Lake of the Ozarks

This is a really long post with lots of pictures. So, here goes.

 We went to Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri for our family vacation this year.  It was a beautiful place to visit.  The kids had a lot of fun.  Lori and Jimmy invited us to go with them, and Cala and Clark came as well.  It was a five hour drive from our house so not too far.  We followed the GPS (Helga as Clark and Cala affectionately call her) and she took us on quite a ride.  We were on very country roads.  We didn't see stores or gas stations for a long time.  I started to worry that we might run out of gas before we found a gas station.  We also ran into two closed roads that we had to go around in the middle of nowhere.  Kade got carsick.  I felt queasy as well going up and down and back and forth all out in the middle of nowhere.  But, we made it in the end.  We found a much better alternate route home.  Not sure why that wasn't the way to get there in the first place.

 We visited Ha Ha Tonka State Park.  Loved the name.  Beautiful place.

 Valerie and Grace were best buds all week.  Grace referred to Valerie as "the girl", Jace was "the boy" and Uncle Jimmy was "that guy".  It didn't matter how many times were corrected her, she still referred to them by those names all week.  Grace spent every minute with her cousins.  They even had slumber parties every night.

 We visited a castle ruin at Ha Ha park.  It was pretty fun to walk around.

 Cala and Clark

 Cute baby

 We did some hiking.

 On our way to see the natural spring.

 I'm not sure if this is the right picture but the boys walked to the balancing rock.  When they got there, Kade was a little disappointed.  He said that they walked all that way to see two rocks.  Not very impressive to him.

 We saw a natural bridge.  I liked that.

 Muscle man.  Kade was disappointed he couldn't keep his stick.

 This is the view where we stayed.  We were right on the water but a tree was in front of our balcony. I forgot to take a picture.  The lake was pretty.  Not like deserty lakes in the west.  Trees went right up to the waterline.

 Pool time was fun.

 The boys always wrestling.  My mom used to say that they were like bear cubs.  They still are.

 We rented a boat two different days.  The first day was a pontoon boat. Nice and smooth.  Didn't get sea sick at all.  Second day was a deck boat.  Little bit faster and not as smooth.  I did okay until Jimmy tried knocking the kids off the tube.  The kids loved it - me not so much.

 We had so much fun and it was so relaxing.  Cala cooked dinner every night and Lori did the dishes.  I was LAZY.  I know the kids loved our vacation.  We had Andy's frozen custard, took old fashioned photos, walked around, enjoyed the pool and basketball court, and just relaxed.

Are you still reading? That was a LONG post.  Someday I will be computer savvy and know how to block my pictures together into cute collages - but not today.