The Long Family: Spring Break 2012

Dont you hate when you take so many pictures that it is to daunting to actually do anything with them? I seem to have this problem often. I think I have over 1000 pictures from our 7 day family get away. What in the world do I need all those pictures for???

Anyway...here goes! We left Saturday morning to start off our fun week. We drove to Hot Springs and it took us about 4.5 hours. Logan did very good and finally fell asleep about 30 minutes before we got there. He was so excited about going to Granma and Granpa's house (thats what he thought it was, it was actually a house rental and Granma and Granpa live in Wyoming). Some people came and went but for the most part we had 19 people. We were missing only one family so all the grand kids were together minus Steely!
When I say Logan had a blast that is an understatement. He basically played non stop from 8am to Midnight each day. I dont know how he did it. He was playing with his "big cousins" and loving every minute of it. He was sooo good and all the kids played so well together! Since I have so many pictures, I will go through the trip that way!

Here are some pictures of Logan on the way to Hot Springs. He looked so big in the Car with his headphones on!!

The sky was so pretty on our drive with all the pretty scenery. Blue Skies Smiling At Me is what I kept thinking!

We were the first ones to arrive. The house was AMAZING! Almost 5500 square feet, 3 stories with a media room, pool table and on the lake! It was perfect. We explored the house a little and Levi helped Logan practice casting his fishing pole since this would be his first fishing experience! Everytime Logan would hear a noise his face would light up and he would say, "Huh, Granma and Granpa are here" and run up to the house to see.

Once everyone arrived we just all hung out and visited the first night. Let the kids play while the Women went to Sams to get WAY to much food for the week. This is what the car looked like once we loaded it up and this is only what you can see because everything else was underneath.

Sunday: We woke up to pouring rain all day. We had others coming in that day so we decided to just stay around the house and relax. We had a nice breakfast and just spent time together all day and the kids played in the hot tub....Logan has been asking for two weeks if he could go swimming so this was a real treat for him. I think he probably spent at least 30 hours total in that thing over the week. Later that evening Grandpa took the kids down to the water to fish. Madi caught the first fish of the trip but let it go cause she felt bad!! O and let me mention it now....Logan pretty much dressed himself all week so that will explain the interesting outfits :)

Sunday night Levi and I were in charge of dinner so we were pretty busy cooking for so many people. Then we did it all over again for breakfast on Monday morning. It is pretty tough cooking for so many people. I was exhausted!

Monday: After breakfast we all got ready and headed to the Mid America Science Museum. It turned out to be a beautiful day and they had a nice little trail area that the kids were able to play in and feed fish. We had a lot of fun here! Then it was back to the house for dinner and more fishing. We had a car load arriving on Monday night so we were excited! Shannon, Emily, Aspen, Aca and Ivey drove 24 hours straight from Montana!!! Can you imagine?

This is Levi's sister Dani and her family

This is Levi's Step Brother Magnum and his family

This is Levi's Dad and Step Mom Sherry

This is Levi's step sister Shannon and one of her four kids

He was pretty focused and taking this seriously....he really wanted a fish.

Tuesday: We headed out on Tuesday to go hunt for Crystals at the Crystal Mine. As you can imagine how long it takes 19 people to get out of a house at the same time, we got there a little later in the afternoon than expected so instead of getting to go up to the mine we were able to dig for Crystals in the big pile of dirt that came from the mine and sift through your findings. It was still really fun and the kids had a blast. Logan LOVED wearing his boots, but he didn't really get that he was supposed to just pick up the treasures, he wanted all the dirt in his bucket. Silly kid!!

Wednesday: This was kind of a slow day where everyone was doing their own things. We had talked about going to Bath House Row and doing the mineral bath deal so four of us girls headed out to experience this crazy concept. So in fairness to Hot Spring many people that we talked to said that the Mineral Bath is the most relaxing thing you will ever do as others said there is NO WAY I would do that. Which is what the group decision was for us after we did a walk through of the Bath House at the Arlington Hotel.

You sit in here for a while and then a lady comes in with a bucket to WASH you!!

Then you take a shower! Gross!

Then you get a massage. Weird huh???

Needless to say this was not what we had in mind. We were able to find a regular spa and we all go an hour massage and spa pedicure. It was fabulous and fun hanging out with the girls!

Of couse while we were gone Logan caught like 4 fish and I did not get a picture of it! Between all the kids they caught a ton that day and saved 15 to cook with dinner.

Eating his fish he caught. Right after this he started choking on a bone!!! Grandpa forgot to tell us how to eat them!!!

Making his fish swim on the table..haha!

Thursday: We had such a busy day today. We started the day off with Tiny Town which is just as it says a Tiny Town all made by hand a long long time ago. This was really neat because it was all pully's and levers and noting electronic really making all this stuff work. Next up was the Alligator farm. Unfortunatley, the alligators were still hybernating and not doing much, I still was able to hold one and it FREAKED me out. They had a few animals you could look at too but honestly it was a little sad there and I kind of felt bad for supporting the place! Poor animals! Then we headed to have some lunch where Logan ate his first Oyster and we were off to take our Duck Tour. This was the event that Levi and I planned because we heard good things about it. It was really fun. The kids thought it was really cool that the truck went into the water, I did too actually because I had never head of a "Duck". They toured us around the historical district and then to the lake we went for more history on the town. There is actually a ton of history in that crazy town and man are they proud of Bill Clinton...geez! This day was rough on poor Logan, he was pooped and fell right asleep while we were floating through the water! To get everyone going again we stopped for some ice cream before heading across the street to Hot Springs Mountain to check out the natural springs, I dipped my toe in but it was pretty hot at 145 degrees.

