ozarks part I

and finally, our Ozarks vacation :) We (my mom, Krystal, Ashlyn, myself and Connor) left Saturday the 18th at 4:30 in the morning, hoping the kids would fall back asleep...of course, they didn't :) But, they did do very well on the way down. I think much better than any of us had hoped. We made two stops for food and fuel and that was it, 9.5 hours later, we arrived at our resort, Tan-Tar-A on Lake of the Ozarks. Little facts about the lake, it's actually man-made of sorts and is just a dammed up river. However, the way they designed it was quite brilliant. It kind of looks like a giant caterpillar with lots and lots of little 'legs'...ultimately creating more lake shore and quite coves. The most interesting part? The lake has more shoreline than the entire state of California. Cool huh?

Our routine basically the entire week was pretty awesome. We did nothing :) Okay, we did more than nothing, but, I got up, worked out, came back, would nap or read while Connor napped, kids would wake up, eat lunch, go to the pool, come back, nap or read while the kids napped, then go out for supper. Pretty awesome, no? I thought so :) It's exactly what I wanted to do. We went shopping one afternoon, there was only one rain day which we spent at the giant water park for the afternoon, went out on the lake and even had a date night. Mom and Dad went out for an early supper then Joe, Krystal, Bryan and I went to an awesome steakhouse. We sat in separate rooms (hostess thought this was a little strange since we came together) to make it more of a 'date' :)

I will admit, I was a HORRIBLE vacation photographer. I barely have any photos. And as you can see, the bulk are basically on our way home or one day I was feeling guilty about my lack of photos and took a bunch of the kids on the deck. Boring. I know. Sorry. However, warning, this is a massively long post. Sorry about that :)

Okay, and now that I'm working on this post, it's going to be two posts. It's getting to be too many (somewhat pointless) photos.

Connor driving the boat. Again, don't let his emotionless-face fool you for how excited he was...

so someone needs to invent comfortable, functional life vests for babies.

the men with their babes

and two seconds later,wide awake. this happened all too frequently :)

the house with a really cool lake-supplied waterfall. Gave dad lots of ideas I'm sure :)

sweet Ashlyn and her beautiful mama. Okay, so Ashlyn isn't looking SUPER sweet here, but she still is :)

asleep when we arrived at the restaurant...doesn't look too comfy. Amazing how kids seem to be able to sleep anywhere.

wonderful parents.

Joe and Krystal

actually fairly happy with this one! However, my small camera seems to be having quality issues, not sure what's up.

Who you gonna call? Ghostbusters!

me and my cell phone obsessed baby.

Ashlyn and Krystal

the group...plus Captain Ron.

Joe and Connor. Connor is still a little unsure of Joe. He'll come around :) Once he sees the amazingly cool tractors that Uncle Joe has...he'll be sold.

Ashlyn and her daddy driving the boat.

pretty good example of the homes on the lake.

our resort

taking a break on our way home.

the following pictures are fairly pointless. I just thought his expressions were cute.

I need to start zooming in more.

And, yes, we were 'that car' on the road. Thankfully, we made it there and back with everything still secure :)

Oh, did I mention the men got to fly? Yeah. Losers. One of Joe's neighbors is a pilot and is in the aviation program at MNSU, so he flew them there on Wednesday and picked them up on Saturday. Oh well, it made sense, why drive 10 hours to only be there two days.

An aerial shot. You can kind of see the formation of the lake.

Another new hobby of Connor, sitting in the drivers seat of the car.

again we need to work on keeping his hands on the wheel.

A map of the lake. We were in Osage Beach (near the green State Park on the map). Pretty crazy looking lake.

Like I mentioned, more photos to come. This was just getting ridiculously long. Thanks for hanging in there.