Vacation 2016: Boiling Springs State Park

This year, our summer vacation was a roughly 3.5 day tour of northwest Oklahoma.  This is part of our system of having vacation in Oklahoma one year and out of Oklahoma the next.  Due to random technology issues, I'm going to blog by site we visited rather than in chronological order.

Location: Boiling Springs State Park, near Woodward, OK
Date: 8/2/2016
Highlights - beautiful forrest, crystal clear streams, oldest Burr Oak Tree in OK

Ok, so, spoiler alert, that video is the extent of the "Boiling Springs" --- that said, do not let that dissuade you from visiting as this is a completely lovely, beautiful park with so much more to offer.

 Boiling Springs was the 3rd of the 5 State Parks we visited, but the first time the staff explained the awesome State Park Passport system.  Our kids are very excited to visit them more parks, get their passports stamps, and achieve the various medallions.  Check it out!  The staff at this park seemed over joyed to see us and is even mailing us stamps from the state parks we had already visited.  SO cool. Also, note the cool stone work. Almost all the parks we visited were built by the Civilian Conservation Corp or WPA.  That was a heck of a program and decades later the work has held up/been maintained beautifully.

 The first, short trail at this park lead to this "River" B seems skceptical.  M is still clutching her passport.  We talked about animal footprints near the bank and why this water is clearer than in some other places we have visited.

 Here is E walking back from the stream.  He spent most of the time in this park clutching the trail map.  He doesn't know how to read maps, but liked to think he was navigating.  We also tried to spur some of the hiking along by pushing him to be the leader and go a bit faster than he was at the back of the pack.

 The colors are really off in these photos, but it was gorgeous.  This was mostly the kind of forest/wood with few under story plants, but just lovely

 The streams were all completely crystal clear and spring fed into sand streams.  There were zillions of tiny frogs all over.  Everyone wanted Ro to be there as he would have adored it.  Just so many frogs and these interesting bugs with blue bodies and black wings.

 This was the lead pack, waiting for Mr. E to take the path at his own pace.

 It doesn't really fit in the photo, but this is the allegedly 300 year old Burr Oak that is 18ft around.  Allegedly the oldest Burr Oak in Oklahoma. This trail was 2 miles long and the kids just did amazingly great.

 So many trees, so many photo ops.  M and I really lead the pack on the way back as there was a little bit of Pokemon hunting happening too.  Interestingly the GPS in the pokemon app seemed to work better in most of these places than our map aps or the paper hand out maps, hmmm.

I am a sucker for a beautiful walk in a quiet wood.  It was a lovely cloudy day and a perfect day for a walk in the woods.  Oklahoma remains full of delightful surprises!

Ten on Tuesday

1.  The Wainrights spent the weekend with us.  This is a great bonus of both of us having bigger houses now.  Our kids play so well together. It is relaxed and fun.  E said his favorite part of the weekend was playing Skylanders with Donovan -- this is how they play, not using the game itself, but just fun with the awesome figures.

2.  M & Serenity played with this flowers all weekend.  We have hundreds of them and they used them for many things and even tasted them like honeysuckle.  M loved having Serenity to play with all weekend and was a little sad when her friend was gone.

3.  Saturday evening - we hosted bookclub here on short notice.  It was a fun taco fest with several ladies I don't get to see that often.  Great wine, women, and chocolate!  The book, Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman was a bit macabre for my taste, but the first short story based in sherlock holmes was great!

4. Due to all the fun Saturday night, I probably didn't get enough sleep/eat properly, but to my great surprise had a really good race on Sunday.  It didn't feel as hard as most of my training runs and was much faster than it has been. I had been hoping for a sub 40 minute run and ended up at 37min45seconds which was awesome!  I had a great time racing and hanging out with Able & Kari through the early morning.

5.  Friday evening was photos for M's dance recital.  It took many hours, but getting to spend the time all fancy and with her best friend definitely helped.  They were very cute.  One ribbon was missing from her jazz costume, which was sad, but she persevered and a short two hours later we made it home.  Meanwhile, Brent thankfully picked up the race packets and Grandma took the boys to tennis.  It takes a village!

6.  Both Saturday and Sunday we took this crew to the park for tennis, nature time, and playground fun.  On Saturday we also had a picnic.  M& Serenity did lots of building up their faerie house in the woods.  It was great fun!

7.  This snuggly little guy still loves selfies, snuggling, and taking walks/stroller rides with his mama.  Love him to pieces. 

