Hot Springs in July

Rudy worked at the U of A's jr high band camp last week.  I'll never understand it - but he loves it, so more power to him.  When it was over on Friday, he packed up and met his friends Chris and Chad in Mountain Home for a boys' fishing weekend.

Last week, Mom and Mr. L. had to come to Northwest Arkansas to do something for the Leadership Academy at the U of A.  They had to stay at the Inn at Carnall Hall, but I took the kids over on Tuesday to meet them for dinner.  We went to Jose's and it was a near disaster (the restaurant was hot, the food was cold and the kids were cranky), but at least we tried.  On Wednesday morning, Mom came up to Rogers to get Caleb, Nola and me.  We went back to Hot Springs with them for the rest of the week.  The 3 1/2 hour drive to Hot Springs was snug with all 5 of us in their car, but we made it.  Nola was a big ol' grump most of the way there, but we decided not to put her out on the side of the road since she's so cute. 

We spent our time in Hot Springs doing what we like to do when we're there:  not much of anything.  We took a few boat rides, did a little shopping, did as little sweating as possible in the crazy heat of summertime, saw some family and caught up on some much-needed rest.  Well, Nola and I did that last part.  Caleb, on the other hand, must have walked a million steps every day in Pops' shadow.  They fished and swam and fixed stuff and hauled grass to the compost pile and got filthy dirty every single day.  They even went to Arkadelphia one day to try out the water park with Waymon and his grandkids, but they got stormed out after only a few minutes  They were peas in a pod and I don't know which on of them loved it the most.  I'm so grateful to have Mr. L. in Caleb's life.  He really takes time with him and shows him how to do things and they just have so much fun together. 

One afternoon, Caleb got the idea that he wanted to "make space."  Nobody was sure what that meant, but he somehow explained the general idea of it to his Pops and off they went to the shop.  The next thing I knew, Caleb was toting around a cardboard box that was spray-painted black on the inside and had a paper clip spaceship hot glued to the top.  There was even a cord hanging from the inside of the box with washers on it that I was told were stars.  I helped the cause by adding some holes for light to come through, so he could really get the full effect of "space."  Crazy kid played with that cardboard box the rest of the time we were there and showed it to everyone who came by to see us.

Caleb also decided while we were down there that because Pops sits at the end of the table, that means he's "the king."  LaLa gets to be the queen, naturally.  There was some debate about my title.  I'm either a princess or a goddess.  We're still not sure.  Nola is definitely a princess.  Caleb is either a prince or a knight, depending on his mood. 

While we were in Hot Springs, Mom and I went to a few consignment stores and found some great things for Nola.  Mom even got a jumperoo/exersaucer to keep at her house and Nola loves it!  While I was looking at clothes, I noticed that one of the shops had some headbands for babies that weren't huge and were really cute.  They also had some small bows, so decided to give them a try.  They were pretty inexpensive, so I wasn't out much if they didn't work.  I've said before, I'm not a big bow person.  I'm still not a big bow person, but little bows on a little girl are really cute.  I even got in the spirit and made some bows and hair decorations to go on the headbands.  I really liked them.  Nola thinks they are tasty - they end up in her mouth just like everything else that comes within her reach.

Here's the kicker of the whole trip...I never took my camera out of its case.  These 2 pictures are from my phone.  I honestly relaxed so much on the trip that I didn't even worry with taking pictures.  So uncharacteristic!

On Monday morning, we reloaded the car with more stuff than we took down there to begin with and met Rudy in Waldron.  We shuffled everything from Mom's car to mine and said our goodbyes.  We went to Spiro for lunch and a visit with the Morrises and then made our way back to Rogers to get ready for a busy week.

We sure love our trips to Hot Springs.  Our time with LaLa and Pops is priceless.  One night, Mom was giving Caleb his bath (getting the fish stink off of him) and she told him how glad she was that we came to visit.  He replied, "Aww, LaLa, that's so sweet."