It's a Golden Life

We also had the opportunity to go to an old hotel called the Oklahoma Row. The very first picture is of what the hotel looked like before it burned down. The story is pretty neat! If you have some free time, check out google's information on Monte Ne, AR. Anyways, There wasn't always just one hotel, there were three altogether along a resort strip right outside of Rogers. They were log hotels! The man who built the hotels wanted the area to get a sight of the wonders of the world, so he was in the process of building these, when the stock market crash of 1929 happened. Needless to say, after a few years of struggling, he sold the hotel and it became many more things after that. In 1964, when the Beaver Lake was made, the water washed into where the hotels were, so the basements are underwater! The only building left is the concrete slab from where the rest of the hotel was and this awesome tower! I can only imagine how beautiful the hotel once was! In the picture, to the far le...

Last week, we went on a hike to Devil's Den. It is a trail with lots of hills, turns and CAVES!! I've been in the Mark Twain cave in Missouri-but that was on a guided tour! I'd never been cave splunking on my own....and with a child strapped to my back! We had a blast. We started off with me carrying Malachi in his handy jeep carrier, then climbing through a dark, cold, damp cave! Donovan lead the way with a flashlight because it was sooo dark! Then we hit the trial again and climbed a few rocky hills to the second cave! This was a much more difficult cave than the first one. We breezed through the first one, but not this one! We had to scale down the side. Needless to say, Daddy took over Chi Chi duty. We were only able to go a little ways into this one because in order to go the rest of the way, we needed to squeeze..sideways..through a little crack-in the ceiling!! After carefully climbing back up the wall of the cave to get out, we found a waterfall! It was beautiful. M...

There we go! Here are some pics from TODAY of Chi outside playing in the leaves. He decided he was going to try a foreign cuisine-stick. After searching for the perfect stick he proceeded to take his binky out, inspect the ends of the stick, and bite into the best side. He's not really a "stick" guy as it turns out...Another horrifying update is that we have a snake charmer on our hands. The other morning, Malachi and I were folding clothes (and unfolding clothes) in our bedroom when he decided to go into the hallway. I heard the patter of his little hands on the tile, and all was fine. I've learned something about my little boy-when he stops crawling or walking, you know he has stopped to inspect something! Well, since snakes are generally an OUTSIDE creature, I had no clue what I would see when checking on him in the hallway. In the tightened fist of his little hand I spied a wiggling black...something-which turns out it was a tail. Mr. Goldenstein had found a 4 inc...