Camping

About 6 weeks ago, I thought I'd booked us a primitive cabin (similar to our yurt experience) at Mark Twain State Park for the weekend before my birthday. Well, when I tried to double-check a few days before the trip, I couldn't find the online reservation. I called and spoke with the woman at Mark Twain, who couldn't find me either, and said that they were all booked up - it was the last weekend that the Missouri State park camping facilities had water/bathrooms. She suggested that maybe I'd inadvertently booked at another park, but the friendly woman at the central reservation office was able to pull up our past reservations but nothing for this weekend.

(Very) Luckily, I was able to find a private company renting cabins that had an opening and would let us bring the dog. I'd already started packing and told the kids all about it! When we got there, Amelie was disappointed - "It's right off the road!" she wailed. (What I was able to find was a cabin with a bathroom and kitchenette - so not nearly as much like camping as the primitive cabin in the woods we'd originally planned on.) Here's the outside of the cabin: 

But, it ended up being nice! We were on the lake side of the campsite, and got to cook hotdogs and s'mores over a (very small) fire, and then it rained Saturday, but the kids enjoyed the indoor pool. James said that the hotdogs were his favorite meal and the pool was his favorite activity. 

We used the grill for the other meals:

Amelie's explaining something:

There was a convenient playgound right beside our cabin, too.

Here's Amelie communing with nature / making clover chains near the cabin:

And Sam and Spark by the lake behind the cabin.

Amelie took Spark on a short walk and our neighbor in the cabin next to us gave him a piece of bacon. He was living it up all weekend long. 

We also played many, many board games, and the kids packed many, many books. Amelie said playing Mancala with me was her favorite part. Here she is reading: 

James and I played many rounds of Jenga, but Leah kept wanting to butt in and build with the blocks instead. "We didn't do any electronics ALL WEEKEND LONG," James protested when we got back on Sunday and I didn't immediately let him watch TV.

Leah drawing at the tiny kitchen table:

This picture's blurry and I look terrible, but we had a very cosy weekend. It also reminds me that I packed all of the big kids' stuff in one suitcase (really mostly just ratty camping things that I wouldn't mind if they got grubby), and they kept putting on each other's clothes -- Amelie's mostly wearing a size 8 and James is mostly wearing a size 7 at the moment, so it wasn't too off the mark, it was just funny -- especially when she was confused by some size 6 pants that were very obviously too small/short.

We went on a mile hike near the cabins, and it was close to peak Missouri leaf season. Sam took about a million photographs. It turns out a mile was a little much for James first thing in the morning, so we did a quarter mile loop on Sunday.

Amelie was a good girl scout and we signed the trail register and then cleared some logs from the path: 

Spark is very photogenic:

James with a walking stick:

Here is Leah in the carrier. I did let her walk the last tiny bit:

So pretty!

Amelie examining moss:

I wasn't kidding about the one million photos!

This is the selfie portion of the post. Here's Sam: 

And the two of us up on the observation deck near the dam: 

And yet another photo of our dog:

We were right next to the Clarence Cannon Dam (the cabins were the Cannon Dam Cabins) and we spent a little time there - this was by a playground area / gun range.

I stole this photo from the link above: 

There was an observation deck:

And then we walked across the dam:

Here's the view from the visitors' center.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Belated Halloween!

Nana Jana provided our Halloween door decorations (which I tried to preserve by carefully peeling off and sticking on a folder on November 2nd, but they may not make it til next year) as well as Leah's costume. I think it's supposed to be a fish, but she she said that she was a butterfly with a beautiful hat, so we just rolled with it. I was afraid she'd be cold trick-or-treating (notice the snow on the pumpkin!) but she was sweaty when I took her costume off at the end of the night, so maybe I went overboard with the fleece and multiple layers of pants.

Amelie has a tradition of dressing as characters that no one is going to recognize (also putting together costumes that are mainly just clothes). This year she was Evangeline from a cartoon/anime called Wakfu that they've been watching recently. She's wearing elf ears, she has her hair in a braid, she has a magical bow, and we cut up a green t-shirt and fixed up my boots for the ensemble.

Picture for reference: 

She's also wearing several layers of clothing due to cold weather. I'm continuing a trend of dressing up as food, since I borrowed this fantastic hotdog from my friend Sam! Everyone who came to the door got a big kick out of it. (And my spouse Sam told our neighbor Lavonne that I was home passing out candy with this costume on, and she wanted me to text her a picture - and then she sent me one of her grand-puppy in a hotdog suit in return!) 

Despite getting a Spiderman costume and two (TWO) different Spiderman masks, at the very last minute, James dug through the costume drawer and decided to go as a "muscle guy." (He did some push-ups before the photo shoot.) He's got a headband, a medal around his neck, and a belt. The muscles come from the Spiderman costume underneath.

Here's the Spiderman/Miles Morales costume -- that he's worn a half a dozen times (just not on the actual night of trick-or-treating). 

Here's the group of kids who went out - they couldn't wait for it to get dark and started around our block about 6:30 after eating some crudites. I stayed home and passed out candy while we blasted the "Family Halloween" pandora station on our lawn.

They came back after our block and ate some pizza and more vegetables (really!) Amelie dumped her pumpkin out so she'd have a clean slate. James refused the pumpkin from the start -- those are for amateurs -- and went and got the pillowcase off of his bed. He was on to something, though, since he nearly filled it up and got the most candy of everyone. 

Here's a picture with our grown-up friends/teenage mutant ninja turtles: 

Leah and Sam stayed home after that and the rest of us ventured back out again to go around the big loop. There was a haunted house with a scary Santa. He asked the kids if they'd been good or bad and they hesitated, so he brought out the "bad" bucket - filled with straws and closepins and twisty ties and paper clips. James picked out a clothespin and turned to me with the most epic "what in the Sam Hill?" face, but Amelie just obliviously grabbed a handful of junk. Later at home, she wondered, "What are all these straws doing in my candy?" Scary Santa asked the adults if we'd been good and I said, "Yes!" so he gave me a little mini bottle/shot of whiskey. Ha! 

Here are the pumpkins we carved. Amelie's is on the left and features a big round moon with ghosts underneath. James's is on the right and is a scary face. The store was sold out of the pumpkin carving kits, so we had the kids help scoop the seeds and draw the faces on and then we cut them out and roasted the seeds. School was cancelled the next day for a teacher workday, which worked out pretty nicely for us!