Lake of the Ozarks!!!

We have not had a family vacation, except for visiting extended family, in a very long time! We went to the Kansas City Temple Open House two years ago for a weekend, and before that our last vacation was when Bailey was two months old! It was time! We wanted to go somewhere new, relaxing, and decently close by. We decided to try out the Lake of the Ozarks. We were so excited that Grandma and Papa Bowman got to come play with us!!!

Reader Warning:

This post will most likely, okay most definitely, be a REALLY long one. I have so many great memories that I know I will forget if I don't write them down. So, because of my terrible memory, you get to wade through way too many details to get to the good stuff... The PICTURES! Some of the details might make your side hurt from laughing though, just FYI  : ) Okay, back to the vacation...

We rented a sweet condo on the water for a few nights. It had a deck with incredible views where we spent a majority of our time! The pics in the middle are a panoramic-ish view from the deck. We could sit and watch wave runners, water skiers, and speed boats on the lake. The sunset was beautiful! It was so incredibly relaxing. JUST what we all needed! No rush rush, just chill!

 We made a trip to Walmart for groceries once we explored our new home for the week and got settled in. This was exciting only because we had been living in a hotel for weeks with only a mocrowave to cook anything. I was THRILLED to have some real, homemade food! I was even more thrilled that I had Jim and Juanita in the kitchen cooking too!!! While we were shopping we got sidetracked in the Fishing department. We went home with WAY too much food for seven people to eat in four days, a couple little fishing poles, and all the gear we needed to catch some fishies!

We didn't get to fish the first night, but the next morning, bright and early, when I asked Kenz what she wanted for breakfast, she said, "I don't want breakfast, I WANNA GO FISHING!!!" About the same time poor Braxton was puking his little guts out. TERRIBLE timing, Stomach Bug! Seriously? Battling high fever, body aches, calling on dinosaurs, NOT on our vacation to-do list! It just breaks my heart when my kids are hurting and I can't fix it. Seeing them miss out on fun times and memories makes it that much worse! He kept moaning and saying, through his tears, things like, "This is the worst vacation EVER!" It sounded very similar to the last time Kenz had the stomach gunk... "This is the worst Christmas EVER!" I can't say that I disagree with them when putting myself in their shoes : ( Good thing it usually only lasts 24 hours! Vomit is awful!

Rich and I took turns nursing our sweet boy and making sure the girls still had a good time. I took Kenz and Bailey fishing off the boat dock outside our condo. It was a RIOT! I should write a graphic novel about those couple of hours. It would fly off the shelves. It was that freaking hilarious fishing with these nut jobs! Papa came down to join us and Grandma watched from the balcony, looking up from her book when she heard Kenz scream in fear, because that meant she had caught a fish and we were trying to force her to touch it! NOT... MY... KID!!! (Or Rich's either, for that matter). Bailey absolutely LOVED fishing too! She caught her first one super fast and squeals of joy just kept coming the more she caught! Eventually Bug and I got hungry for lunch but NOTHING could convince Kenz to hang up her pole. That girl fished for over THREE HOURS SOLID! We forced her to come inside at that point and she was not happy about it. The next day, even though he still wasn't feeling 100%, we let Braxton go fishing. We couldn't keep him cooped up any more. Poor kid! It was so sad seeing him on the balcony, pale faced with a puke bowl at his side, looking down at all the fish the girls were catching the day before : ( He was in heaven sitting on the dock with Dad and Papa, feet dangling in the water, finally catching some fish! We had planned on doing all kinds of fun things while in the Ozarks. Go karts? Movies? Arcade? Mall? Nope! All my kids wanted to do was fish! So that's what we did! My favorite pic is the bottom left... Kenz has her head buried as deep as possible in Papa's arm pit, her arm fully extended with pole in hand, because that is as far away from the fish as she could get! WUSSY! I also love the super nervous look on her face in the bottom right pic. She wouldn't look at the camera because she had to make sure dad wouldn't swing the fish any closer to her than it already was. DOUBLE WUSSY!

