The River Week

We can officially check off "A Week at the River" from the summer bucket list! We got back last night and we are all well rested and just a tad sun kissed. This particular week during the summer seems to be our family reconnect trip. With very limited modern day resources like cable TV (we watch off of an antenna and no one really watches anyway) and no internet for McKinley to beg to watch any kind of video on You Tube Kids, we find ourselves doing what they used to do during the "old days", hang out together! The horror!

So what is it that we do when we're down there? We played board games everyday, some days several times a day, and I wished that I had packed more than just Sorry!, Babar, and Uno. McKinley played trucks galore, farming, hauling, and a few trucking games he has loaded on his Kindle which was the only screen time available. And there were Fla-Vor-Ice pops every afternoon!

My mom and I took to cleaning out the fridge, to make room for all the new groceries we brought with us, and found a solid yet gelatin like substance in the fridge door. According to my dad, my mom and I always seem to concoct something new and we realized it was the liquid to last years homemade Popsicles. This year, I made homemade pop-tarts! I have my own summer bucket list, which is really just a life bucket list, and on it are things I want to bake. Pop-tarts were one. I used store bought pie shells this go round, but will definitely make my own in the future. They went over well, but I know I need to make some tweaks to my recipe. 

In addition to homemade pop-tarts, McKinley made his own pizza and I made my own mosquito repellent! The week at the river is the best time for me to experiment, with McKinley being completely occupied by just about everything, giving me time to myself which doesn't happen much at home!

The river was where most of the action took place and it was the summer of firsts for McKinley. He learned to bait his own hook and reeled in a fish! Not his first fish, but the first of the trip! I missed the whole thing, because I had gone back to the car, so no photo was captured! As a result, McKinley can give you a tall-tell of how big the fish was and you can imagine just how small it was! It's the age old fisherman tale, right? In addition to learning to bait his own hook, he learned to catch crawdads on his own. At first he used a rock to scoop it into a red Solo cup. By Friday, he was picking them up from the tail to avoid being pinched. Big Johnny was the largest crawdad of the week and came back to the house every afternoon in my dad's crawdad bucket. McKinley finally released him Saturday afternoon and I'm sure he was happy to back among his family and friends. According to McKinley, he would really miss Big Johnny.

Did you know that Wimbledon was on this weekend? Well who needed ESPN? We had our own version of championship play with a little family badminton. Even Meme got in on the action. It was doubles play for about five minutes before she grew weary, and hot, and left me to fend off the boys by myself. No worries, I was victorious in my own right! We have decided a new badminton set is in our future and games will played in my parents backyard! 

 

McKinley loves to "drive" Dodgie every chance he can get. Dodgie is a 1984 Dodge Ram that he has loved since about the age of three. He's been driving it just as long. He's convinced that this poor old truck will last another eight years, allowing him the chance to drive him at the age of 16. He has big plans! Dodgie will come to KC via a flatbed truck where he and Granddaddy will restore him back to his former glory. He will then drive this truck for the rest of his teen years. Unfortunately for McKinley, this truck can barely turn over as is, so the likely hood of old Dodgie making it to KC are slim to none. At least the memory of him can live on in McKinley's heart.

Lastly, my mom and I pass the time with scratchers! I walked away $7 richer too! We sip champagne, scratch our earnings, and discuss what we will do when we really win the big money! Joel is holding out for the cool million so we can buy our lottery dream home! 

The river week is one for memories. Memories that I hope McKinley holds dear for years. I hope he recounts this time to his friends as he gets older as some of the coolest days of his youth. I hope he tells his children about all the adventures he took when he was their age, like my dad does with his own stories, and calls them best times of his life. I hope the river memories always flow.

XO,

Andrea

A Week Away....

My parents have a house in southern Missiouri, in a tiny town called Tecumseh. They live a mile and a half off a paved road and are surrounded by 15 acres of gorgeous landscape. It's tree filled, private, and the escape we all needed for a week away. However, it's so remote for us that we don't have internet, U-Verse cable, and I used all of my roaming data within the first three days. We use bug spray as our daily perfume, watch McKinley play on the rock bed that flanks the river, run into town (a 20 minute drive) to shop Dollar General and get groceries, play scratchers when in need of a little entertainment, and are usually in bed by 9:30. I'm usually itching to head back to civilization by day three, but this week was different. I was definitely ready to head home by Sunday, but it was a nice change of pace after all the running we've done this summer. And, it was just the vacation we needed before the inevitable school year starts. 

I am what you would call a "city girl", so when we talk about heading to river, I start thinking about the things I'll miss while away. You know, things like Target, my television, the ability to get in my car and run to get the things I need. None of this is possible at the river. A week away sounded like fun, but a little daunting at the same time. I knew McKinley would love every minute, but I was a little apprehensive. Like I mentioned above, there is no internet at their house, so you can't just hop online to see what's happening in the world. And when your world is run by things like social media, it makes it a little tricky to try and stay relevant. Even for a week. I lost my roaming data on Thursday and wasn't able to check Facebook, post to Instagram, or check email. I definitely had FOMO! Or so I thought. More on that later.

