The Adventures of a Arkansan May

For those less fortunate of you to NOT be one, that is pronounced "Are Kansan"  Like you are saying somebody from Kansas, only slightly better :)

Turns out May was a pretty exciting month around here! We started the month off in perfectly fantastic style by sharing a wonderful weekend with our dear dear friends the Hutches. We love us some Hutches. And it turns out their days of being Arkansans are numbered (bittersweet feelings here...), so good thing we did this. We enjoyed showing off our new museum, having a lunch picnic, and then after naps and playtime, heading off to the main event:

 DEMOLITION DERBY, baby!!! It was fun to see several of our friends there, too. Man, we love dem derbies. One of these days, guys, it's going to be me...

 Look at these kids!  They are growing up so much.  I could go on about how when we moved to chicago There was 3-yo J, 2 yo Cadence, 1 yo Nico, and Newborn Campbell...

The next May adventure was fishing! Since Campbell wasn't feeling well, Spencer took Cadence and Layla and Campbell and I had a day to ourselves. The girls were excellent sports but were extremely spoiled. Five rainbow trout were ascertained that morning, and the girls think that every cast ends in a fish. Each catch had to be kissed by each girl. 

Above: eeeeeeeeek! they are so cute.  I can hardly stand it. (the kids, not the fish)

After the fishing trip they stopped by the "Buss Stop" for legendarily, unneccessarily large ice cream cones.  Yum!

Spencer was beginning to feel pretty gun-ho about being rugged around these parts, so he ordered a camping trip one Friday morning. Well, it was the friday before Memorial Day and no reservations had been made, so we called our friends and asked if their Missourri property was available, which it was. Then I had the uncomfortable task of inviting my friends to get in the mood for a last minute camping trip. yeah, no luck with that :)

The camp:

The dog.

 The cuteness:

So it was just the Clives vs. the wild, which turned out to be a great night. One of my truly favorite memories of all motherhood was made that night, actually. After a weinie roast and smores (and pink and yellow Peeps, Layla will remind you), we went out into the meadow and tried to catch fireflies. They were everywhere, it was truly magical, and the girls were so in to it! Words are typically my weapon of choice, but I simply can't give words to describe this magical moment...

The next morning we walked down to the stream and fished some more. We caught a little guy and let him go, after kissing him, of course. We chased frogs. We caught polliwogs. We learned about crawdads. We got soaked. In pajamas. We headed back to camp covered with ticks.

Campbell's first fish:

We got back to camp and began taking down the tent and packing up the van. I was very overwhelmed with ticks covering my children so I changed their clothes and buckled them into the van to watch "Spirited Away". Not very rugged, but hey, remember I had Lyme Disease? Not very happy about ticks just now.

We got everything packed and ready to go and then couldn't find the dang dog. In the last hour of our adventure she had finally decided that she liked the wild and had gotten a little over-zealous about it. After two hours of looking for her ( = two hours of picking up ticks), we left. Without her. Spencer sighed and suggested we get a roomba and name it Abby.Isn't she cute?  What a sweet thing to be left in the wild.

When we got home, just as we suspected, we had a voicemail saying our dog was found. Phew! Spencer went back to get her and then we spent the rest of the day trying to get ticks off of everybody and everything. I can't tell you the total number of ticks but if I had to guess I would say about 50, including the dog's.

But it was fun and a great way to make memories, so yes, Spencer, I enjoyed it. :)

The next adventure was our Last Minute Memorial Day Party Boat Day. That was a good one! Sunday after church Mark came up with this plan to rent a 42' pontoon boat on Beaver lake and take several families out all day. So we did. Ah! What fun! Smallwoods, Hatches, Flemings, Thompsons, Clives and Wrights, who brought their ski boat. Holy Canoli, that was a great idea, guys.

There was swimming, tubing, fishing, popsicling, grilling, napping, sunbathing, foot-racing, and romantic-toasting (oh, and it WAS our anniversary, you know that, right?).

 
That night Spencer and I went out to celebrate our anniversary and went to bed at like 10. Ten! that's some anniversary date :). But we were pretty tuckered. Not as tuckered as we were going to be.

The traditional anniversary picture, above.

You see, there is a magical week in the world of Walmart called "Shareholders'". In this week, hundreds of Walmart associates and shareholders descend upon our vast metropolis of Bentonville for the annual Shareholder's meeting. But, since Walmart owns the souls of most performers, via their labels who depend on Walmart for a great deal of their business. It's an exciting week.


This year the free concerts were Carrie Underwood and Cheap Trick opening for Aerosmith. Free, ladies and gents. So of course we went. And had a great time! All the shows were REALLY good.

I couln't help myself from getting a little "dolled up" for Aerosmith.  My shirt says "I [Fender] 80's".  It was perfect for both the concert and the Demo derby.  good stuff.

