The Chickasaw Nation, A Quick Road Trip and A Double iPhone Miracle

Have I ever told you what my husband does? Well, foremost he is an artist. He went to the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan and he went to Oklahoma Baptist University in Shawnee (where we met). His forte is illustration, but he is a wicked good painter and also loves photography. He graduated with a degree in Studio Art and then bills had to be paid, so he got a job as a graphic designer. There he met a good friend and professional mentor who helped Mike combine his artistic nature with technology and boom-- it took off. Over the years Mike has worked as a graphic designer, owned his own design business, worked as a documentary film maker, and for the last two years he has worked as a creative director for an advertising agency.

Last week, Mike was moved to a different account and his new client is The Chickasaw Nation, one of the largest Native American tribes in the United States. Since he was off of work on Friday, we decided to pack up the family and drive an hour and a half south of us to Sulphur, Oklahoma to the Chickasaw Cultural Center. It was really quite an amazing place housing several buildings including a museum, a Chickasaw village, event center, restaurant, gift shop, movie theater and more. Mike took his camera and we walked around soaking in the culture. We watched a dance performance and listened to a man tell the history of the tribe. We walked through the village and imagined what life would have been like many years ago. The kids really enjoyed it!

Our family by the Cultural Center entrance

Hannah and Leah participating in some native "four corners dancing"

Kids in a canoe

(Lucas keeping a watchful eye on the situation)

Freaky bug 

We found him as we were walking through the garden

A Chickasaw village

Hannah and me standing at the top of the lookout tower

After our trip to the Chickasaw Cultural Center, we ate a picnic lunch then headed over to the Chickasaw National Recreation Area (which used to be called Platt National Park). In my 26 years of living in Oklahoma, I'd never been there, but immediately felt like I had been missing out! The natural springs there are amazing. And because the water that feeds them is from an underground aquifer, the water stays an icy cold 68 degrees year round. When it gets to be 110 degrees in late July, that icy cold water feels pretty dang good. This particular day it was only in the low 90's, but the kids put their suits on and jumped right in. It was a bit crowded because of the holiday weekend, but we had a great time until.....something awful happened. Stay tuned.

Leah jumping off "Little Niagara"

Hannah jumping off as well

This area had 11 ft. deep water, but other places the water was just knee or thigh deep. 

Hannah and her friend Eli making the climb to jump

So here's the awful stupid thing I did. I put my iPhone in my back pocket and waded out to the knee deep water with Lucas and Mike. As we rounded a corner in the creek? river? the water started getting deeper, coming up to my thighs and getting the bottom of my shorts wet. At this point did I turn around and go back? No, I rolled my shorts up and tried to step on a rock to avoid getting even wetter. However, the rock was slippery and I was wearing rubber flip flops, so I went crashing down into the water getting totally wet from the shoulders down. I stood up totally drenched in my clothes, feeling pretty embarrassed and then I remembered my phone in my back pocket. Oops. A sinking feeling came over me as I tried to turn it on. Nothing. Back in November I dropped my phone in a toilet and it never recovered, so I knew this one was a goner. Mike just shook his head. 

In spite of my fall into the water, we still had a good time, and we even stopped for some Arbuckle Mountain Fried Pies on the way home.

This story does have a happy ending, however. The next morning, we decided to plug my "river phone" in to see if it would come on. And miracle of miracles, it did! It recovered and works just fine! Since we were on a roll, we pulled out the old "toilet phone" and it started working too! It was a double iPhone miracle! 

Hallelujah and please don't let me near water with my phone ever again. Amen.

PS: Here are a few links to the places we visited if you are interested in checking them out:

The Chickasaw Cultural Center

The Chickasaw National Recreation Area

Independence Day 2013

Are you ready for a barrage of red, white and blue? Did you not get enough fireworks over the Fourth of July weekend? Good! Because I have a ton of photos to share with you from our very fun and very full day. In fact, the four day weekend has been so jam packed that I haven't had time to post anything here until today. 

My three patriotic kids at the park before the parade started.

 We started our Fourth of July by meeting up with friends at 8:30 in the morning for the Edmond, OK Liberty Fest parade. This was the 41st year for the parade which features three marching bands, patriotic floats, clowns driving crazy tiny go-carts, both boy and girl scout troops, classic hot rods and motorcycles, fire trucks, police officers, and many veterans waving flags. Good old Americana at its best.

 Me posing pre-parade with my friends Sara and Nikki

My four favorite people in the world!

 If this picture had sound, you would hear the sirens going at full volume. It was loud!

Here come the Boy Scouts and the flags from all 50 states.

They also carried one enormous American Flag. It was pretty cool to watch it go by.

 One of the many red, white and blue floats to go by.

Lucas sat with his buddy Eli. Lucas thinks Eli is the coolest thing since sliced bread.

Hannah and me.  She is my only child that looks a little bit like me. 

 We saw several Lady Liberties go by. 

What does Star Wars have to do with our nation's independence? Who knows, but they are still cool. 

Lucas and Mike nearly stood and saluted.

The parade ended at about 11:00 and from there we met my dad and Sally for lunch. We hadn't seen Sally since our trip to Big Cedar, so it was good to visit for awhile. Later we went home for mandatory naps-- Mike and myself included. We knew we'd be up late, so everyone had to rest. It was glorious. Soon enough, I was up and making food for our annual cookout and fireworks celebration with friends. And with that, round 2 of our Fourth Festivities began.

