Blackwell Family: Arkansas June 6-14, 2016

So...

If you've ever wondered how long it takes to get to Dumas Arkansas from Utah, I have one thing to tell you...,

It's NOT a short trip.

We started our journey at 5:00a.m. on Monday June 6th, and we arrived in Arkansas the following evening. We made some stops along the way for food (like Max's fat stack of pancakes below), and bathroom breaks. We even stopped for a half hour in Colorado to wait for some rocks to be cleared. At least there was a cool maintenance truck to climb on while waiting.

Finally, after driving through three states, we arrived.

Jerry and Jodi were waiting out on their front porch for us.

Right away as we got out of the car, the kids ran to the back yard where the dogs and chickens were. They loved it!

The next morning the girls were happy to help feed the chicken's and collect their eggs.

Breakfast of champions...

Banana Moonpies

After breakfast, we headed over to the farmers market.

The town decided to do a carrot camp for the children during the summer, and Mrs. Jodi was one of the helpers, or maybe she was mostly in charge. Either way, we tagged along and invited ourselves to have some fun with the locals.

(The actual market...)

As we waited for children to arrive, Mr. Jerry entertained the children.

And Juli helped Jodi, while I stood around and took pictures.

They are preparing a paper mache station.

The activity of the day was papering giant carrots to display at the market.

There were lots of fun things to do!

Here's a picture of some of our new friends.

The kids also helped plant a tree

Then we played games

(I love this picture of one of the kids stealing Jodi's chair)

When we got home from the farmers market, the kids discovered that there was a zip line in the back yard. They loved zipping down, and eventually trying to drop a tennis ball into a bucket as they zipped.

Lunch: Peanut butter and homemade peach jam

After lunch the kids, (and the adults,) played some ski ball.

We were all hungry to beat the high score.

The girls set up some horses and stables, which eventually took over the whole down stairs.

They also had barbies with tons of outfits, and they played pretend every spare chance they had.

(I even snuck a picture of the boys getting in on the action one night.)

There were so many churches in Dumas, and one was, I think was, a first united baptist church.

While the kids were at carrot camp, one of the sweet mom's invited the kids to VBS, or Vacation Bible School. It was interesting for the kids, (and me,) but overall, they enjoyed the new songs they learned.

Thursday, we got up and drove out to the Arkansas post.

As we drove, we couldn't help but notice how flat, but gorgeous, the land around us was. So rich with different types of crops.

While we were at the Post, which is a National Memorial, the children had the opportunity to try to become junior park rangers.

(Max snuck into this costume that was hanging in a corner with other costumes. I had him sneak through the visitor's center to take the photo on the right, below.

While out by the lake, we picked up a friend...

We've never had this type of friend over before, so we all kind of freaked out.

Luckily, Juli and I had both just recently seen a video on how to remove a tic with water and a Q-tip.

Now we didn't have a Q-tip, but we did have a cotton ball, and some water.

It took a little while, but we got it out.

AND,

after the tic was taken care of, the children took their tests, and completed their Junior ranger swearing in. They thought it was pretty cool!

On the way home from the post, we stopped into Hoots for some good ole' BBQ.

Thank you Queenie and Gramps!

After Hoots, we took the kids to a museum where they learned about the Japanese-American Internment camp that was established by the U.S. after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

The kids acted interested.

There was also a train museum across the way.

And this Grocery store is famous for it's appearance in the movie Mud. Staring Matthew McConaughey, and Reese Witherspoon. One of Jodi's neighbors was just infatuated, and star struck with the actors as the filmed the movie in this small town.

(We were going to the store for more ingredients to make more homemade ice cream)

Friday Jodi took us over to her job at...

Her boss (the designer) let us each take home a mug.

They are awesome!

After the mud mill, we headed out to take the kids to Transylvania Louisiana.

We wanted to get them in as many states as we could, so we had lunch at The Dock, before heading over to Mississippi.

Lunch was good, but the kids and I were too afraid to order anything different.

We almost ordered Gator Balls, but then we chickened out.

Sophaia and Joe, enjoyed feeding bread to the wild life below the dock.

After lunch, we headed across the Mississippi river.

After watching the movie Sahara in the car (also a Matthew McConaughey movie) the kids were excited to travel to Vicksburg, to see an actual ship like the one in the movie.

We got to Vicksburg with just enough time to take the driving tour of a civil war memorial park

This is the ship,(or parts of it)

Joe wanted to shoot out of the cannon

One of the highlights of our trip was hitting up Baskin Robins on the way home from Mississippi.

Sophaia crashed in the car for a minute

We stopped to take pictures as we crossed borders

The sun setting was absolutely breathtaking.

These pictures cannot do it justice.

As the sun neared the horizon, it truly appeared to be a bright orange ball of fire.

Saturday started off just right...

Waffles with syrup and cool whip!

Isabel got a new shirt to represent Dumas pride

That morning we got to see the storm shelter...

SWEET!!!

While the kids explored the storm shelter, I was able to set up a surprise anniversary treat for Jerry and Jodi. They had to have us there on their anniversary so Juli thought it would be nice to do something for them. We decided on sparkling cider, and a John Dear tractor.

After all the toasting, and playing was said and done, I think I can safely say that they loved their surprise!

Gramps had to go to some meetings for Stake conference all the way up in Little Rock, so he asked Joe to give him a hair cut.

Even though Joe was a little nervous... he did a pretty great job!

And what do you do after haircuts?

You go swimming, of course. One of Jodi's neighbors let us go with them to the country club pool.

The kids loved it, and I loved taking their pictures.

Those clouds tho!

After dinner that night, we went to sonic for slush floats.

They were yummy!

After grabbing a treat, we decided to go take a picture in front of the Dumas sign for proof!

Sunday was stake conference, so we hopped in the car, and drove 45 minutes to the chapel, I mean, the half-chapel ;)

We enjoyed it!!!

On the way home, Jerry drove us past this real live haunted house.

I guess people from all over come here every halloween just to go through it.

We also got to drive past the catfish farm on the way home.

Pretty nifty.

We were so sad to leave our dear friends in Dumas.

We took one last picture in front of their mansion, and then said our goodbyes.

Love you Cochrans!

Another border sign

We wanted to get into one more state so on the way home we dropped down into Texas for dinner.

As we got closer and closer, the clouds were looking a little crazy, but at the same time...

...ahhhh

yet another sign

We got into the small town of nowheresville, and decided to stop at the local Dairy Queen.

They didn't have corn dogs, which was depressing, and then I remembered that they wouldn't have fry sauce either. Totally depressing!

Anyway, while we were eating, we noticed that the news station had just issued a tornado watch, and a torrential rain storm. As we looked at the map of the storm, we noticed that the storm was directly over our travel route.

DANG!

As we watched the storm (for just under an hour), we noticed that Sophaia's arm hair's were standing straight up and collecting water.

When we decided that it was safe to get on the road, well... we got on the road.

The sky was crazy amazing!

So bright and beautiful to the West, and dark with lightening strikes to the East.

We arrived at my friend Monica's house at around midnight, and got a few hours of sleep before we volunteered to help with farm chores the next morning before getting on our way.

It was a beautiful morning, and the kids had a blast helping out