8. Thursday, it was beautiful outside so M&E spent a lot of time playing in the sprinklers.  It was one of many outdoor days this week, including a walk to the park with the neighbors to the tennis courts yesterday.  

9. Thursday evening Brent went to Dad's night at E's preschool.  They had Star Wars doughnuts, made a tie, pretended to shave, They also played lots of other fun games and apparently played with a bulldozer, which E liked most? Sounds like a lot of fun to me!

10. Today we're worrying about tornadoes and severe weather.  We're also trying to prep for my trip to NYC.  It is a big busy day.  Hoping all goes well on both fronts and that I'm full of news next week. 

Ten on Wednesday

1.  I haven't done a Ten on Tuesday for a couple of weeks because we have little league games every Tuesday and aren't even home until 9:30.  It is probably fair to say that it will be Ten on Wednesday around here until at least late October when fall baseball is over and my busy season is winding to an end.

2.  Speaking of baseball, B had his best and first hit of kid pitch this week.  It was awesome. It was a pop fly and I was absolutely sure the second baseman was going to catch it.  Luckily, he did not. B made it to third by stealing a few bases, but sadly did not make it home before his buddy Adam struck out for the final out of the inning.  B's team continues to be basically a comedy of errors, but perhaps slightly improving.  Humorously, one kid is a son (or grandson?) of a Mathis Brother (huge Oklahoma Furniture store family) so we see a minor celeb most games.

3.  E is staying home with me a few days this week as his childcare is randomly closed.  He is a great companion.  Today, it all worked out for me to not work a bit in mid-morning and instead work later in to the afternoon past my normal hours as he slept on in his room.  Between late night baseball and much shorter naps at school (and sometimes no naps on the weekend) he is often very tired.  We are taking full advantage of his days home this week to sleep as much as possible :)  Otherwise, we play ninjas, run around in the yard, invent games with his "guys," build blocks, or read lots of books.  He now sleeps with at least one book too, just like brother and sister.

4. Lady M lost her second tooth this week.  Her pronunciation is a little funny at times and I still am not used to the new smile.  She seems to be enjoying it though.  She is doing pretty well of late with her full schedule.  This week, for the first time in ages, she returned to picking up her French vocabulary more quickly and was a great student in the lessons too, I'm told. She continues on with double dance lessons on Wednesdays and is still glowing when I pick her up--- although frequently she admits to sore feet right after.

5. So, it is busy season.  It is a little different than prior busy seasons, but what is ever the same. I am adding a bunch of new tasks in to the mix, but some of the older ones are taking less time, thankfully.  I am not, so far, having to work outrageous amounts, but there is still plenty of time for that before things calm down around Halloween. (Yes, I'm totally jinxing myself I'm sure... .sigh).

6.  Fun with the neighbors continues to be a happy theme here. All three kids (and the Korenak boys too sometimes) have great fun with the boys next door.  There is lots of bike riding, hammock time, scooters, LEGO building, minplex, and a variety of other random games.  I'm so glad it has worked out that there are friends right next door for them.

7.  There is also much, much more exploring in the front yard here at Echohollow House. At our old house, the front yard was pretty limited and slopped steeply down to the street.  Here there is a lot of side walk, yard to run, shade trees, flower beds, a strawberry patch, etc.. M&E are the biggest explorers and found a turtle in their adventuring this week.  He was a very speedy turtle, but they followed him all the way to a safe flower bed.  (Yes, E has PJs on at 4pm --- he changes back in to PJs for naps lately for better sleeping and sometimes we forget to change back...)

8.  Saturday was another day of too many activities.  One of the most tasty was a stop at the Spice Shop for Pie and spices.  The kids had a lot of pie. I managed to eat only a little, but at many of the rhubarb strawberry hand pies that made their way to our house the night before. I didn't make as many pies this year as I was working, but I hear it was a blast.

9.  B attended his very first OU Football game on Saturday with Brent. His favorite part, after some reflection, was the OOOOOOOU they do at kick off (If you've been you know what he means).  He also loved that they played Whip and Nae Nae  for the kids cam, eating funnel cake and a pretzel and getting a little of Brent's Dr. Pepper. He can recite various facts about the actual scoring in the game, but it rarely makes his top hits list. It was a perfectly beautiful day for football and it sounds like he had a wonderful time. Big thanks to Granddaddy for the tickets!

