Vacation!

Its summer time!  I am home on break, which is awesome! Jennie is working a bit more and I am watching the kids, and life is great. This past week we traveled down to Lake of the Ozarks, MO, for Laber family vacation.  There were 16 adults and 6 kids 3 and under! It was crazy at times, but it was so worth it. Jennie and her family talked about the frequency of these vacations...it is only the 3rd they have done-1993, 2001, and now 2013. It has to be much sooner next time! Thinking hitting up the east coast in the next few years would be a good time!

Not on vacation yet, but Adelie sucking on watermelon was just the cutest thing ever!

The girls going for a swim.

Lincoln's home

The drive was about 8.5 hours total. We weren't about to do the whole trip in one day with this being Adelie's first road trip, so we broke it into two days. We spent the night in Springfield, IL and took in some sights. 

Springfield is known for being the Land of Lincoln-he lived here before his presidency, the only home he ever owned. The best part, the tour was free! Best side trip ever taken. We toured his home, touched doorknobs and stair rails original to the home and the same ones Abe Lincoln touched back in the 1840s and 50s! The neighborhood has been restored to what it would have felt like back in those days. We were able to go in to two of the other homes that were occupied and original from his time.

Formal parlor of Lincoln's home, the room he was in when an official came to his house and informed him he was one of the presidential candidates

Outback, the outhouse with three stools. Micah is not impressed that Matt wanted to dunk him in one

Back on the road-eating Gorp, a Calhoun roadie tradition.  Micah has a knack for finding the m&ms.

 In Missouri!  Monday we made a trip to Jacob's Cave

(Apparently there are tons of them down there, and more being discovered daily!)

First time I (Matt) had ever been in a cave.

This was the end of our cave tour.  To go farther into the cave we would have had to crawl on our bellies over 100 yards to get to the next big opening.

We had many fowl friends visit our unit.  The boys (young and old) enjoyed feeding the birds crumbs from our table.

Fun on the playground.  It was not the only horse Micah would ride that week.

We spent part of Friday afternoon going for a hike.  One great destination was checking out the ruins of a recent "castle": that was built at the top of one of the mountains.  The castle had caught fire and only the stone walls remained.  It must have been an impressive building.

One of the nature trails we found took us to a natural bridge.  Micah liked to call it a cave.  Water erosion caused this natural phenomenon.

A view looking back through the bridge after we had trekked through it.

Missouri has many natural springs.  This completely boggled my mind.  I had never seen river come right out of the ground.  This was the beginning of a natural spring that we hiked to.  

Rather warm and wishing we could jump in the spring.

Micah pointing out that, yes, we did make it down 316 stairs to view the spring.  Now for the hard part.  Daddy gets to put me on his shoulders and take me back up!

We stopped at a petting zoo early in our trip back home.  It was really more of a red neck's home with a lot of animals penned up in the yard.  Our kind of place!  It was a lot of fun and the kids enjoyed getting to see a collection of wonderful animals.

2 rescued baby fawns.  They liked nibbling on our fingers.

Yes, they liked Micah's shirt too!

A type of peacock.

Micah thought the prairie dogs were hilarious.  This one was jumping up and down on the glass trying to get at Micah.

A baby mule, goat, and triplet lambs.

Riding the Clydesdale.

Also, on our ride home we decided to make a stop in St. Louis.  I had never been, and not sure when I will get the chance to go again.  Target destination was to make it to the arch.

Jennie really likes this picture.  That would be Micah being Micah.

Too bad the skies weren't blue.

630 feet in the air with nothing below the floor we are standing on.  Yes, a wee bit eerie.  

Shot taken from the viewing platform.  Those are the sides of the arch on the left and the right. We could quite literally see directly below us.

Thank you random passerby for giving us a nice family photo.  Micah may have just picked his nose... not too sure.

Adelie playing with her toys and ready to hit the road again.

Okay, not our vacation.  Micah just wanted to love on his sister a little bit.  I was holding Adelie on the couch and he basically came up and stole her from me.  Gotta love my kiddos.