I'll take this moment of not-so-quiet, wherein my children pretend to nap, to catch everyone up on our travels. We left Monday morning on our drive to St. Louis. We broke up the trip and stayed the night in Ottumwa, Iowa. Jack saw the hotel pool and said "I can't even BELIEVE they have a park indoors." We swam, tried to put a wetsuit on Jack AFTER he was wet (not a good idea), had dinner, and got settled for the night. We conned my mom (who we were caravanning down there with) into staying in the kids' room.
The next day we drove the rest of the way down to the Lake of the Ozarks. We passed many amusing signs/bumper stickers ("Wrangler butts make me nuts," "Come eat at the Poop Deck") and were invited to eat at an astonishing, for the Ozarks, number of "Asian" restaurants (Touch of Asia, Taste of Asia, Asian Cuisine).
We got down to the lake and settled into our condo (Charlie, BJ and Beth were staying in theirs and we had one in the same building.) It took Ryker about half an hour to eat sunscreen and then dump it all over the floor, get cleaned up and put into a swim diaper and then poop in that, leaving him with no more swim diapers but very protected chin and cheeks. We went swimming and had dinner at the Kellys. After the kids were asleep Chuck and I ran to Target for a few essentials and then stopped at Randy's (not to be confused with Andy's across the street) for frozen custard. We sat outside under the yellow bug lights and hundreds of dryer sheets (picture on Flickr), nose-to-nose with the SUVs and pick-up trucks parked in front of us, in which all of the other patrons were sitting and eating their treats.
The next day my mom's friend Genie brought her pontoon over to the dock by our condos and we took a boat ride. Jack was VERY nervous (pictures to come) and held on tightly to BJ's arm. She couldn't really feel her fingers, but the scenery was nice. Ryker looked a little like a drunken sailor and quickly fell asleep. We puttered around, looking at all the huge lake houses, about half of which were for sale. We ate at a restaurant, tooled around a bit more, then headed home. I neglected to put enough sunscreen on Ryker (ironic, after he almost ingested it the night before) so he looked like a leper. Or a really messed up raccoon. I also didn't have enough on myself, so I'm a bit charred.
On Thursday we came back to St. Louis. It's a three hour drive so we broke it up by stopping at a McDonalds Playplace. (Note to any adult thinking that it might be fun to get up there with the kids: It's not. It's not big enough for you. And it's dirty. And babies can't navigate on their own so you'll have to hoist them through 2-foot-high climbing areas. And your preschooler is not capable of taking your baby down the tube slide by himself. And slides aren't slippery, so you'll just sort of stutter your way down the slide yourself and then your shorts will hike up and you'll get to the bottom and your husband will be taking pictures and laughing so hard he's crying. So just skip it.)
We got Imo's (one of my favorite pizzas on Earth) and after the kids went down Chuck and I went to a movie! Exciting.
Today we met my friend Taylor at a park for lunch and let the kids run around. Now we're back at my mom's trying to rest. The kids aren't as into that as we are. Wish us luck!
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