We really didn’t even get to see everything, but a lot of it is still over their heads, so it’s not a big deal.  Elijah grasped a bit more than my niece as he is older so he wanted to do some of the things she didn’t have any interest in, but they evened each other out well and neither kid was bored.  Kayleigh even had some interest in a few things, especially the bridge over the highway, leaning over the side of her stroller to look through the glass in the floor.

We watched the Omnimax presentation of Sea Rex which had the kids leaning over every few minutes and whispering, “is that true?”  No, baby, it isn’t.  But it was still neat to see.  Even Kayleigh was relatively well behaved during the showing, thankfully, as the last thing I wanted to do was get up and leave with her.  Elijah’s favorite part was the space age area, he loved all the artifacts and models and had nearby people laughing when he yelled, “Yeah!  I wish I had toys like these!”  Punk.

There was an area where you could try a Segway for 5 minutes for $5.  I wanted to try it but decided I didn’t want to pay for it, especially after the woman manning the exhibit ignored us when we came by.  Well if you don’t want our money…  However, it was entertaining, as we were standing there, to watch this kid who was on one.  The woman kept telling him to approach the stop area and stop and he just kept going  by.  Must have been 4 times he ignored her then he hit a still-standing Segway and flipped over it.  I really couldn’t feel sorry for him that he hurt his hand, should have listened!  It was even funnier than his older sister had just done the same exact thing (though she didn’t get hurt).  My mom immediately turned to me and said, “Uh, I don’t think you should try this.”  I said, “Yeah, well the guy who owns them did recently die on one.”  She goes, “let’s get out of here!”  Ha!  Really, I just wanted to see how, aside from the actually moving part, different is it from the Wii Fit.  ‘Cause, you know, that thing really stretches my calves.

When we left, we went to dinner at the restaurant where my sister and brother-in-law work.  Of course, we had to request her table and we gave her lots of trouble.  (Though we tipped handsomely to make up for it.)  One thing people don’t understand about Kayleigh is how she just really throws everything she can get her hands on, right?  So when we’re at a table, usually the three of us are squished together on one half with all our plates and what not and Kayleigh gets whatever table she can reach all to herself.  Otherwise we’d never get to eat or drink anything, it would be all over the floor.  Well my sister came over after visiting another table and was standing at the corner between me and Kayleigh.  Suddenly without warning, Kayleigh grabbed her serving tray… the only thing on the tray was a pot nearly full of hot steaming coffee.  My sister, mom, and I reacted immediately and were able to avoid a disaster.  But oh my gosh, I keep thinking about it.  Never before has Kayleigh grabbed something like that (and it was above her eye level and sort of behind her as well), it’s always been things on the table.  She always goes right for what the waitress sets down, never for things she’s holding.  I just cannot imagine how bad that would have been had she been able to pull it on herself…  Kayleigh is going to have to learn, but that’s not the way.

We went out to Pickle Springs Natural Area like we try to do at least once every year though it’s been two years since we were last there. It’s really a nice place. It’s a two mile trail through the woods, valleys, over hills, over creeks, etc.

At just about the halfway mark, so one mile in, Sarah says to me, “hey, do you see that square in the tree? The box?” It took me a bit but I finally saw what she was pointing out and I said she should go get it (it was off trail a bit). We just happened to meet an older couple coming from the other way there, so they were intrigued, too. Sarah brought it over and we all sort of looked at it for a bit. No one was willing to open it, ha, so I unlatched it. As soon as it was open, I knew what it was, it was for geocaching!

I explained to everyone else what I knew geocaching to be but I was a bit wrong (I always thought that the purpose was to sort of hunt it out, then hide it elsewhere for others to find, but apparently it’s just to find the stuff, take something, leave something, mark your visit, etc.) so we ended up taking the box with us. But after getting back to their house and learning more about it, we sent the box back first thing the next morning. Funny, too, because Sarah tells me that while taking the box back, they met some geocachers who were looking for one of the three boxes in Pickle Springs.

The box Sarah found is, I am sure, the one called Trail Through Time Earthcache. There’s only 3 mapped as being in there and we know it’s not the other two so it has to be this one. It also contained a Travel Bug Tag which you are supposed to take and move somewhere after tracking. Unfortunately, though, a certain someone didn’t listen to me on that and put them back in the cache. That kinda stinks, too, ’cause now I have to figure out how to log that they’re back where they started??? As far as the cache goes, Sarah kept some bug spray and left an Ewok and some sunglasses.

So it was a fun find and now Sarah is totally hooked, ha. She’s all excited about getting out and finding more and I was surprised to find that there are so many in our areas. It looks like we can find a good 80% of them, too, without having an actual GPS device, which none of us have. Maybe if we do get into it, we’ll get one for Christmas or something. I can see it being something that Sarah and I would enjoy together but not so much for everyone else. Well, Elijah maybe, haha.

