Vacation Highlights

After an 8hourdrivethattookus10hours, we arrived at our destination - Louisville, KY.

The kids were so excited to get out of the car and into the pool that they did not even care that we hadn't eaten dinner! They swam and swam and it was just so nice to be out of the car!

The highlight of the trip to Louisville was the Louisville Slugger Bat Factory and Museum. The kids had a blast learning all about which famous players get their bats specially designed, and getting to feel the different types of bats. I really enjoyed watching the machinery in the factory...it is fascinating to me that they can carve a bat in about 8 seconds! Very cool tour! And at the end, every person -including 15 month olds get a souvenir bat!

Louisville definitely has a lot of traffic, and the kids were both intrigued and freaked out by the downtown area! Madison thought they should do a little more cleaning up of some of the properties! I spent the entire time thanking the good Lord that I live in a small town!

As for me, I loved seeing Churchill Downs. I have seen so many Kentucky Derby's and I remember being fascinated by this as a kid. I still really like horse racing, and I was thrilled to get to see the most famous track of them all! The kids were not as impressed with the place....except for the virtual jockey video game! One thing that I stupidly didn't realize is that this track is smack in the middle of the city! I always see them showing the Quarter Horses in the pastures running in green grass and thought it would be in the country. Apparently the horses are brought in from other places! Learned something new!

On Friday, we left Louisville to head to Evansville, IN for Jay's wedding. On the way we made a pit stop at Marengo Cave. It was a bit pricey to get in, but after Preston was majorly impressed and begged to go again, and talked about it and really picked up a lot of cave information, I was very glad that we stopped there!

Once we got to Evansville, we made a mandatory stop at the Willard Library to look for their ghost. We did not see the Gray Lady, and when we left Quincy proclaimed "that was stupid - I really wanted to see her....why did she not come out?" I am not sure that Jim was unhappy about us not finding her!

And then we arrived at the main, most important part of our trip...the wedding of Uncle Jay and Angela! It was a very beautiful wedding. Uncle Jay and Aunt Angela are either the craziest, or the bravest people I know, as they had six of our kids in the wedding! Plus Jim! I was very worried, but it was a great wedding and nobody misbehaved (at least not noticeably).

Quincy was even the flower girl - brave, brave Uncle Jay!

We are very excited for them - it was awesome to see Jay so happy!

While in Evansville, we stayed at a Motel 6 and the kids got some lessons about life in a big city. We were a little concerned about the noise level, fire alarms, disgusting rooms, and police coming in the night. If ever visiting Evansville, Do NOT stay at the Motel 6 on Highway41! It was very scary! We survived the night, and moved to the much nicer Clarion - I would recommend this highly!

On the way home today, I had promised Preston that we would stop at the St. Louis Arch. He had seen it on TV and even though he has been up in it before, he was about 3 and doesn't remember. He was devastated to find out that they had sold out of tickets to the top for the day, and he could not go to the top! I wanted to cry - his little face was so sad! We do get to St. Louis pretty often, so I am sure he will get another chance! He did get to walk around it and touch it, but it wasn't quite the same!

Since we couldn't ride the on the Arch, daddy made a pit stop at the Columbia Mall to ride the carousel instead! It wasn't quite the same thing, but Preston was happy about it!

Harper, however was not amused! She screamed at the top of her lungs the whole time!

I am sure I will add more photos in the coming days, it was a good trip! I am happy to be home again though - there really is no place like home!