Family Vacation

It’s vacation picture time!

I’m sorry I’ve been MIA for the past week. We got back into town and a new fire was lit for us to finish the paperwork for our home study. The average family takes anywhere from 4 to 6 weeks to finish their home study paperwork. Apparently not us. We officially turned in our last bit of paperwork this week. I’m SO relieved. We have one more letter of reference coming in before they can schedule our home visit. For now I’m relaxed for the first time in a month. I know I’ll get nervous again once they schedule the visit, but I am choosing not to think about all of that right now.

In the meantime, I feel guilty that I promised pictures from our trip and then failed to deliver! I didn’t forget, I was just obsessed with completing our requirements. So it is, our trip to Branson/Table Rock Lake.

We visited the OK City Federal Building Memorial, where I got some beautiful pictures. It’s really a gorgeous place, and the respectful silence from everyone who was visiting was humbling and moving. I was moved to tears more than once as we walked around the grounds. If you haven’t gone, it’s definitely worth a trip. Pictured above, each beautiful chair represents a victim of the terrorist attacks on April 19, 1995. They rest on the very land where the building once stood.

Pictured here is one side of this huge memorial. This was truly breathtaking to see. Between this wall and another which read “9:01” is a quiet reflecting pool. The significance? 9:01, the minute before the bomb and 9:03, the minute after. Between the two, when the violence happened, is silence.

Pictured here is an image of the reflecting pool and the Survivor Tree, a large oak which managed to stand strong despite its close proximity to the attack. The Journal Record Building stands behind the tree, where visible damage can still be seen today.

The Journal Record Building now serves as the official Oklahoma City National Memorial Museum. The building was repaired enough to reinforce the structural damage, but the city officials felt it was important to keep the damage on the outside visible for future visitors. I think of the damage as battle scars. It is remarkable to see.

The place we stayed at was right at Table Rock Lake. It was more like a condo/townhouse than a hotel. Actually, it was quite impressive. It was definitely big enough for me, Travis, Little, Travis’s parents, brother and his wife.

The idea here was that Little would wade along the shore of the lake while daddy, Bo (his name for Travis’s dad) and Uncle Derrick all fished. Clearly wading turned into swimming very quickly.

After swimming, my child was too lazy tired to walk uphill while wearing his nearly five pound diaper, so Mimi and Aunt Kerri gave him a lift. They wouldn’t carry him because he was soaking wet, but this seemed to work. Saints.

 

Captain Bug loved the boat and he was a fantastic driver. You like his hat? I bought that at a party supply store for his train-themed 2nd birthday party.

                                                                                 So windy!!

                                                                      Playing in an old canoe.

                                                    Daddy and Little with his Scooby Doo fishing pole.

 

We had a great time. The only downside was that it wasn’t scheduled later in the summer, so we didn’t have it to look forward to. I’m going to be adding some things to the blog, so you’ll see some new things around here within the next week or so. I’ll keep everyone posted on the progress of our home study. Hopefully they’ll have our home interview scheduled by this week.

 

In the next post, we have some HUGE news regarding our adoption journey and I can’t wait to let you all know!

Oh, and Happy 4th!

Kat