All the kids swimming in our friend Beth's pool. 

Another swimming shot. 

Hannah and Beth's sweet dog, Lucy. 

After a delicious feast for dinner, the sparklers came out. Those never fail to disappoint.

Lucas and his best bud, Marlee. These two turn 4 on the 24th and 27th of this month!

Leah, Parker and Hannah showing off their glow bracelets. It was finally starting to get dark. The big fireworks show didn't begin until 10:00, so we had a lot of time to kill.

My precious Leah Bee. I sure love this girl.

Lucas wanted in on the photo love, so I obliged him. 

I can't get enough of his sweet snuggles. I need to look at this picture when he is being a real stinker.

Finally 10 o'clock rolled around so we set up our chairs and situated our blankets for the best viewing of the Liberty Fest fireworks at the University of Central Oklahoma campus. Their show is always great. I captured just a small glimpse of the amazing grand finale.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, AMERICA!!

Hope you all had a great time with your family and friends!

Big Cedar:: Day 4

If you're still hanging in here with me as I write these vacation recaps, kudos to you! I'm not a crafty scrapbooker girl, so this here blog will one day serve as my family's photo album. So, without further adieu, here's a look a Day 4 (Just one more day after this, I promise).

We decided that since we had been on our feet walking all day in the sun, Day Four needed to be all about swimming and relaxing by the pool. We headed to the Wilderness Club where the lazy rive, outdoor slide, hot tub, kiddie pool, and indoor pool (with another slide) all sit within very close range. In addition, there is a snack bar which serves not only kid favorites, but upscale appetizers and adult beverages too. We found some chairs in the shade and parked our rear ends. The girls are good enough swimmers that they could run around and do their own thing most of the time. We just required that they check in often. The four remaining adults took turns hanging out with Lucas which left the other three adults time to read, take a nap, and breath deep.

 Hannah on the slide

Leah coming down

 My girls, posing like they are thirteen. What is up with that?

 My three year old little fish!

 He's about to jump in!

 Leah, Hannah and me

 Midway through the day, Mike and I took Lucas to the stables for a ten minute pony ride. He was too young to do the big ride the girls and my dad and I went on a few days earlier. So he was thrilled that he got a chance to get on a horse as well.

 Hanging on to Old Festus. Yes, that was the pony's name. 

That evening, My Dad, Sally, Hannah, Leah and myself all drove into Branson to see a show. My dad got tickets for us to see The Acrobats of China, which when compared with some of our other options (i.e. Hillbilly Hoedown and The Three Redneck Tenors) seemed like a great choice. And it was! The acrobats did amazing body contortions, balancing acts, gymnastics, and dance numbers. Hannah and Leah were amazed and loved every minute of it. It was very entertaining!

 Before the show

 Waiting for the show to begin

 Dad and Sally

 After the show, the girls got to meet some of the acrobats and post

 After the show, the girls got to meet some of the acrobats out in the lobby and pose for a few pics. I jumped in on this one.

Since the show didn't even start until 8:00 and was a 45 minute drive from Big Cedar, we opted to put Lucas down for the night. I can't imagine having to chase that little monster around way past his bedtime! Day Four, our last full day of vacation, was a lot of fun!

Big Cedar:: Day 3

When I was little, going to Six Flags or any amusement park with rides was the highlight of my year. I loved the thrill of spinning in circles or feeling my tummy jump around while plunging down a roller coater. I loved it! Couldn't get enough of it! Now? Not so much. I get dizzy just looking at the Tilt-a-Whirl. My 36 year old self just can't manage the big thrill rides anymore. But, my kids (especially Hannah and Leah) have been wanting to check out an amusement park for quite some time now. They see commercials for theme parks with crazy big roller coasters and they have been dreaming of the day they can try to ride one.

Enter.....SILVER DOLLAR CITY.

 Mike, Hannah, Leah, Lucas, me, my Dad

Silver Dollar City is a family friendly amusement park situated in the mountains near Branson, Missouri. The thing I like about it is the absence of Looney Tune characters or any other cartoon theme. Silver Dollar City looks like an old Ozark town from the 1880's. There are shady streets and people dressed in clothing from that era. There are real craftsmen and women demonstrating their skills for the public. We stopped to see a man blowing glass and an older woman making chocolate fudge. The girls were fascinated! In addition, there are several rides throughout the park. The enormous roller coasters ended up scaring the girls and they decided, according to Leah, to ride them "when they are 12." Instead, we settled for the moderately scary rides. Including:

* The Log Ride

* The River Rapids

* Fire in the Hole! (a roller coaster in the dark)

* River Blasters

* A train ride through the park

*The Carousel

The theme for this day was "water rides" because just about everything we rode got us extremely wet. My kids went nuts and had a blast. We also met our junk food quota for the year by consuming:

* A Cinnamon Roll

* Dippin Dots

* Kettle Chips

* Popcorn

* Saltwater Taffy

After seven hours of Silver Dollar Fun, we packed up and headed to dinner, then home for baths and bedtime. The kids crashed hard from a very full day.

 Building block towers with PaPa

 Lucas + Legos = match made in heaven

 Papa, Sally, Hannah and Leah

Tired and wet, but having fun!

 Lucas looking out the train window

 Lucas and his new friend he named "Cow Iron Giant"

 This is what little brothers look like after seven hours at Silver Dollar City

Daddy removed the youngest child and now there are smiles from the two sisters

Leah and Hannah are holding their new rag dolls Sally bought them.