OOOOOOOOOklaHOMA!!

This last August my entire Hazard family came down to our home for a fun-filled time of togetherness. You might not remember this happening, since I never wrote about it in great detail on this blog. Because I'm good like that.

Anyway, when everybody left, Matt and I looked around our house and realized we had an assortment of leftovers in the form of shoes, jewelry, blankets, golf clubs, camera chargers, etc. So we mailed everything we could to the appropriate owners...but you can't mail golf clubs (well you can, but it's a little pricey). Luckily, they were Griffin's golf clubs, and they live just a few hours up the road from us in Oklahoma. So Tuesday morning last week I loaded up the car with enough stuff to supply a small island and we headed that way.

The trip there was excellent. Being by myself on an 8 hour trip with two boys--one of whom has a bladder the size of a kidney bean, and the other who is eating every three hours on the dot--was a little bit daunting to me at first. But you never know what you can do until you try, and so we tried. And we succeeded. The ipad was converted into a movie theater, Bennett's bladder held out until all major rest stops were made, and Patton slept and ate like clockwork.

Super mom :)

We arrived at Griffin and Ashland's in time to eat some great dinner (Ashland, I still need that recipe!), take a walk, and let the kids play before bedtime.

 Patton and Darcy, practicing their "smile and wave" routine.

Bennett and Zoey, practicing their "Look sorry so they'll let us off of timeout" routine. (Zoey is picking her nose because she got in trouble. It's sort of a nervous habit with her. Love this girl!) 

The next morning we re-packed my car with four car seats, three adults, two strollers, and a healthy dose of excitement, and made the trip into the city to go to the Tulsa State Fair.

 Excited Fair Face!

  We went to the Expo Center first to see all the cool booths and get free samples of ice cream. They had this massage chair there was on a fabulous sale from $6,000 down to $3,000. Griffin almost had me strap it to my car to take back to his home, but Ashland put her foot down. However, we did take advantage of our adult status and asked the guy if we could sit in it. And. It. Rocked. This thing scanned your body so it knew exactly how hard to press and where, played music, and had a remote control the size of a dinner plate. Well worth a measly $3,000.

 C'mon, Ashland! You know you love it (and I want to visit you...)

The next stop was a giant warehouse that had pigs and sheep giving live birth. But we decided to forgo that aspect of the fair and headed straight for the petting zoo. Which was pretty cool, since they just let you walk around in a big cage with all the animals loose, including llamas, pigs, goats, chickens, ducks, sheep, and even a kangaroo thing. It was the most impressive petting zoo I have ever been in. But, of course, even with all the cool animals there were to choose from, Bennett and Zoey liked the goats the best.

   Why is it always goats..?

Darcy and Patton were a little too small for the goats to recognize as humans and not as food, so Griffin stayed outside with them. What a good dad/uncle.  

"Smile, Zoey!"

After that, we found another warehouse that was full of nothing but kid's activities. They had several fenced-off areas, and each area had a different thing to do inside of it. Bennett and Zoey loved this place so much we ended up spending most of the rest of the day here.

The bike area, where Zoey and Bennett unleashed their inner Hell's Angels.

The block area, where Griffin and Bennett built a giant tower, and where Bennett will probably go when he dies if he lives a good life. 

 

Griffin said all he did was show Bennett how to put the pieces together, and then Bennett made the rest. It was pretty impressive, and they had a small audience gathered when they finally knocked it over.

The nursing area, where Patton and Darcy shared a discreet lunch.

All fed and ready to roll. 

You can see the play place type area behind Ashland.

The sandbox area, where Patton discovered he loves the feeling of sand between his little toes...also the area where Bennett threw a fistful of sand in a kids face, and we decided it was time to go. Oh Bennett.

After a talk about why we don't throw sand and a sincere apology to the little boy and his teacher (he was on a school field trip), we headed back outside to the vendors and found ourselves some lunch. And then it was time to head home. Before we left though, I told Bennett that he could choose one ride to go on, and he immediately chose the ferris wheel. ("Like a fair, Mom! Fair, ferris wheel! They rhyme!") But the good ferris wheel happened to be clear on the other side of the fair, by our car. And it was a long walk. And we were ready to go. So I convinced Bennett that the Sky Ride, which was like a ski lift gondola, was way cooler than the ferris wheel, because it took you even higher than anything. And it was true--the Sky Ride was way cooler than the ferris wheel--it just also happened to land us directly back at the entrance near our car. So we all hopped aboard and Bennett was a happy little boy.

The view of some of the fair from the Sky Ride. It's a pretty big deal.

Bennett loved the ride. He was just a little bit nervous whenever we went over the cable wheels because it made the ride bump. He insisted I hold on tight to his hand the whole time, and would giggle a nervous little laugh each time we hit one. It made me smile.

Zoey, however, had no fear whatsoever of the ride, and had her head out the window the whole way.

Once we landed we chased Bennett down (who was making a break for it back into the fair), made it safely back to our car (after Bennett almost got hit by a truck because he wasn't listening), and took long naps (all except Bennett, who has boundless amounts of energy). It was a very busy day. That night after the kids were in bed, we stayed up late talking and I thoroughly enjoyed the fact that nobody was sitting in timeout or in need of my attention. That is my new definition of a "vacation."

We spent one more day in Oklahoma, doing nothing really but having fun doing it. We went to Story Time at the cute little library they have, watched a movie, took naps (all except Bennett, who has boundless amounts of energy...oh, and me. Because I'm his mom) and had the missionaries over for dinner. At some point we decided we were being too lazy, so we kicked things up a notch with some yoga and Zumba off YouTube, and then Griffin made us all do push-ups and sit-ups for one minute. We are some buff people.

Griffin "coaching" Ashland, who I am pretty sure is telling him to keep his coaching to himself in this picture.

Friday morning I packed the car again and we said good-bye. And then we started to drive. And drive. And drive.

And drive. For some reason the trip home took FOREVER!! Bennett and Patton were both awesome and slept almost the entire first half of the trip (which is when I decided that if Bennett sleeps so great in a car seat, then it could certainly come inside the house when necessary. Best decision ever). But it just seemed so slow to me!

Finally, around the Dallas/Fort Worth area, we were passing the Texas Motor Speedway when we suddenly saw about four planes flying in formation with colored smoke trailing behind them. Then they started doing all these crazy tricks and stunts. It was awesome! I guess they were the NASCAR air show people practicing for the next event, and even though I don't really care about NASCAR, I would pay money just to watch these guys again. It was lunchtime and both boys were awake now anyway, so I decided to take advantage of the situation and we pulled over next to the highway to have a little spontaneous picnic.

Bennett and Patton on the McDonald's/Flying J gas station front lawn.

One of the airplanes. These suckers move fast, so this was all I could get. But just so you know, it was awesome. And really, really loud.

Lunch and a show. No better break from driving than that!

(As a side note, I just realized Patton's onesie says, "Mommy's Big Guy" and Bennett's t-shirt says, "Property of Mom". I guess I was feeling particularly possessive on this day.)

It was super fun...but then we had to get back in the car and back in the traffic and we went at a snail's pace through all of Fort Worth and all of Waco and at a few other littler cities in between. Ugh, it was terrible! At one point, Bennett started saying things like, "Well, Mom. I guess we better start walking." It was bad. We did finally make it home TEN HOURS LATER though, and it felt soooooo good to go to bed that night!

Because we always love visiting our family and our friends, but we always love coming home, too.

And the important thing is:

the golf clubs were returned.