So, that's exhausting.  Plus my kids weren't sleeping at night.  So yesterday my eyeballs were like a zombie's.  Red and drippy and heavy. And my body was slow and heavy.  And my brain was all but non-responsive.  And we went to bed at 8:45.  And that is how you end the Adventurous month of Arkansan May.

And now a word from our sponsors...

Stay tuned for more from our series "What Do Irresponsible Parents Do", after these messages....


...because my kids have been really cute lately.  And we've done some fun things lately.  So I wanted to jot a few notes down.  Then I 'll get back to the slide-show-travelogue-of-the-future.

So the other day Layla said to me: "Mommy, can I have knowledge for breakfast?"

ahehe, where did that come from?  I don't know.  But a simple no wouldn't suffice.  We settled on having it for lunch instead, since it was mid-morning and breakfast was past.

  Sometimes she gets reeeeally mad at me, and then she yells, "DIE!!!!!!!".  I truly don't know if she actually is saying "die" or if it is a coincidence, but that's some coincidence, eh? 

As you probably know, Layla is 100% Spencer.  She is a natural-born hoot-n-holler-er.  Seriously.  She will just start screaming and cheering for anything that makes her happy.  If you've ever heard Spencer when he's excited... chuckle, chuckle....

Campbell.... oh, campbell...  here are some quotes from her (with a warning that they are rife with rudeness):
     Listening to a song in the car, "Mom, is that a tuba?" 
Me: "Uh, yes, I think so..." 
Cam: "Mom, I fink a tuba sounds like a buuuutt".  She says it like that kid says "blood" in that old youtube video, remember? like the "u" sound is like a long grunt almost. Oh, and we are NOT allowed to say that word in our house, so you can imagine my shock.

(I got out of the shower one day to see Campbell, who was very proud and excited to show me this.)

     Another time in the car, "Oooops, sorry, Mom.  I 'fowted' (farted) in my buuuuuutt."  Me: "Campbell, where did you learn those words?  We don't ever say those words, they are not polite.  Who taught you to say those words?"   Campbell thinks about it, "Mmm, I fink it was Jejush (Jesus)".  

After suspecting it for a few weeks, I've concluded that Campbell thinks of Jesus like an imaginary friend.  She has been known to blame Him for things, to insist He doesn't get sat upon, etc.  I've decided to be more explanatory about our relationship with Jesus. 

Cadence is growing right up.  Ahh!  I can barely stand it.  I can also barely stand to have to keep her busy all day everyday, now that school is out.  Well, I love it, but it's hard...  She is serious about chore lists, though.  Give that girl a list of chores and she gets in the zone.  She rarely complains about chores and is a hard worker most of the time. 

As you know, she's also serious about her wardrobe.  The pink-punch-in-the-face above was her outfit (and hairdo) this morning.  All her. 

This morning I got an email from soon-to-be-Aunt Fan asking what colors and sizes of traditional Chinese dresses do the girls want.  I asked the girls what colors they wanted and without further guidance received these replies: Cadence: coral, Campbell: turquoise, Layla: "pink".  They were all quite sure and came up with it on their own.  I thought it was fitting for my girls.

Here's a little part of Cadence's prayer the other day, which I thought was cute: "...And please bless us to always have the opportunity to play, and that we won't get sick for 2 years.  Or 1 year if it is your plan...."

 Oh, little Clives.  You drive me crazy.  And you are so cute.  And your little faces make me want to freeze you with a freeze-ray and keep you forever in a little glass case so I can keep you in my purse and you'll never grow up...

Oh, was that a little creepy?  I meant it like a normal person...  yeah...

   

what do irresponsible parents do for fun? pt. 1

They leave their kids home with grandparents who are just dying to spoil the kids for a week while they go off and leave the country.  It's actually pretty awesome!  Try it!  Oh, unless you are into being "responsible"...whatever that means.

So, you may or may not be interested in our travels to Vienna, Budapest, and Romania last week, but I am, and hey, it's my blog (aka, memory, since my internal one is kind of like a paper towel instead of a sponge.)

So what follows is going to be an awful lot like when people used to gather their friends and family around and make them sit around for hours looking at a slide show and listening to backstories.  Only you don't have to feel trapped.  You can leave, just don't tell me.

First I have to say that Spencer is the travel genius, here.  And that his parents were the travel heros.  Thanks a kajillionbajilliongoogle-plux to them for being willing to take time off and travel here and give our kids so much love and care for us.  The kids had an absolutely wonderful time, and wonder why we can't just go do whatever they want to like apparently they did while Gramps and Mamaw were here.   Thank you thank you thank you!

PART ONE: VIENNA

We began with 24 hours of flights/layovers and found ourselved in Vienna on Easter about midday. We watched the snow fall around us in our light jackets and thin layers that were packed for 50-60 degrees. Brrr.

