogs and puppies on leashes, as well as some very talented teenage musicians playing violin, banjo, etc., and it really felt like a perfect summer morning.

I'd love to do the gardening myself...but since I don't really have a house at the moment and - who am I kidding? - I tend to kill most all plants anyways, I'm happy to support the local farmers. And I get such a huge satisfaction out of coming home and giving the kids fresh baby carrots and fresh cucumbers that we just bought this morning from the farmers. It just seems so healthy and fresh. And everyone who knows me knows I'm kind of a nut about feeding them healthy stuff, LOL. Now if I could just get them to expand a bit more into other veggie horizons... we'll see if the intrigue of the Farmers' Market is enough to convince them this summer!

Sweet Summer Evenings

On Thursday, the weather was just so beautiful and perfect that when 5 PM rolled around and we finished work for the day, we just couldn't imagine *not* taking advantage of it. Brad and I talked it over and decided to quickly grill dinner, feed the kids, and head down to the waterfront for an ice cream. Actually in our world, having an ice cream out means stopping at McDonald's for a soft serve - since it's pretty much the only allergy-friendly ice cream option we have for Sienna in terms of restaurants. But even soft serve vanilla from Mickey D's tastes great when you're sitting by the harbor on a beautiful night (and when you're a toddler/preschooler and ice cream of any sort is a treat!).

Brad looked at me a little strangely when I suggested the idea, because I think he thought it was odd that I mentioned going down to see the boats in the harbor as an activity. But that's one of those things we did plenty of times with my parents as kids, so I have fond memories of it and seems like a real summer thing to do. The tourists must feel the same way, as the harbor and waterfront was really busy - in a good way! The kids were so well behaved and so many people stopped to smile or say how cute they were...which always has a way of making me feel so proud of them. Maddie and Sienna had fun climbing up a little tree, and checking out the boats (even spotting the pirate ship that they went on last summer, which was obviously a huge hit!). Little Miss Lyla was walking all over the place - and was very mad that she didn't get her OWN ice cream and had to share with me.

It's taken us a while to adjust to a new life since moving from Chicago, but this was one of those nights where it was fun to see this town from an adult perspective, and from the standpoint of now enjoying it with my own kids instead of just calling on my own memories of it growing up. We hit one of the gift shops before leaving (potty stop!) and picked up a couple of town t-shirts for the 4th of July for $5. Hard to believe they'll be wearing them soon! An all around fun way to kick off summer, though.

I'd love to say that the evening finished really sweetly and all, but hey - 3 kids, an extra dose of sugar, pushing a late bedtime, an unexpected delay in departure due to the (LONG) potty stop Maddie needed to make, and you figure we were headed for some meltdowns. Sienna and Lyla both had had their fill of fun summer activities, and after some major tantrums, both passed out in the car on the way home.

Nothing like a little train ride...

to spread the Christmas joy to our children!

[Side note: It's been a while since I've updated (what else is new...I need to get better about this, and I swear it's on my list of New Year's resolutions!) so I'm going to back post a number of Christmas season updates and photos. Might take me a bit, but I'll get there.]

We decided to go to Edaville Railroad on December 23rd, which is the best place I know of to get in the holiday spirit. I remember going there as a kid, and to be honest -- not much has changed. And I love it that way! Edaville's claim to fame is a lovely old fashioned heated train ride (about 25 minutes) through the woods and around the local cranberry bogs, right through their Festival of Lights. The light displays contain over 7 MILLION lights and some really fun scenes, including Noah's ark and all the animals, a Christmas Village, dinosaurs (one of Maddie's favorites!), a castle, etc. Since it was a really mild day -- but still a bit of snow on the ground -- we decided it would be a good day for a trip. We called my mom and asked her to come too, so the 6 of us headed in at about 5:30.

My mom said that my dad didn't really want to go, since it wasn't his thing...and I joked that she should remind him that it would be fun seeing Christmas joy through the eyes of a child (or three, as the case may be). But seriously, even I probably couldn't have imagined the thrill and excitement that this trip would stir up for our girls.

It took us probably 45 minutes just to get down the entrance walkway, where there were little wooden houses lining the walk, each containing a moving animated Christmas scene. Madelyn loved the one of Santa's living room with Mrs. Claus in a moving rocking chair, as well as the one with the elves making Christmas toys in their workshop. They also had a man carving reindeer, beavers, etc. out of big logs, which Sienna was amazed by. Even Lyla was thoroughly entertained by the whole night and didn't really fuss once. She is definitely at her happiest when "out and about" shopping, sightseeing, etc.!

The train ride was obviously the prime event of the night, and we all really loved it. We were near the front of the line and managed to get seats in the first car, which had comfy booth-like leather seats and nice HEAT to warm us up! Once we got off the train, the kids went on a few rides and climbed up in some of the real antique train cars. The merry go round seemed to frighten both of them, for some reason...but everything else was a huge hit.

Not to go unmentioned was the fact that it was just as fun to see how excited my mom was to watch the kids' excitement as it was to see them! It was also nice to have another set of hands, so Brad and I could enjoy a couple of rides with the older two while my mom stayed with Lyla and the stroller. Thanks, Mom!

Finally -- three cheers for Starbucks, who had set up a fabulous tent right at the entrance way and was handing out beautiful little cups of steaming peppermint hot chocolate, complete with whipped cream and sprinkles. They were giving samples both on the way in AND the way out, along with coupons to everyone for a free beverage of your choice at Starbucks when you buy one at full price. I have to say, this little touch was just the icing on the cake for a really nice holiday night. The yummy cocoa was just the right size for little kids and just the right amount to warm you up. And from a marketer's standpoint, I gotta say that it was just the right amount to make sure that I will return to Starbucks and give them some business. They're sure to get some really decent conversion out of this particular sampling tactic!