Vacation: Part 1

Brad and I are brave people.  We took two kids under the age of three, one with special needs, on vacation.  And it was actually really fun!  We went to Eureka Springs and Fayetteville.

We arrived in Eureka Springs on Friday evening.  After feeding Semmes, we put both boys in bathing suits and headed to the pool.  We were hoping this would tire both kids out since they both slept most of the trip up.  After about thirty minutes of Cooper splashing and kicking in the pool, we got both kids out and dressed and went to get some Thai food.  Semmes cashed it in pretty quickly after we got to the restaurant.  Cooper, on the other hand, seemed invigorated by his swim and refused to sleep.  But he was smiling and happy, so we didn't mind him not going to bed until almost 9 that evening.  We had a room with two queen beds.  We had one and Semmes and Cooper shared the other.  Cooper slept under the covers; we put Semmes in his newborn napper well away from Cooper.  It actually worked out really well and I'm kinda upset that this trip will be the only time we're able to do that; Semmes has almost outgrown the napper.

Saturday we did WAY too much.  Because we're up so early, we had already had breakfast, gotten everyone up and dressed, and were on the road by a little after 8.  So we stopped at Quigley's Castle since they open up at 8:30.  Ya'll, this place is weird.  The current owner's grandparents built the house.   The grandmother used stones and pebbles she had been collecting since she was nine to make bricks that cover the house.  Plus there is a GORGEOUS garden with benches and bird feeders that she built.  And the house has plants growing inside it that are 65 years old.  And her husband collected glass bottles that were used to make 14 bottle trees.  A lot of the bottles are old Civil War medicine bottles.  Anyway, see the pictures:

This is inside the house...so are the plants.

The garden.  Everything rock was made by Mrs. Quigley

Bottle trees:

Path along the side of the house:

The house (and Brad and Cooper):

These benches and bird feeder predate the house:

The cat was very interested in us:

This wall of butterflies covers an ENTIRE wall of one of the bedrooms upstairs:

What the bricks look like:

Cool bird feeder:

You can see why they chose to live there.  That's the view:

More of our trip later.  I've got babies to take care of!