Eureka! Its spring break!

To keep Ryan's promise for a get-away after his stent in Florida and to get away for a few days during spring break - we headed for Eureka Springs on Tuesday. Its about 2 hours north east of here and the drive was nice and winding. Finally we get back into some mountains! It reminded me of being at home in NC and VA. Being in the woods always makes me feel more relaxed and brings me back to how simple life ought to be.
Here are a few pics of the cabin for those of you that wanted to see it.

We stayed at Cabin Fever Resort in a suite above the man's main office so our deck was nicely elevated. We could see out over the tree tops to the mountains beyond.

Full kitchen and table - to the right is a couch, coffee table and TV, then the bedroom.

Here's most of the bedroom - the corner of the jacuzzi is in the bottom right. Ryan's decided he wants one. It certainly is relaxing and it is big enough to really enjoy - unlike a regular bathtub that just isn't long enough.

The town of Eureka Springs was a 5 minute drive away. This town is supposed to be like a Swiss alps town with narrow winding streets. We enjoyed walking into shops and talking to their keepers.





Ryan is trying desperately to hang onto his Alabama Tide... er... pride... but its hard when the Arkansas Razorbacks have wiped out all other forms of sports paraphernalia.

Ryan found this for you Dad - but we decided they wouldn't let you put this up at the conference office.


Here is our purchase - a nice set of windchimes for our front porch handtuned to the key of A. As we are never short on wind here - they should be quite a nice addition!

I really liked this blue heron sculpture!
Sorry, my leg doesn't bend the same way... and I have arms...

This observation tower used to be used by the Forest Service. It doesn't look so bad from the ground - but for $1 you can squeeze (and I mean squeeze) yourself through a little turndoor and brave the wind on the narrow stairs as you climb up to 100 ft from the ground. The first picture of Ryan and I is up on the top of the tower.

View from the top in one direction - wouldn't this be pretty in the fall?
The top platform is very small - only 5 people can stand there at a time. Both Ryan and I felt like the wind might blow us away up there.

The stairs were so narrow you had to stop on the landings and let people slide past you.

Flood evidence #1 - a natural bridge

Flood evidence #2 - nearby Pivot Rock featured in Ripley's Believe-It-or-Not
You could tell they had reinforced parts of the base with cement but it was still pretty amazing to find this rock just sitting on the side of a mountain trail.

The only part that was NOT fun about the trip was a strange terrible pain in my left shoulder that made it hard to sleep or be still without a dose of Bengay and Ibuprofen. However, I did read 100 pages of my current book, Beethoven's Hair, while I was awake from 3:30 to 5:30 AM trying to keep myself from cutting my arm off. I suppose I should clarify about that book title - its the story of what happened to a lock of Beethoven's hair that was snipped off by a young musician after his death interspersed with Beethoven biography. It also will get into the forensics they used to study the hair. Its quite interesting.

Anyway, coming home was exciting because Toby was waiting for us at the Rector's house next door AND we had a package on the front porch from Carrie and Ryan. Little animals get so excited when they see you! Here's Toby with his new doggie friend that Carrie found him. He's already missing an eye and being loved much. See the resemblence?

After his jubiliant welcome and meeting his new friend - Toby sacked out. Apparently being left home alone and going to a strange house with another dog and a 3 year old makes one wasted.

Signs of Spring (will they last?)

Toby's begun to pant after exercising outside in the warmth

Wild Wilderness Drive-thru Safari

On Friday after all of the painting was complete Stephanie and I took the 10 minute drive to our local safari. Who would have thought such a place would exist in Gentry, Arkansas, population around 2000? Carrie first gave me the heads up about this place when she saw it on TV in an episode of TLC's "17 Kids and Counting" awhile ago. Then I happened to run across the signs for it when I took a wrong turn trying to get home from the post office one day. The variety of animals they had was quite impressive!

First we went to the barns filled with monkeys, parrots, parakeets, and other animals not quite ready for the cold air. There were gibbons, siamangs, baboons, capuchins, and on and on. This lemur runs free we're told. We all kept asking if anyone knew he was out - maybe they should put up a sign! His buddies are stuck in a cage right behind him.

