DAY 11...Memphis by sundown

Harrison signing on:
Today was really fun and we started off waking up in the morning and I played my 3DS and we ate breakfast when everybody came over.  After Breakfast we went to the slide pool and went on the slide a couple times and I did some gambling in the game room. And then we were off...on the road to Memphis.  Stopped along the way a few times and at one stop we thought we had closed the back gate but it really wasn't and the waters fell out and these two boy scouts waved us in and helped us put the water back.

Mom & Dad in the rear View Mirror...

Now its Tori:
Hi everybody. Today and yesterday has been fun.
Yesterday: Yesterday we went swimming at the oasis pool and the slide pool.  The slide pool is fun. Later we had lunch and had quiet time. At quit time I read some more of my book, while Harrison played his 3 ds while Isacah did the same. I love my book so i couldn't stop reading it. When quiet time was over we all rented a boat and went on a ride. We ate dinner on the boat, fished and did some tubing. The tubing looked like fun but I didn't do it.  Then we went to the Butterfly Palace, the night version. If you wore white you glowed all bright.   The Butterfly Palace had a maze of mirrors, a fairy meeting, a place to make bug jars, and then where we got to see sleeping butterflies in the dark beautiful room .It was shinny and sparkly in the room.  So it was pretty fun.

Today: Today we went to the slide pool and also went to the game room, we had fun at the game room. Then Harrison, Opa, Grandma, and I  were of to Memphis. We are spending the night here. It s so safe they have to have gates around the parking lot. ( thats kind of scary) We went swimming and went past the time allowed, but we didn't get in trouble.  Well I love you all,
goodnight.
With lots of love,

Tori (victoria)





Susan 
Holland and I were having a pretty good time hanging out in the foot deep pool while the others shrieked down the Flume into the FREEZING cold pool when Tom decided he should slide...which, naturally evolved into MY needing to do the same ( WHO"S idea WAS that???) .  It turned out to be a lot of fun, mostly they liked that I screamed.  Nevertheless, twice was enough for me.
Everyone really wanted my now famous BLTs  for lunch but , alas, we had eaten too much bacon for breakfast so we made do with left over hamburgers, chicken and beans.

What STYLE...Isacah

The meal on the boat made up for it...no, no more food details.

2 1/2 hours of children at the wheel was entertaining.  Especially since I have never known of the expertise of boat driving among the men in this family --who were guiding the kids!!! hmm.  Harrison was the only one relishing being dragged behind a pontoon boat on his belly on a tube.  I think Chrissie would have gone for it but the opportunity passed.  We DID have a fun time and when we returned Chrissie, Harrison, Victoria and I took a turn on the kayaks.  I had never been in one and that was great...and easy on this calm inlet:  a peaceful sunset watched from the water

You might think that, since it was 7:30,  we went home and went to bed...but no-no-no.  We showered and went to the above mentioned butterfly Palace.  We arrived to a nearly empty parking lot and wondered if we had chosen the only day of the year it was closed...BUT they just keep the lights dim in this lovely place where you can visit nocturnal bugs and lizards ( spare me ever having to admire 4 inch cockroaches again)  and you tour a maze of mirrors and trees ( hilarious for grown and small...only three of the 8 of us were heard to go bump in the night...a couple cried ...but we mostly laughed.  They did a wonderful job of dim lights in the Butterfly room...AFTER we had made bug catching jars (again in black light).  We were greeted by silent fairies and a Frog named Lee who pointed us directly to sleeping butterflies nearby.  They sleep dawn to dusk.  Lee had a great ventriloquist, but Holland was unimpressed and didn't like him.  She liked the hula hoops.

I may have been the only one admitting exhaustion when we returned home...but all the kids fell asleep very quickly .
Victoria and Harrison summed up today's travel skipping seeing the Table Rock Dam,  Driving in the Ozark mountains,  excruciating traffic on I 40 to Memphis and an hour swimming  and playing Marco Polo with Opa after the pool was supposed to be closed.  That's the way it is...

Tomorrow Atlanta.  If we arrive there early enough we might call and see if we can get together with Reis cousins.

I am going to post this now...but return tomorrow to add the photos.  Don't ask why...