10. While they were at the football game, M and I went to a wedding shower where we got to dress up cousin Janna as a bride in a dress made out of toilet paper.  M loved it and we happily won.  Then, we attempted to sign up for Girl Scouts. It is a little ambiguous how that is all going to work as most of the troops are full, but we're giving it a shot.  Thankfully, Grammie and Granddaddy watched E during those two events.  He loved getting their full attention and I think they like it too:)

This weekend--- a slumber party, French lessons, Church/Sunday school, and maybe that's it as we need a break here. I had some other ideas planned, but am getting the sense that the troops may need to chill a bit at the house more than they need more fun things to do. Somdtimes, that is a good idea for everyone's sanity and rest. 

Relay Recap

After months of anticipation our marathon relay took place last weekend.  My sister and mom have great recaps on their blog with mostly different photos, but here is the story from my perspective. 

There are good and bad things about being the final leg in a relay.  One upside is getting to wake up slightly later :)  We did attempt to see Kari run a portion of her 1st leg of the relay, but got stuck in marathon traffic/parking woes and had to give up and attempt to catch Audra. 

Catch was definitely the right word as both Audra & Kari were at our ahead of our projected paces for their portions of the race.  When we arrived at 63rd and Classen to wait for Audra Brent went to get coffee as estimates suggested we had more than 20 minutes to wait and cheer.  Estimates were off and he missed Audra entirely.  We did get coffee, which was nice on a surprisingly overcast, almost chilly day.  

We piled back in the van and drove down to where the course turns west onto Britton.  We had only maybe 10 minutes to wait before Able arrived.  We told E to run and high five him and E took off running south, right past Uncle Able and kept going.  The rest of us laughed and got high - fives before encouraging Able on his way!

There was, realistically, quite a while to go before my turn as Able still had nearly 5 miles left to run and then Zach had a 5k portion.  However, traffic on race day is crazy, we needed to find a bathroom, and really needed to be at my spot early as everything was ahead of schedule. It took a few tries to get there, but we made it to a great parking spot with lots of grassy areas to play. 

So, we might have been too early for the kids' attention span as they got a little crazy while we waited.  What happens at hand off points is you hang around trying to stay warm and wait to hear your team's number called over the speakers.  When they call your number, in theory your teammate is close by, but not TOO close as about 5 minutes or so pass before they actually arrive so you get to pace and stare down the road for awhile. 

Zach arrived about 30 minutes earlier than our plan had predicted meaning everyone before me had really good runs... no pressure, right? 

Relay members pass along a velcro ankle bracelet that has the timing chip -- Brent captured our hand off for posterity.  Off I went feeling OK, if a bit sluggish.  The first 3/4 of a mile were at a fast pace for me, but I'd found someone who I felt I could follow/hang with for awhile and just kept up with here.  Then, I made a mistake. I had decided I would walk through 2-3 of the water stops on the course, a plan made when I thought it would be hot, but oh well.  I took a sip of water and got my breath while I walked through the stop.  When I started, pain started shooting through my right hip that has been tenatative and sore for a week or so. Very much not a good thing with nearly 5 miles to go. 

Here I am on Classen (aka the least good part of my race).  You can almost see in my pained expression that I'm just holding it together, because really what other choice is there? I do not mention this to the Korenaks and my mom when they stop to cheer me on, but a bit further I whisper it to Brent's ear before stealing a kiss and starting again.  Further down Classen, very predictably at the 2.5 mile mark, the arch of my left foot is cramping.  This happens at right about this distance every long run I do.  It takes 3 short stops to finally get it to release, but there is no way to run when it is cramping so I take the time to sort it out as I know that is the only way it works for me.  By now, I'm feeling bad for my team and myself and my hip is still bad.   I decide that no matter what I'm not stopping until after the 5 mile mark and then will take a drink of water.  

Things improve drastically as we turn in to the neighborhoods.  There is a great street atmosphere, lots of families and other runners around, and some sainted person gives me a 1/2 of a twizzler, which is apparently just what I needed.  A little extra fuel/sugar was awesome along with the street party vibe.  I found a pace I could hang with, that was a bit faster than my normal pace, but not crazy fast.  The neighborhood portion weaves back and forth, but is largely shaded with a few rolling hills.  It is nice and I keep going.  At one point I realize my pace is now way low and reassess getting "too" relaxed, but definitely feel better about the whole situation 

At the five mile mark there is a big party house with fun things happening --  I walk with water and text my mom that I am 1.2 miles out. I walk up the last hill and start toward the finish.  I was delighted to see 1/2 mile alley ahead and then my team waiting with about .2 miles go go.  