 Another activity the kids loved was going to the "beach." I hear this word and think white sand and palm trees. Not so much... It was an area of the lake front that had been cleared and lined with tiny gravel pebbles (think stepping on a million itty bitty legos). The kids didn't care though. They had a blast! There was a little playground, beach chairs, and a zero entry lake to play in! The best part of the "beach" was the rides, aka "DADDY, FLIP ME AGAIN!" And he did... over and over and over and over. His arms were killing him! He threw them SO high up the air that Grandma and I had a hard time watching! "AGAIN! AGAIN!" Braxton loved flipping. His faces were cracking me up! McKenzie was not a flipping fan. Then again, she wasn't a get in the lake beyond her ankles fan either. "THE FISH ARE BITING ME!!!" Again... WUSSY! Rich convinced her to come out and play once and she was like throwing a slug into the air. She was too freaked out to function! She was a land dweller after that. Bailey, on the other hand, was a flipping JUNKY (see what I did there? hahaha). I tried to flip her in the pool... she surfaced mad and said, "Daddy is better"... Yuh think? He flipped her so many times that she developed her own signature move, because she is silly and weird. She would hit the water, pop up, dunk her face back in, and then pop her leg up and point her toe as her finishing pose. See? She is silly and weird, but hilarious!



Now on to my VERY FAVORITE part of the trip. The part where Rich convinces me not to be cheap and to have an absolute BLAST doing something I have never done before... WE GOT WAVE RUNNERS PEOPLE!!! AND I DIDN'T EVEN HAVE A GROUPON!!! HAHAHA Seriously though, why am I so cheap? Why do I so often deprive my family of mind-blowing fun for the sake of saving money? This is something I need to let go of and "live a little," as Rich reminded me. So... I lived A LOT. I lived speeding over wakes in the middle of the lake going 60+ miles an hour! I lived catching some serious air, screaming like a little girl, while looking over my shoulder to see why Rich couldn't keep up!  (okay, that only happened once, but STILL!) MAN we had SO MUCH FUN! The air and lake water whipping across my face knocked the cheap right out of me! As much as we loved speeding around together, just Rich and I, we had to be good parents too... we had to share our two hour toys with our kids. Grandma and Papa got them all ready to go and waited on the boat dock for us to pick them up once we got the need for speed out of our system. They were all a bit nervous at first but they were squealing with joy and yelling "FASTER" in no time at all! Kenz rode with me and Rich had B and Bug. I absolutely loved hearing their hoots and hollers and "EEEEEEE"s over the rumble of the engines. I was grinning ear to ear the whole time... that is until, as McKenzie puts it, "DADDY ALMOST KILLED BRAXTON AND BAILEY!" We were doing donuts and everything was right with the world and then Rich's runner started to lean too much and he flashed me a look that I translated to say, "Don't freak out but we are going over! My bad!" He was able to throw Bailey and B out of the way of the Wave Runner as it tipped. He popped up first, looking nervous searching for the kids, then B popped up pretty freaked out and ready to "Hulk Smash" Dad, and then Bailey popped up totally upside down, legs straight as sticks. Rich grabbed her and flipped her upright. She saw me smiling and clapping, which I did so she wouldn't freak out even though I WAS FREAKING OUT. She held her breath so she wasn't even sputtering. She seemed fine until Rich tried to have her climb on to the very unsteady wave runner with Braxton, and then she completely lost it! I hated watching and not being able to help. In the end everyone calmed down and they were fine. For some weird reason, though, they didn't want to ride anymore. Odd! LOL We took them back to Grandma and Papa and finished out our rental time on the wave runners of awesomeness! Excluding the little spill, we had an absolutely fantastic time! Worth EVERY penny and then some! Can't wait to do it again!!!

Sadly, our vacation was coming to a close. We ate a ton of Brats and even more of Papa's blackberry crisp. We also watched movies, read books, took naps, played card games, and relaxed more than any of us had in a very long time! It was fabulous! On the way home we decided to have one last Ozarks hoorah. We took a tour of the Ozark Caverns! It was so incredibly cool! We couldn't take pictures inside though dangit! Just trust me, it was amazing! This part was my favorite (jacked the pic from google)... It's called "Angel Showers." The water drips constantly and seems to come from solid rock. They have never been able to determine the source of the water flow and it has not stopped since the State took over the Caverns. Just incredible! In the dark we saw bats, tiny salamanders, and the elusive know-it-all! The guide asked if anyone had any questions. Someone asked a question and MY KNOW-IT-ALL DAUGHTER ATTEMPTED TO ANSWER THE QUESTION BEFORE THE GUIDE COULD RESPOND! So... that happened! Good thing it was dark and no one could see me pop her on the back of the head! Uuuuuugh! The tour was so cool though, and the kids loved it as much as we did! Fascinating! They also had a cool little visitors center with all kinds of neat things for the kids to see and do. It was a great cherry on the top of our vacation sundae! 

I am so grateful for everything and everyone that made our sweet trip possible. I am SO glad Jim & Juanita got to come with us! It was way more fun with them playing with us! Can't wait to start planning our next one! We love you two crazy kids! THANK YOU!!!!!!