To combat the cold, we decided to duck into a pastrie shop

 each time we couldn't feel our fingers any longer.  It was a much better plan than buying gloves and coats.  In fact, unlike our typical travel but much to my own pleasure, much of our tourism involved food.  Here is Spencer with a "weinerschnitzel".  Sadly, until that day, I thought it was a hot dog.  Also, not to be forgotten was the hot chocolate.  Oh, it was the real deal. 

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Below, Spencer sinks his teeth into a curry sausage.  both delicious and horrifying at the same time, truly a work of art.

Stephansdome, or St. Stephans Cathedral.  Too bad it's such gloomy weather, you can't see how amazing it is in this picture.

The interior of Stephansdome was incredible.  The walls and ceiling were elaborately carved stone, it was so expansive, and quite bright, for being such a large, old cathedral.  We attended Easter Mass there that evening but after all the travel and not finding it as easy as Spencer did to sleep on the planes, I did find it easy to fall asleep while standing up at Mass.  So we didn't stay as long as we hoped. 

 The view from the steep, slick, stupid spiral staircase that leads up a tower.  The things I do for love.

Oh, look below: that's me going down the staircase carefully.  Turns out that until this moment, my own husband never knew I had an unreasonable fear of stairs.  I might have been hyperventilating for much of this climb.

 Just a couple of honeymooners at Stephansplatz!

 Okay, Spencer might have to correct me, but I believe this is one view of Hofburg, which was a Hapsburg Dynasty Palace.  There were so many amazing buildings and they were so expansive sometimes it was hard to know what you were looking at.

 Look at this handsome guy.  Unfortunately he's in way fewer pictures than I am because 1) he is better at manning the camera and 2) he finds my awkwardness in front of the camera amusing. 

See below:

 That's just one of dozens of sculptures that pepper this city.  Can you imagine living in a city where you are surrounded by astounding, historically significant, artistically singular architecture and sculpture?

 Below: Ok, maybe my favorite thing in Vienna was the Hofburg.  The imperial palace has been turned into a handful of museums, including the "Silver Collection" which you will see a few items from below, and the "Sisi Museum", which tells the story of Empress Elisabeth, wife of the final real Hapsburg Emporer of the Hungarian-Austrian Empire, and the "Emperial Apartments Museum", where you get to actually see part of the living quarters of the Emperor and Empress and get a feel for what their lives were like, and how their quarters were used and decorated.   It was as cool as any museum can get, I thought.  I'd rather take my kids to see a real palace than Disneyland anyday, I think.  No pictures were allowed in the second and third museums, though, sorry!

 Above: this doesn't seem that impressive, but note the people who were incidentally in the picture and you get an idea of how huge it is.   below: oh, just a centerpiece.  Interesting note: When having a royal dinner party, whenever the king finished, the course ended and was cleared for the next course, so the king was very careful to watch his guests and made sure not to put down his fork until all his guests were finished eating.

 Sneaky, sneaky, sir.  Spencer took this contraband picture of a bust displaying the Empress Elisabeth wearing a replica of the royal jewels worn at her wedding or coronation (both were displayed, can't remember which this was).  The jewelry is "no longer in existence".  hmmmm, would love to know what happened to it.

Sometimes in Vienna large staircases are painted like impressionist canvases.  It's no big deal.

Below: The Staatsoper, or State Opera House.  Apparently every region has one of these around there and they are palaces in their own right, really.  So fancy.  Sooo fancy.  Also, I was surprised to find that my singing didn't attract anybody who wanted to pay me to perform. 

 Below, a truly classy gentleman in a truly classy joint (staatsoper).  We went to see the ballet "Anna Karenina".

 One of the most memorable parts of that night was getting to our seats.  We were in the top balcony, second row.  The box was shared with only about 5 other people.  The lights lowered, and the curtains parted, the orchestra began to weave a story of emotion and what sounded like a plot but... if there were dancers, we had know way of knowing.  We stood.  Spencer leaned back against the wall and as far foward he could.  I stood on my chair (classy, right?), leaned over, holding Spencer's shoulders so that I didn't fall into the orchestra 3 stories below.  Hmmm.... Oh, I see-- some are going in and out of backstage, stage left.  Wow, this is great.  literally could see NOTHING. 
Spencer then admits to me that he paid a whopping $8 dollars for our tickets.  But still, who sells tickets for any price for seats that allow NO view at all of the show?  What the heck!?!  We went to complain and were told, "well, you can watch it on a moniter in a lobby."  Uh, yeah, thanks.  We finally convinced them to let us stand in the standing section in the back, where the view was maybe not great, but a million times better than it was.  We enjoyed the rest of the ballet and decided next time to pay a little more money for a good view :)