We made our annual Arkansas trip this past June. We were going out for one important event and that was my niece, Olivia's, baptism. We were so glad to be there for it. This was the first time all of the DeVaux's were together in quite a while. We took advantage of it and took some family pictures. It was quite a job with 19 grandkids and 13 adults! We did it though! We also went to Magic Springs with everyone and had such a blast. David made little Dave ride the Arkansas Twister, which is a very old wooden roller coaster and it is way scarier than the metal ones, since it is so bumpy and sharp. Dave did not like the ride at all and held a grudge for quite some time against his dad. Poor Parker wanted to ride all the rides, but was just a little too short. Lizzy and Maggie were also very brave with the rides! They had no fear. It was fun to see them with all the cousins and we only lost 3 out of 16 kids and that was all on my husband. :) Luckily they were found safely and had a fun tale to tell. There was also fun times had at Dee-dah's with too much food and playtime with cousins out in the pools that she has acquired over the years. It's so nice having kids old enough to watch the younger kids, so that us adults could have a little time to talk to each other. Unfortunately while we were there we had a fever virus going around and Pierce got hit hard. He was pretty down and miserable. I had also gotten the horrible little sickness about a week later and it was horrible! Then we went to Dardanelle to see the Torgerson family. While there we had a blast and just took it easy most of the time. We love swimming in the pool there and all the kids got some much needed practice with their swimming.
About a week after being there, I told David that 2 weeks just wasn't enough time to do everything and see everyone enough. You should have seen him light up!! He had been thinking for a while that I should stay out with the kids for a couple of extra weeks and he found this to be the perfect time to bring it up. He wanted to stay until the 4th of July. He had it all planned out. He would fly home on the Saturday that we were originally going to drive home and then he would fly back out to Arkansas on July 3rd, Then we would drive home July 5th. Surprisingly I was not too thrilled about the idea of staying that long in Arkansas. There were a lot of different reasons. I know I had stayed about that long previous times, but his time I was going through a little depression and wasn't too keen on the idea. Then Trish over heard the idea and said if David did fly home, then Gabby could stay an extra week and fly home with David. No pressure. :0 Don't get me wrong, I had wanted to stay a little longer, but I was thinking a few days and have David there to help too. With Pierce sick for the first couple of weeks, it was not an easy traveling time and I was not sleeping well, because he was not sleeping well and I was on this birth control that was literally making me crazy! But somehow I said yes and David flew back to Utah and I stayed in Arkansas for 33 days! But who's counting?!! It was a lot of fun and the kids were thrilled to stay that long and have so much cousin time and hop from house to house. I had a great time too. Then Pam and I decided to drive up to Fayetteville on Saturday to visit Gabe and Molly and stay the night with them. I took my 3 younger kids and left David and Maggie with the Bailey's, since there really wouldn't be too much for them to do up there with us. It was so fun to spend some more time with the DeVaux's and we got to go to Tacos for Life, which is this amazing mexican restaurant that is our new favorite! Then we went to church with them, had some dinner on Sunday and headed back to Bryant. Things were going great until we hit some traffic about 30 miles from home. We ended up sitting in traffic for about 2 or 3 hours. We were stuck. There was no way to get off the interstate. We saw multiple people relieving themselves and many people tried taking the dirt side road that had no real out. It was horrible!!! The kids did was better than Pam though. She was not handling it well at all. I'm just glad we had plenty to eat and drink and that 2 out of 3 kids were in diapers! It was a long day. Then that night we finally got home and there was a freak Arkansas wind storm, which seriously NEVER HAPPENS! The windstorm pushed Pam and Micha's basketball goal onto my van completely smashing my windshield. Micha came in an told me and I thought he was joking. I then started crying and walked out to see the damage. The tears turned to laughter as I thought about how I wasn't really wanting to be in Arkansas anymore, I had just spent way too much time in that darn van and now I had a windshield that I would have to get replaced sooner than later. That is when I lost it and the next day, unfortunately I spent the whole day in a pretty bad place. I just could not get out of this funk. It had been a week since David had left and I was still fighting this cold that I had caught and I was homesick. I got out of my little mood eventually and then Tuesday we packed up again and headed to the Torgerson's again. I was sad to leave my family, but at the same time, I was so excited to have a change of scenery after the week I had. We had a great time in Dardanelle and I survived another week without David and got my windshield fixed. Funny side story, while David was home in Utah he got his windshield broken the same week I did. Fun week for car repairs. Oh and our neighbor called us on our second week in Arkansas and told us our trampoline had flown over our gate and was now in our front yard and was completely damaged. They were sweet enough to go and tie it up for us in our backyard, so we could take care of it, when we got back. Amazing neighbors for sure! So between sickness, broken windows and trampolines, it wasn't the most relaxing trip of my life.
The good news is we made it to the 4th of July and the Torgersons did not disappoint. It was amazing to be with so much family and the fireworks show was amazing! They went all out and my kids got to experience a real Arkansas fourth of July!! We had way too much food and a swimming bounce castle thing for the kids, the weather was somewhat great and not too humid. It was all just so nice. I was very glad that David had talked me into staying and getting to make more Arkansas memories with my kids. The next day we headed back to Utah FINALLY! I had never been so excited to see my house and sleep in my own bed. I know I was blessed to spend so much time with my family, but I was also blessed to come home to my amazing house waiting for me!
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