the weekly recap {July 5-12 Devil's Den & VBS}

Our last adventure with the Geels family was visiting Devil's Den State Park.

These 3 kiddos love to play in the creek!

He loves skipping rocks.

Tim taught them how to search for and catch crawdads.

We also took a 1.5 mile hike.

It was pretty hot, but everyone did fairly well!

Parker wanted to do everything with B Boy all week <3

It's a July miracle - the are all looking and smiling!!!

They left the next morning and we started our week of vacation Bible school!

The theme this year was, Everest- conquering challenges with God's mighty power.

The kids had great leaders, great groups and a great week!

We had nearly 700 kids every day!

Our church helps a tiny community in southeast Arkansas. 

Every year during VBS, we collect school supplies to send to them and we hold a VBS there too.

Our pastor's wife and another lady have this running skit every year to help excite the kids about giving. Their "names" are Mrs. Fruit Salad and Mrs. Hot Tamale. They dress up and are SO funny! It's one of my favorite parts of VBS. This year, Mrs. Fruit Salad could not be there, so my friend, Elizabeth filled in as, Senorita Sopapilla! She did such a great job! It was so funny!

I helped in crafts for the second year in a row. I just love the precious friends that I get to work with every day in VBS!

Memorial Day weekend Part 2

We saw the sign for this ranch on a trip to Eureka Springs last year.

I saw "horse trail rides" and told Tim, we have to do that.

I had a horse for a while as a child and I so miss riding a horse!

He added this to my Christmas gifts and I planned our visit for Memorial Day weekend.

It has rained a TON in Arkansas lately. The roads to the ranch and cabin are very rugged and the first road has 3 low water bridges. We were very nervous anticipating leaving on Monday because we were supposed to get a lot more rain over the weekend (and we did.)

The views were so beautiful!

Our cabin was so cute!

We signed up to ride horses that evening.

The kids have rode ponies at different places, but they are always tied up.

This was their first time actually riding.

C Girl was terrified in the beginning. I think she was afraid that the horse was going to take off running with her!

She warmed up after realizing that she was going to be led by the owner holding a rope on her horse.

I was happy as a clam!

Tim had the slooooowest horse!!!

We went on an hour trail ride and it was so fun! Every once in a while one of our horses would bust out into a trot. That was a lot of fun! I was soooo sore the next day though!

My horse was Pistol, B Boy's was Stormy, and C Girl's was Apache.

Our cabin had a loft and C Girl had SUCH a big time lowering things down!

We took a walk on Sunday morning and I am just so enamored with nature.

We saw this little guy and had no idea what he was. It turns out that this is a Luna moth.

We had a very much needed relaxing weekend.

We made some very good food over the weekend too!