Our Arkansas Trip

Over the weekend my little family and I took a road trip to Arkansas. We had no particular destination within the state we just wanted to see the beautiful fall trees and scenery. (This picture is one of the sights we saw.) We played the ABC game for a small part of the way up there. Michael thought you were just supposed to find each letter somewhere on a sign or license plate. I kept wondering how he was getting so many letters so quick. When I finally realized what he was doing I had to tell him we were looking for words that begin with each letter not just the letter. It was funny. In the end he still won.:)

Our first destination was Diamond Crater State Park. It was beautiful. We saw trees that literally looked as if they were glowing. The colors and beauty were jaw dropping! In those moments I saw the wonders of GOD'S creative perfection. It made me just that more in awe of HIM. We went in the the gift shop to take a look around. Asa got a cute stuffed turtle. While we were paying for it at the register Asa decided to grab a glass bowl of pretty rocks and pull them on to the floor. Needless to say, the glass bowl broke and so did many of the little rocks. They were everywhere! I was the one holding him when this took place--- I was a tad bit embarrassed. I wanted to hide under one of the little broken rocks......:) The lady assured us that it was ok.

We went outside for awhile to check out the scenery. We went and sat at a campsite and explored a bit. It was perfect! It was much colder there than here. We were wearing a few layers. Asa absolutely loved rolling around in the leaves. I loved watching him have so much fun and squealing with excitement of the new things around him. We contemplated whether we wanted to stay there or keep driving. We decided to keep driving. We are on the road quite a bit longer. We stopped and ate at this place called The Dixie Cafe. It was a cute little establishment and pretty good. We called it a night at 8 or so and got a hotel. We were going to stay in this on called to the trout motel, just BC of the funny name. (Michael's idea) I told him by the looks of it there might be trouts in our bed.:) We ended up staying at EconoLodge. We got in bed pretty quick to be well rested for Saturday. We got up at 6am and got back on the road.Destination: Ouachita Park. We kept calling it other names like OcheOche park and Quack park because we weren't exactly sure how to say it. Also, that's just what we do. We saw the 3 sister springs. The lake was beautiful. We walked around and I collected pine cones. They were so little and cute. I found a pretty rock to add to my collection. We didn't stay very long. The next place we went was Petit Jean state park. On the way there, we stopped at this cute little crystal gift show and I got an awesome mortar and pestle and a pretty pink crystal. We also stopped at a Wal-Mart to get Asa a new pair of shoes because the ones he was wearing were too small and we ended up getting one of Asa's Christmas presents. He LOVES Elmo, so we got him the new Elmo Live! He is going to be so excited!!

When we arrived at Petit Jean Park we got our lunch and had a little picnic. It was freakin' cold!!! I ended up using our picnic blanket to cover myself up. After lunch, we went and looked at the beautiful waterfall and overlook. We did a little exploring and climbed some rocks. 'Twas fun and very lovely!! Michael kept putting Asa up on his shoulders which was making me a little nervous, but other than that it was great!

This was our last major stop. On the way out we just enjoyed the beautifulness and made a few pit stops along the way. Asa was actually really good in the car. He ate so many goldfish crackers we joked he might turn into a cracker. Out of boredom Michael and I made up a few corny songs and had a magnificent sing-a-long. We can get a little weird. We had lots of laughs! It was so nice just to get away with my family, no distractions, just us.