This was my first picture....Rachel told me to get it together so then you got the next one :)

Friday: This morning we woke up and Levi had seen a couple of breakfast places in downtown Hot Springs that looked good. So Levi, Logan and I headed to breakfast at a small restaurant that was featured on Southern Livings Off the Eaten Path (whatever that is...haha). We had pancakes and they were really good. We also got to share a table with a nice older couple from OKC. Luckily Logan behaved ;). Once we finished breakfast everyone was still getting up and going at the house so we decided to take a drive up Hot Springs Mountain to the tower. We stopped twice along the way, the first time we took Logan through one small hiking trail and the second time we stopped at a scenic look out point. It was really neat to be able to see the entire city. We took a few pictures and then Levi got a phone call from his sister (who had left her two girls in Hot Springs with the family and we were to bring them home). Mean while, Logan was being his cute little self and knowing me cant resist a cute picture. Logan was walking along this rock ledge that was next to the little gazebo thing we were in. It was a man made ledge and just had a little slant that led down to the side walk where I was. I said, Smile and I will get your picture with the big tower. I went to take the picture and my camera woudn't work. I tried a few times and then looked down at my camera and noticed the battery died. I looked up as my kid was tumbiling backwards off the ledge onto the rocky slant. I run over there to see if he was ok and he was crying so bad I thought he had broke his arm. Levi comes running over and says, "Blood". Apparently I had blood all over my face and didn't know it. I carried him over to the car and we found the place on his head where he had a little gash. Luckily, this sweet lady was on top of the mountain with us and came over to see if we needed help. She said, I have seven kids and we have had a lot of bumps and bruises. She had a bottle of water and lots of napkins. She poured the water on the wound to try to see how deep it was and we pressed napkins on it while Logan screamed, "my head" through his tears. The first napkin I saw covered in blood made me tear up because I could not help but feel guilty for this. The thoughts were running throuh my mind so fast, Is he going to be ok, why was I not holding his hand, why do I put my child in danger for stupid photos, why am I so obsessed with always taking so many photos, maybe next time I should just enjoy the moment, what do those people think that saw that, what are we going to do, do I make him ride in the car seat if he is going to the hospital, where is the hospital, does our insurance cover this, how much will it cost. Ugh!!! So many thoughts, not to mention knowing that Levi was mad at me even though he wouldn't admit it. Long story short we had a first aid kit in the car, we had a little pair of scissors and were able to cut his hair and get a good look at the cut, it stopped bleeding and wasn't gashed open. We cleaned it up and put a bandaid on it to keep it clean and then he wanted to go in the "big building" so thats what we did. We knew we needed to keep him awake and not let him go to sleep so we had to keep him busy. Of course my camera was dead so I did not get any pictures in the tower. After all that drama had some pizza and met up with the family for some minature golf, laser tag and go karts. Logan was sooo excited about the laser tag but when we got in there the jacket was so heavy for him so I opted to wear the jacket and let Logan shoot the gun, he pulled me all over that place running around chasing people. Levi took it way to serious and got first place of course. I think we were last!!! Of course, Levi and his Dad took go karting pretty serious despite their precious passengers. They loved every minute of it. The afternoon ended back at the house where we had another great dinner and family time. We actually stayed up till 5am talking. I could not believe it was so late!!!

Drinking some Mineral Water!

I ended up having to cut that band aid out of his hair, it was soooo stuck!!!

Maybe Levi is trying to show me something....

How fun does this look. We had bubbles and they turned on the jetts and the bubbles kept growing and growing!!!

After his bath and all cleaned up. Such a tough boy!

That is a ton of Prime Rib!!!

Painting time with Grandma

Saturday: Happy St. Patty's Day. Our last day in Hot Springs. We got up and got moving around. We were going to leave around lunch time but everyone was going to the Bontanical Gardens and I wanted to go too so we held off on leaving till the evening. Plus we were so tired from our late night. Levi and I were thinking we were going to a small park kind of like the Arboretum to look at flowers. This place was massive....200 something acres, hiking trails and all kinds of stuff. No one had any water or approriate shoes but we still walked a lot and saw a lot. Logan had so much fun. I loved watching him and Levi explore the place. Levi was taking him up trails, through caves, rock climbing, letting him walk in the water.....just being boys. Logan loved every minute of it and I was loving all the pictures!!! We stayed for about 3 hours and then headed to Chick Fil A for some lunch. It was St. Pattys Day so the lemonde was green :) after lunch we headed back to the house and got the car loaded up while the kids had one last swim in the hot tub. They loved that thing. We headed out about 6:30 and the kids were perfect the entire way home.