 I am also a girl who likes fancy vacations. Beach houses, nice hotels in fun cities, and action packed days exploring new places are all things I love to do when on vacation. River life is not what I would call fancy. At least our version of river life. Before you even think of heading outside, you coat yourself in Family Off or Avon's Skin-So-Soft to repel the large amount of bugs that bite. You take a walking stick out in the yard to ensure you could stab a snake if you had to. (I'm not about to, but my dad will.) And you sit on the deck at the end of the day and listen to the confused rooster who crows in the evening, watch humming birds dart around the feeder, and listen to nature buzz around as they go about their business in the woods. And this time around, I found all of incredibly relaxing.

Because the trip was mostly for McKinley, he did everything he wanted to do and more. He found a turtle in the front yard and showed it off it all of us, drove the "tractor" around the yard with the assistance of Granddaddy (the blade was always up when he was on the mower), learned to play badminton and was pretty good at hitting the birdie, drove Dodgy, my dad's Dodge Ram down to the barn, and did all the things five year old boys do when they are outside. He was a dirty, sweaty mess!

 

 

I made cold brew for a week's worth of iced coffee because Starbuck's isn't around the corner. McKinley discovered Kool-Aid and loved it. My mom and I made apple pies from scratch. I whipped up blueberry pancakes for breakfast. Sweet tea flowed all week and was made into an adult Arnold Palmer when needed. And we had a feast, as McKinley called them, every night. River life for us is all about cooking, baking, and eating around the clock. 

The heat this last week was pretty intense, so it made heading to the river a little less desirable. We spent Wednesday on the bank watching McKinley throw rocks and he helped my dad reel in three large trout. McKinley would cast when he felt like it, stood for hours in the cool water looking for crawdads and picking out the right rocks for his collection, and watched trucks cross the small bridge that runs over the river. As my dad says, he's a true "river rat". When we weren't at the river, we took a day trip to Mt. Home, AR where we lunched at Chili's, shopped two local antique malls for metal trucks and other finds, played "Punch Buggy" when we spotted vintage Volkswagen Beatles, and stopped to take in the gorgeous site of Lake Norfork, a sprawling lake that feeds into our tiny town in Missiouri. 

 

Back in May, my mom and I spotted an old bar cart in the window of a shop in town. I had all but forgotten about it until this week. So, on a trip into town on our first day, my mom and I stopped in to see if it was still there. It was! It's a total mess of rust and grime, and I couldn't be more excited to be the proud owner of this little treasure. We bought wire brushes at Dollar General to assist with the rust removal. And when we got home, we tackled the bar. And when I say we, I'm talking about me and McKinley! We threw on plastic gloves and went to town on that rust. And when that didn't work, I applied CLR and let it sit over night. It truly helped. We worked a little each day and I've still got my work cut out for me, but I'm excited. I love a good DIY project!

 

 Dada joined us on Thursday night and finished out the week with the fam. We all played at the river, took a little trip to Althea Springs which is a short walk away from the river, he played on the floor of the living room with McKinley (who took more than enough toys for his week away), watched McKinley have his second tooth "pulled" by Granddaddy, relaxed, ate, napped, and enjoyed a brief vacation of his own. River life is pretty chill.

 

And upon our return yesterday afternoon, I parked myself on the couch and soaked up as much TV as I could. I may have enjoyed a week unplugged, but I loved plugging back in and catching up on The Bachelorette, watching ABC's Sunday night game night, and getting back into our nightly routine at home. I would love to try and instill some of the river life aspects into our daily suburb life, but sometimes I'm unsure how to do it. I need to stay plugged in for my "job" with things like Facebook and Instagram. I need the internet to blog. I could definitely cut out the television time, but to be perfectly honest, we are gone so much during the summer that we don't really watch as much TV as I think we do. When modern conveniences are readily available, it's hard continue the river life at home. I guess that's why it's a vacation. You're taking a vacation from normal life.

We are already planning our vacation for next year. It doesn't involve river life. This time, it's the beach life. Definitely a life I can wrap my arms around! As for the river, it will be there for our next escape. We're already talking about taking a look at the school calendar and taking advantage of a long weekend to head down before true falls sets in. My personal takeaways from the trip are that I don't need a daily internet connection, I like spending time in the kitchen, my son is the best sleeping partner when you need a little snuggle from your five year old, scratchers are terribly addicting....especially when you keep winning tickets, taking time to relax is definitely something we don't do enough around here, and my family is pretty awesome!

 XO,

Andrea