Spring Break

It is always a dead give-in at the Eddins house when we are getting ready to leave on a trip...the minute the suitcases get brought upstairs the dogs start to pout!  Baxter is by far the worst, he barely even makes eye contact with you because he is so disappointed that you are leaving.  More often than not, we take them to the kennel where they have lots of fun playing with other dogs, but occasionally we are able to have someone stay with them at the house, which is so nice so it doesn't upset their normal routine!  My cousin Jorden had agreed to watch the two of them while we made our way to Oklahoma for Spring Break.  

 

Pouting

 

One adjustment that our family has had to make is our vacation planning.  With Mike in school (especially) and Lila in pre-school it is a bit more important to have them home consistently.  So, with Spring Break coming up we had a decision to make...what should we do?!  We originally talked about going to Cabo, but with flights and different issues with dates, we decided that wasn't going to work, and probably for the best as I am sure it was packed!  How did we decide on Oklahoma?!  Well, my Mom lives there 80% of the time, we have never been there, and it was easy to get there!

 

We decided to leave on Friday after Mike was done with school and head to Kansas City and stay the night as it was the halfway point.  We hadn't been on a long car ride with Lila since our trip to Nashville, so we wanted to be sure to ease into it.  We stayed at a hotel right down on the Plaza, it was perfect.  The weather was also wonderful, it was 80 degrees when we pulled into KC!  We got a good nights sleep and were ready to hit the road first thing in the morning!

 



Waiting for the car!  Looks thrilled!

We had about 4 hours in the car from Kansas City to Tahlequah, which is in Eastern Oklahoma.  The drive was really pretty easy and we met Mom and Terry in town to have lunch before heading a few more miles into Park Hill where their home is.  The house looks over Lake Tenkiller which makes for an absolutely beautiful view!

Looking out over the lake from the front of the house

We got settled in that afternoon and then had dinner out that night at a restaurant called KTK for Terry's birthday (a little belated)!  We were excited to give Terry his birthday present...tickets to see Willie Nelson at the Paramount Theatre in Cedar Rapids!  Just another reason for them to come "home!"

One nice thing about spending the time in Oklahoma was that we didn't have a schedule.  There were things that we wanted to do, but we didn't have so much to do that we needed to maximize each hour.  We spent our mornings waking up as we pleased, meeting in the kitchen to chat and decide how we were going to spend our day.  It was nice, as it allowed Lila some time to run around and be a kid before we asked her to get in the car some more and "behave!"

Getting ready!

Lazy morning!

Sunday was a cold and rainy day, so we took advantage of that day and bummed around.  It never fails that I get sick the minute I go on a trip and this trip wasn't any different.  On Saturday as we were driving into town, I started to get a sore throat.  Lila had a cold, too.  When we arrived, Terry was also feeling a bit under the weather, so with the gloomy day, we hung out, took naps and tried to rest up.  Sunday night we went to Bill & Patty's house, dear friends of my Mom and Terry's, they were wanting to host us for a traditional St. Patrick's Day dinner!  Their hospitality was wonderful, with meeting them only one other time, they welcomed us like family!

With Sunday being a bit of a recuperation day, we knew we needed to make the best of Monday.  We got up, got ready and got out the door!  Mom took us around Tahlequah and the surrounding area to show us some of their favorite spots! 

Lila is a sucker for corn on the cob!

The downtown area in Tahlequah is really cute!  It is a college town, home to Northeastern University.  While the University is bigger than Cornell College, it reminded me a lot of Mount Vernon with cute little shops and local restaurants.  One place we were sure to visit was Mom's yoga studio...Studio 108.  She just recently invested in this studio that she was taking classes from, and she was excited to share it with us. 

Grammy & Lila @ the Yoga Studio

After we visited the downtown area we made sure to stop by Braum's to get some hand dipped ice cream!  The cones were delicious and rather large, our little girl had no trouble finishing every last drop of her cookies and cream cone!

YUM!

Happy to be together!

After ice cream we stopped back at the house to pick Terry up so he could come along with us while we visited a few other important stops!  The first stop was to visit Grammy's horse, Spirit.  Lila is fascinated with horses and was excited to see Grammy's very own horse!  Spirit is a beautiful girl who was happy to have visitors!

Loving on Spirit

Our next stop was at my Mom and Terry's new RV.  I would hardly call it an RV, it is really a decked out tour bus!!!  It wouldn't be my ideal way to travel, but if I had to travel that way, this would be the way to do it, it is very nice!  Lila loved the captains chairs in the front, looking out the big windshield!  She kept asking Mike to sit in the drivers seat and pretend to go on a drive with her!  When they have everything loaded up, including the trailer they pull with the car in it, they are 72 feet long!!!

Watch out!!!

What the RV looks like with the trailer on the back!

 

We then headed to Terry's development, Terry's business is excavation and land development. He has a very large piece of property on the lake that he has been developing for 20 years.  He has put in roads, homes, ponds, etc.  It is really impressive!  It is a continuous work in progress, but he has come a long way and it is really something to be proud of!

 

Our final full day in Oklahoma was spent in Tulsa!  Tulsa has a zoo and an aquarium that we thought would be fun to visit, but with limited time we decided to do the zoo since Lila had been to the aquarium in Chicago.  It wasn't as warm as we were hoping, but it wasn't raining, so we moved ahead with our plans!  We got to the zoo around 10:30 and it was packed!  A line formed outside of the gates that went on and on for a long time...apparently other people had our same idea!

 

 



At the zoo!

 

Leading up to our visit, Lila wasn't so sure about seeing all the animals.  She was excited to see them, but a bit concerned that they weren't locked up tightly!  We had to reassure her that everyone was nice and secure in their cages and even then she wasn't all that excited about getting out of her stroller, she could see everything just fine from there, thank you!

 



 

Ready to see the animals!

 

While the zoo wasn't overly big, it was a very nice zoo!  They had a great mix of animals to see and activities for the kids and families to participate in.  Mike and I commented that the last time we had been to a zoo was the San Diego Zoo, many years ago, so this was just as fun for us as it was for Lila!

 

 



Elephants

 

Rhinos



Zebras

Giraffes

These were by far a fan favorite!

Lions - "Just like Lion King," according to Lila!

 

After the zoo we went and had lunch and then spent some time at the mall in Tulsa, a trip just isn't the same without doing some shopping!  We had one last surprise for Lila and that was going to the Disney Store at the mall.  Lila is a Disney girl, particularly the princesses, but she really loves anything Disney!  She picked out a pretty Belle doll and dress as her souvenier!

 

Before we knew it, it was Wednesday and time to load up the car and head home!  We left Oklahoma a little after 8:00AM which would put us home sometime between 6:00 and 7:00 PM with a few bathroom breaks and a stop for lunch!  We had no reason to believe that Lila couldn't handle the car ride, but it is a long time for adults to sit in a car for that long, so we were aware that it might be tough for a 3 year old!  Once again, she impressed the heck out of us!  She was a trooper!  We had a few things to keep her busy, but even when she didn't want to watch a show or color, she was happy and content to just ride along! 

 

 



Enjoying some in-car entertainment!

Sleepy girl!

We pulled into Cedar Rapids around 6:30, while it was a long day in the car, the drive was really easy, we were fortunate enough to have great weather both ways.  We were all excited to get home and see the puppies.  While the dogs are excited to see Mike and I, they are always even more excited to see Lila and vice versa, she loves her puppies, too!
 

Welcome home!

We had a wonderful time in Oklahoma and I imagine that we will be back in the future, maybe next time we will plan it better so we can enjoy some time on the lake!