Lake Taneycomo is a cold water lake, so it averages something like 48 degrees. Even in the summer, it’s pretty chilly. It didn’t always used to be that way, though, before the completion of Table Rock Dam, it was a warm water lake. But when they created that dam, it changed the source of Taneycomo to the colder underwaters. Taneycomo is an artificial lake created from the White River and it’s pretty much like a river at high water. It has a pretty strong current, for one. It was so neat, the day we were out was so clear that I could see current underneath the surface water if that makes any sense. It was nice and clean aside from some debris from a lot of rain the day before (but not trash and junk but sticks and leaves, etc). The current gets stronger yet when the dam gates are open, but they never opened them while we were there (they had to let some of the high water from the rains run off downstream before doing that, I’m sure).

So I learned a little bit about trout fishing. Apparently, Taneycomo is world famous for the trout fishing and that’s pretty much what people do there (though, again, I’ve not been when summer’s at its hottest), I don’t even know if there’s any other kind of fish there (ha). So we would boat upstream then float downstream with the current and drag our lines along the bottom of the lake with weights while the bait floated until getting either a bit or a snag or losing the bait, etc. Since trout (rainbow and brown) aren’t native to Missouri, there’s also the Shepherd of the Hills Fish Hatchery where the trout are grown with the blessing of our tax dollars and funds from fishing licenses and trout stamps. They’re then released when they’re big enough. And since the hatchery is part of the Missouri Conservation Department, you can go in and look around and even feed the trout, no entry fee. That was kinda cool.

One thing I really enjoyed about the lake was the wildlife and the waterfalls. Because of the heavy rains the day before, there was still water rushing out of the Missouri mountains and you could hear waterfalls coming over the bluffs and sometimes see a bit, but the foliage was too dense to get photos. But it’s a really nice sound to hear, I think. As far as wildlife, I saw where there were nests of hummingbirds — well, I couldn’t see their nests but at a large patch of flowers along the bank where we stayed there were lots of hummingbirds buzzing in and out and around, it was pretty neat. Too dark for decent photos though at that point. Then there were the ducks and the herons including two ducks that were either more brave or more tame than the others and they came right up to our boat twice.

So that was just our day on the boat in a nutshell. Oh, Steve caught 3 fish (a 4th got away at the last second) and I didn’t get anything. Every time I had a nibble it got away or the times I thought I really had a fish, I had a snag and usually ended up breaking my line. Oh, well, it was a nice relaxing day. :)

I think I might have a lot more to say, but in the meantime, how about some pics of my adorable kid at the zoo?

So, yeah, ’cause of my zoom lens, I think I got some pretty good pictures, better than normally. So more will come soon I think. I’m just so tired and kinda close to not having anything at all to say. :P

So but uh, here’s one of a leopard first:

Night!

I realized, when printing, that I do a lot of pages with a lot of green! however I printed out about 15 pages before the yellow in the cartridge started going out. Not bad for a cartridge that’s already been used.

But, anyway, here are some pics from today, then it’s off to bed for me!

Oooooh also, my friend gave me some elderberry jelly that she made, I can’t wait to try it, I’ve never had elderberry before. (Heck, I’m going to Google elderberry before I head to bed so I can figure out what one is!)

My niece refused to talk to or even look at me for the first hour and a half, lol. Then driving:

She’s still a little bored, Elijah’s his usual self.

Then, animals and such:

And some prairie dogs that Elijah still insists are chipmunks:

Yup, that last one reminds me of:

Cracks me up every time.

We had some photos taken with a hippo:

Then my niece’s dream for the day came true with an elephant in the WATER.

Elijah was very disinterested with the elephants and nothing I could say would make him smile at them and so I finally said, “what’s the matter, you tired?” He said, “No. I just… I just… I just want to see the penguins…” Silly boy.

So then he was mad that I wanted his picture with a penguin that was *gasp* NOT in the “cave.”

Yes, he was telling me at that second that he wanted to go in the cave, and not see the penguins that were outside. Because, you know, when you’re four years old, it’s absolutely impossible to wait even five seconds for something.

The penguins were the last thing on our list — I LOVE the penguin display!! And so then who was still having fun on the ride home?

And then?

Peace…………. for a few minutes at least!

And finally? A picture to send to Grandma and Grandpa!

Alvin, Elijah, and Alvin!!

(At least he is now carrying around that photo instead of the diagram of the eye… Oh, yes, that’s another story for another time but I’ll tell it here anyway. The other day he said, “Mama, what’s in my eye?” So we looked it up, then he asked me to print it out, then he carried it around all day and showed it to people at the grocery store, at Subway, etc. Crazy.)