Monthly Archives: November 2010

Country Club Plaza, IHOP, Plaza Lighting ceremony

Plaza Lighting 2010…Peek Family Style

Last year, we discovered that the (Country Club) Plaza Lights get a full lighting test at 2 a.m. on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Let’s see…get up at 1 a.m., head to the Plaza with no traffic and get an awesome parking spot, geeat at IHOP and go home…or fight 100,000 other people on a cold November night…

Decisions, decisions…

Ummm, yeah. We opt for 2 a.m. – although enthusiasm on the part of the kids miraculously wanes when it’s time to actually get up and go. Wimps. They are in full force by the time we got to the eating, though. Shocking, I know.

So, yes, we see the over 80 miles of lights with 280,000 multi-colored bulbs outlining and illuminating the buildings come on all at once, in all their holiday splendor…before most other people (there are maybe 150 or others who make the middle of the night trek, too). 

Plaza Lights 2010

Jen

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Table Rock…love the water

We are serious water people.  Sure, not as serious as some – but hey, we just spent 2 months on an island and came back to spend a week at a lake.  We are least rank in the middle of the scale…

Before you even ask, I am the boat driver and the photojournalist.  That’s why I am not in pictures.  I can only do so much, people.  Mike boarded and surfed (yes, surfed behind the boat).  Mara skiied and got outside the wake – woo hoo!  Max practiced being pulled behind the boat…and I did the pulling.  No pics though…I was too busy pulling (literally with my hands as fast as I could to give the impression of the boat moving).  Mike soooo wished we had it on film.  Darn the luck.

Wakeboarding

Mara “surfing”

Max “surfing”

Mike surfing…really (he’s like 3 feet behind the boat using its wake)

Great days…no rain…

Jennifer

Danna's BBQ, Table Rock State Park Marina, Ululani's Shave Ice

Table Rock…the schedule and the food

We tend to fall into a routine on the lake.  We like it that way…sleep in (for us this is maybe 7…9 or so for the kids), get on the water, late lunch at Danna’s, Oasis shaved ice (at the Marina)  which was not quite the same as our favorite in Maui, dinner and a campfire or two. 

That’s the sort of vacation I like…although getting someone else to cook the dinner would have rocked.  Of course, when I thought that I also thought about the newlyweds who were camping.  Yes, camping during the hottest week of the summer.  I guess you might as well be tested right out of the gate…but I digress.

The State Park Marina is great.  Clean, stuff to buy, good food, gas, slip for the boat, 5 minute walk to the RV.  If Mike were doing these posts, you wouldn’t get to see all this…but he’s not.  Oh, the power of the blogger! 

At Danna’s…looking at fish or turtles or something

Shaved ice thumbs up

Rootbeer float…the Midwest version of shaved ice

Our little pyro…

Yeah, yeah…there are LOTS of pictures of time on the water.  Keep your swimming suits on…that’s the next post.

Jennifer

Marvel Cave, Silver Dollar City

Day 1 1/2: Silver Dollar City

Did I mention that Mike had to work the first day of the Table Rock vacation? 
That meant several things:
  1. Me and the kids could wander around, sweat, take our chances on the water side (chances meaning not run into any dead fish or live snakes) and interrupt Mike’s calls every 15 minutes or so which he would LOVE
  2. Me and the kids could take the boat out…and hope there was no Murphy’s Law incidents OR
  3. We could go to Silver Dollar City as the kids have been begging for since we started going to Table Rock 4 or so years ago
Decisions, decisions…

Silver Dollar City here we come!  (In case you are wondering, we called a cab.  Having Mike drive us into and out of SDC in the RV without air seemed sort of, well, stupid…and totally not worth the cost of the cab fare). 

Here are the top things I LOVED about it…

  • Water rides (did I mention it was the hottest week of the summer?  Oh yeah…I did that here.)
  • Kids are old enough to ride the coasters together…it’s hard to get 3 people on one ride at one time unless it includes a log.  Wildfire, Fire in the Hole…
  • Max got tackled by one of the street actors…and rolled on the ground.  And then was speechless.  Speechless and Max are not usually in the same sentence.  Too bad I wasn’t faster with the camera.
  • The Marvel Cave tour…one whole hour underground in the coolness of a cave. 


Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn’s River Blast





Roller coasters…





Marvel Cave…cool and cool-looking



Table Rock Lake, Table Rock State Park

Table Rock Lake – August 2010

Yes, we STILL did annual week’s vacation at Table Rock this year.  And, yes, it was about 10 days after we returned from Hawaii.  And, yes, we STILL managed to pick the hottest stinkin’ week of the summer to go.  A lake the temperature of bath water is not overly refreshing but we weren’t complaining…

After packing up our 60 feet of fun (the RV + the boat) we headed out and made great time all the way through Springfield and Branson.  Woo hoo!  We were just thinking about celebrating our uneventful trip down the highway when we pulled off the ramp to go to the state park and POW!  What the….

Umm…the exhaust fell off the generator.  Ya know what that means?  Yeah – me either…I do now.  It means NO A/C while driving.  Good thing we were close.  (And good thing it didn’t mean no A/C at all because that would have meant a hotel for at least me…remember that “hottest week of the year” part from earlier?).

Needless to say, we grabbed lunch in Subway (Max’s favorite) which had air and then headed out to Table Rock State Park.  Got in the Sunday line at the boat ramp and then got on the water…ahhhhhh.
Mike is thrilled to be on the water…
…and so are the kids!
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Ummm…we got busy…

So, here I am looking at the blog…realizing that it has been, oh, 3 months since our last post.  Good grief, Gladys.  What the heck?!

Well…rest assured it was just life.  A return to normal life and you know what that means.  Yep.  Fell off the blog wagon.  Got moderately crazy busy with school, soccer, starting a new business, managing Mike’s globe-hopping and the like.   And, WHOOSH! 3 months is gone, baby, gone. 

Still I know you cannot hardly stand to not know the nitty gritty of what we’ve been doing…and what we’ve got planned.  So, buckle in (grab a beer or margarita if you choose)…it’s time for a whirlwind update….

Jennifer