I wouldn't want to come across this African porcupine in the wild - look at those quills. This guy has much longer and thicker ones than the American varieties I've seen. When these guys had them extended they were probably 1.5-2 ft long!

Next we went to the petting zoo and fed the goats. Then on to the kangaroo pen.

This was my favorite part of the whole place. They were so friendly and seemed to like having their heads petted. They are SO soft - just like a bunny!

How can this be comfortable - both for the joey and for the mamma. Every once in awhile she would poke him with her paw to tell him to move.

Next we went through the 10 mile drive-thru. It was divided into sections with lots of different animals - some in cages, some loose. There were the usual lions, tigers, bears, wolves, bobcats, and cougars (all in cages of course), then loose were emus, ostrich, all kinds of longhorn and foreign cattle, wildebeasts, camels, zebra, and on and on. Everybody had an itch including this camel who decided to use the rear view mirror to scratch it. This bison below had one too and used his feeding trough. You can't tell but this guy is huge - his hump almost came to the top of my car. Apparently this place started partially because they wanted to breed bison and other free range stock with domestic cattle.

Yak and baby

The tigers loved these towers

This white rhino was MASSIVE. He was as tall and wider than the human doorway in this building. You can see how tall he is compared to the height of the roof! The rhino we saw in Africa had nothing on this guy!

(First) Spring break

Stephanie came to spend a week of her spring break with us!

You can see our new picture (on the wall behind Ryan) found on sale at Kirklands. We finally got to play Settlers one night when Ryan got home a little earlier than usual. It was great - even though I lost. I had no chance as you can see - Ryan was blue and Stephanie was red. When a 5 was rolled they cleaned out the bank! I think Ryan won but Stephanie would have won on her next turn. I had only 7 points... only because I had the largest army.

Then, since painting is always so much more fun when there are 2 people instead of one, Stephanie and I went and raided the maintenance paint closet and enjoyed two days of painting. Day 1 we did the baseboards and doors in the main living area and then the next day we tackled the maroon walls in the master bathroom. It took 2 coats of primer and 2 coats of dover white to finish it! Toby had to stay outside for most of the adventure. He acted like he didn't like it but he certainly had fun watching the cows and chasing moles and his tail. He did, however, love the drop cloth. He took naps on it and sat on it whenever he had the chance. This picture is his best "I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be on this or not" look.

Very ready for the last coat to be over!

We dog sat for the Rectors (English teacher that lives next door) overnight this weekend. They think Buddy is a schnauzer/poodle (so what is that called?) and he's getting up in years. Toby wanted to play play play and Buddy wasn't so sure. But when Toby eventually calmed down they got along quite well.

"I'm just too old for the antics of this weird little Toby dog. This nice man is much better."

Saturday nights in the gym

We've spent the last two Saturday nights in the gym since Ryan has been in charge of events there.

Here's the refs for dodgeball last week - Ryan and Kevin (taskforce chaplain)

*****

This weekend was young alumni. On Saturday night old Skyhawks/Lady Hawks players play the current players. The games are always very close we hear but the current students usually pull off the win. This year was no exception.

Ryan had a few songs playing to pump the crowd up including YMCA. Britney Zambrano sang the national anthem for a packed house and the associate pastor - Paul Vunileva - had WAY too much fun being the announcer. He called out the starting lineups like a pro. Somehow I ended up getting pictures mostly of the girls game - probably because I ended up helping one of the girls who sat down hard and twisted her back way into the guys game.

There were several alumni around that we knew from SAU. You can see Jeff Manly and his girlfriend in this picture standing by the wall (below). Jeff's girlfriend is entering chemo for bone cancer in a few weeks. She needs lots of prayer - I can't imagine going through that! Andrew Decker who lives here and was a PE classmate of Ryan's was playing in the game. His dad who is the boy's dean was yelling at the current students and coaches getting them riled up.