We heard the Wednesday noon tornado siren test in Russellville 3 times, so I think that means we spent a little more than 3 weeks at my parents’ house in Arkansas. At their house it felt like our whole adventure took a complete halt, and we had a Christmas break in Arkansas much like we’ve done numerous times before. The upside of this is that we got to take a break from some of the stresses of our travel and rest for awhile. The downside is that Brad & I quickly slid down into that wonderful, horrible holiday vacuum of accomplishing very little and feeling kinda bad about that. We had kept a growing to-do list on the road of “things we’ll finally get done once we get to my parents’ house.” I’m embarrassed to admit we accomplished exactly ZERO of the things on that list in the 3 weeks that we were there.
But Brad did make a 1 mile loop trail on their forested property that all of us walked or ran at one point or another. And I read an entire novel in a comfy chair by the fireplace, so the to-do list will just have to wait a little bit longer for completion.
Most of the story of our time in Russellville can best be told in pictures:
We arrived on the 17th which is the birthdate that I share with my Dad. Between the 2 of us we turned 99 this year! We ate a chocolate mousse pie to celebrate the occasion.Fun in Mimi & Pappy’s leaf-carpeted yard.Pinky!! Coral is showing off her Arkansas shirt because there are pictures of me in this shirt in about 1987 with my horse, Lucky.Mauli-dog bomb.Lots of leaves to play in when we arrived in mid-December.The girls were so happy to finally be at MIMI’S HOUSE! This upstairs room was a kids’ playroom heaven, well-stocked with books & toys from my childhood.An exciting new hobby the girls discovered was shelling pecans with Pappy by the fire. Most mornings they would burst through the doors and exclaim, “Pappy! Let’s crack some nuts!” We had the benefit of 3 pecan pies…Making christmas scones with Mimi.Christmas Tea Party at Aunt Cheryl’s house!Bling! Bling! They glitzed up with a combination of family heirlooms and dollar store jewelry.sipping her Christmas punchLearning to make Mimi’s traditional Christmas cheese balls.Sunny got a lesson on the original Nintendo Mario Bros from Uncle Clay. The soundtrack of my childhood…Coral learning to make pie crust from Mimi. Don’t let the fact that the girls are in their PJ’s in most of these photos fool you into thinking it was morning.We got to enjoy the Christmas Party at my Grandma’s residence facility. I love this lady so much! The guy in the back is pretty great too…Heading out to find a Christmas tree on the 4-Wheeled Open Sleigh.found one!a bit of a blur, kinda like life lately…Mimi’s Christmas cheeseball. Totally makes the drive from WA worth it.All is ready!Christmas Eve excitementYay for new binoculars!The girls opened a few gifts on Christmas eve after a special dinner with some extended family.I love that our girls are old enough to experience the joy of giving gifts to people they love on Christmas morning. They had worked on some personalized gifts that they were eager to share.Enjoying some special gifts after the Christmas morning frenzy calmed down.Coral enjoying her new pages of stickers, coloring, and connect-the-dots.
We had a very Merry Christmas surrounded by a lot of wonderful family. The rest of the fun stuff in Russellville I will report on in my next post…
I read this.