Camping

We always go camping at this resort in Kansas, Oklahoma called FLint Ridge. I guess I've been going there since I was about 12 I think. My dad's family; grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins would all go with us, they all owned land out there (you can only use Flint Ridge if you are a landowner there). But slowely through the years, everyone sold off their land and started going other places. Soon when I was an older teenager, I was the only one in my family that still went. I would just pack up friends and go each year. My parents wanted to sell their land, they decided they liked Eufaula better, but I begged them not to. Finally when I was 21 they signed over and gave me the land for my birthday. So I have been taking my kids there every since, all of them went in utero, and all of them went as babies! I love that I have so many memories there. It is such an awesome place.

Alan got to take vacation last week and we went tues-thurs.

Its so beautiful too, here are a few shots of just the scenery. It's so nice to be surrounded by lush greenery!













It was just amazing. The weather was in the 80's the entire time, it was beautiful! It's so nice just to get away from everything! I took over 200 pictures, so this blog will be long, lol. I do my best to edit sometimes, but I just feel like I've got to show it all (although I promise I didn't show all 200 pics in this blog)!! And these activities are in no particular order to when we did them, just all thrown on here!














My friend Lori from UCO and her family (husband Gary, kids Sam & Mariah) joined us on the second day. She is the sweetest person I have ever met! She has been in at least one of my classes each semester since I have been at UCO and she is student teaching this next semester too. I am so lucky to have met her, she is an amazing friend. We had such a good time camping with her and her family!!





Roman just belongs in the outdoors, I swear he just thrives on it! He had so much fun with his frogs, and crawdads and minnows and perch, and whatever other critters he coulr get his hands on!











Starla's favorite activity while we were there was throwing rocks into the river. She would do this for like half an hour sometimes, just over & over, happy as can be! Sometimes she counted the rocks, sometimes she said teh ABC's with each rock she threw, sometimes she just zoned out and threw them. I bet she threw over a hundred rocks! We spent a lot of time playing at the river. It is really close to our camp site, we just walk down to it whenever we want!

This is the illinois river. They do canoe trips down the river during the weekend, but not the week, so we didn't get to go.

















From the river, if you look up you can see the 'round house' (it's actually called the club house, but I've been calling it the round house since I was a little girl!).




And here it is right up on it!



It has the most beautiful view when you are up there looking down! There are hiking trails near it too, which make it neat!





Of course camping food is always so much fun too! We like cooking on our little stove and in the campfire!

















Lori & Gary made us the BEST meal on the second night, it was sooo yummy! They were so nice, serving us first and making sure we had everything. I felt like we were the guests when they were out guests!





Alan took all the kids (and when I say all the kids, I mean all the kids from the neighboring campsites came too!) down by the river and shot off a bunch of fireworks that we brought.

Sam was cracking me up with his sparkler dance!





The best part I think were the 12 little tanks we got, and the bags of army men. They set all the men up, half on each side, put 6 tanks against eachother, and started war!












There is soooo much to do there. They have parks, mini putt-putt, baskeball courts, tennis courts, a rec room with ping-pong, fooseball & pool, a golf course,......





















If you look in almost the center of the pic, towards the left a bit, there is what I believe to be a beaver (it had a flat tail anyways!). Everytime Starla and I went to the little park, it would scurry out!! I think he must like playing on the swings....





We rode paddleboats on Clear Lake









Starla threw a giant 2 year old fit when I wouldn't let her ride in the back of the boat by herself (although as you can tell from the pics, she eventually got to!) and Lori saved the day by giving Starla a cute pair of sunglasses her daughter had outgrown and some oreos!





There are 2 pools at Flint Ridge, so we spent time at each of them while we were there! Starla turned into a regular waterbaby, not wanting me to hold onto her at all, and jumping in and going underwater!!













Alan brought the BB gun and taught Bourbon how to shoot it, Bourbon thought that was the coolest thing ever.




Roman's favoite activity, and where he could be found anytime we were at the campsite, was catching crawdads in the creek. The little creek runs next to the entire camp site, so there'a lots of area to play in. It ends at the cute little waterfall/pool area though, which was my favorite place to play as a child when we went there.













We had such a great time, I can't wait to go back again!