We ran in to the finish together.  They were all well-rested from portions earlier. I am glad they pushed my pace at the end as I was able to finish under the 1 hour 20 minute mark, which had been my goal, a goal I thought was lost back on the curb on Classen. The crowd was amazing cheering us in 5 hours and 19 minutes after the race began and about 40 minutes earlier than we had predicted.  All my fears about running the end of the course with traffic turned out to be irrational (as I bet you all suspected). 

For the first time, Brent and the kids were right at the finish line to cheer me in too.  I love this photo of the backs of our team shirts as they walked to meet us. 

Here we all are reunited with medals to share and show. 

This whole endeavor was to honor the memories and lives of those killed in the Oklahoma City bombing 20 years ago when we were 12-16.  It was emotional, hard, wonderful, exciting, and such an amazing experience.  Thanks to OKC for this moment and to the Palfremans and Savory Spice Shop for sponsoring our team's run.  I would love to do it again and do plan more 10ks in my future, once my hip is healed. One way or another I plan to participate in the OKC Memorial races as long as I am able and to continue to teach our kids too. 

When the race was over and we went our separate ways I was back with this guy waiting for lunch at the Wedge while our kids played nearby.  His role in the race team was watching kids, supporting me, and driving us all over to cheer, not to mention listening to all my worries, aches, and training thoughts for months. He took great care of me all through the training months and through race day.  I am so glad he is my partner in this and all things. I'm so glad to be part of this marriage, part of this family, part of this remembrance, and part of Oklahoma's unique story. 

We are Oklahoma Strong. 

Ten on Tuesday

 1.  So there were no flowergirls or bridesmaids at Able & Kari's wedding, but M REALLY wanted to be a flower girl.  She and Grandma arranged for her to sprinkle some beautiful blossoms in the church before the ceremony.  She repeated that for us later on the front walk.

 2.  First attempt at Halloween costumes.  I'll be fascinated to see if these actually make it to the big day.  E's may just fall apart as it is of questionable quality.  M changes her mind constantly, but as the actual costume was free from Aunt Audra, we'll be OK.

 3.  On Thursday, I picked up Zane and Ro from childcare and took them to B's little league game.  In case you were wondering, five kids is a lot more than three.  Brent met us immediately, which helped.  However, with my kids I pretty much let them run, Brent, Bill, Marilyn, (insert whomever else is there), and I sort of track them and watch them run by.  With Zane and Ro that system didn't work.  Ro was too little and Zane gets hurt a lot (slash all four kids get in to arguments or hurt).  Anyway, it all worked out, but was quite an exciting adventure. Glad we could help with the Korenaks day though as they so often help with ours.

 4.  Grammie and Granddaddy came to Grandparents' Day at MDO.  M gave her annual tour and loved it.  E had a hard time letting them go at the end. (This is pretty much my exact description of Grandparents' Day last year....)

 5.  Other current trends - E refuses to not have on his costume at every moment possible.  Also, E and Ro suddenly are chums and get along/hang out much more than they hit each other.  We're all considering it that a big win!

6.  On Sunday, we went to the first of this year's OKC Philharmonic "Discovery Series" of concerts for kids.   I think they did an awesome job.  There was plenty of familiar music, characters making appearances, singing, dancing, and 45 minutes total.  M is VERY excited about wearing her Elsa costume to the Knights and Princesses themed concert in February.  We saw lots of our favorite cool kids too including Ashtyn, Kyle, Alescia, Faith, Vincent, Patrick, Daniel, etc...

 7.  On Sunday, after Church, Sunday School, Concert, and some playing at Grammie & Granddaddy's (they watched E during the concert), pretty much everyone wanted to rest/nap.  M, however, did not.  She wanted to plant fall garden.  Of course I joined her.  She is so like her Great-Grandma Dotter sometimes.

 8.  It is still hot here.  Yesterday the kids ran in the sprinklers.  I was sick and sweating.  I'm ready for fall.

9.  The Blue Falcons played again last night. B did great fielding.  He played Left field and Center Left.  He also hit a single, but was sadly tagged out trying to steal third base.  Grandma, Granddaddy, Able & Kari joined us for the fun.  Kari gets a special shout-out for spending part of her birthday cheering on B!  Thanks Kari, and happy birthday!

10.  So I was sick.  When that happens things like laundry, buying food, and cleaning fall off the routine.  I'm trying to pull it back together, but also trying to get ready for my upcoming DC trip, and trying to finish getting well.  Thanks to Grandma for taking care of M for half the day today.  M loved the attention and I felt much better about all of it.

Have a great week!