lucashannon

This past weekend we headed down to Arkansas to getaway and celebrate my dad’s birthday.  His birthday isn’t until this Thursday but Lucas and I are heading out of town tomorrow so we thought we should celebrate early.  We headed down to Mountain View, AR on Saturday afternoon and enjoyed an evening in the small town.  After eating dinner in town we listened to the folk music being played throughout the square…

After enjoying some music we headed back out of town to the resort we were staying at.  We only had a room for the first night and then we were going to switch to the cabin for the second night.  However, once we had a look around the place we were less than impressed and decided to stay there only one night.  The only redeeming quality of this place was that it was right on the White River…

A view of the place…

It was so luxurious that it came with teeny, tiny soap…we couldn’t stop laughing about how small the soap was…this is it next to a quarter…

So after a stormy night at the first place, we woke up and headed to Blanchard Caverns…

First we enjoyed the cave…it was pretty amazing…

After the cave we checked out the springs…

I thought my dad’s shirt was fitting for the area we were in…

After stopping for lunch at a yummy catfish restaurant we made our way up to Mountain Home, AR (not to be confused with Mountain View, which is where we stayed the first night).  Mountain Home sits right off of Norfolk Lake so we thought we might be able to find a place on the lake…and we did!

After my mom and I spent a couple hours in the pool we headed down to the lake to swim some more…

After swimming we enjoyed the rest of the evening by sitting on the porch.  And since the whole weekend was for my dad’s birthday, it wouldn’t be complete without some birthday cookies…

Even though we had to work to make it a good weekend we all ended up having fun…some more than others.  :)  We came back to WP today and then tomorrow Lucas and I head off to Springfield for a couple days to stay with Mandi and Jesse.  On Friday we’re going up to KC to help Lucas’ grandparents move so we have week full of travel ahead of us.  I’m just thankful we’re able to do so much while we’re home…

-Shannon

After the big celebration down here in West Plains we headed up to Kansas City to celebrate on our actual Independence Day.  We drove up last Thursday night and stayed through Sunday afternoon.  When we go up to KC we always get to see Bonnie & Larry (Lucas’ parents), Todd & Angie (brother and sister-in-law) and Grandma & Grandpa E.  But this time Aunt Becky (Bonnie’s sister) and cousin Jake came up as well!  As if this wasn’t already exciting, we then heard that Uncle Bill (Bonnie’s brother who has never visited them in KC) was coming up too!!! 

So on Friday, the 4th of July, we celebrated all day long.  Larry had built a game of washers so we spent most of the day doing that…

Aunt Becky was quite good at this game even though she claimed to have never played it before…

Uncle Bill in all his glory…

We also had a game of hillbilly golf set up…I’m not really sure what this game was but apparently you toss two golf balls attached to each other by a string and try to get them to wrap around the posts…I don’t really care to explain any more…  :)

Of course we enjoyed some food…

Here’s grandma enjoying the day…

And while the boys continued to play game after game of washers, Angie and I enjoyed some beergaritas…

As the afternoon turned into evening we decided we needed some fireworks to shoot off.  So Larry, Todd, Jake, Angie and I piled into the car and headed to the fireworks stand.  I thought we were going to pick out a few items but we came back with 5 grocery bags full of fireworks…

Before we got going with the fireworks that night Lucas, Todd and Jake decided to have a bottle rocket war out in the forest behind the house.  This little escapade was NOT condoned by the mothers of the house but it happened anyway.  After about 20 minutes they all came back in and were immediately asked if anyone was dead.  With a snicker they replied that no one was dead…however, cousin Jake had been shot in the chin with a bottle rocket!  And who was the shooter…LUCAS!!!  Jake’s chin was a little tore up but he seemed to survive.  I don’t have an “after” picture but here is Jake before all the shananigans happenend…

Lucas and Todd…the other two shooters…

With all the fireworks we had a pretty good show that night and we ended with a big bang from the Muy Bonita.  This 16 shell finale was in honor of Bonnie, who’s full name is Bonita, since she loves fireworks so much.  Ok maybe she doesn’t LOVE fireworks but I’m pretty sure she enjoyed the finale.  :)

On Saturday, after spending most of the day shopping, we headed off to find Bar-B-Q for dinner.  We went to Excelsior Springs, a small town a little ways away from KC.  Todd and Angie had been up here before so we knew we were in for a treat!  As we pulled up to the restaurant I could tell it had been an old train depot.  After years of tracking these down with my dad you get pretty good at picking them out.  :)  So we enjoyed the sights and tastes of Wabash Bar-B-Q…

Dinner was delicious although Lucas thought I was crazy for getting catfish instead of BBQ.  What can I say?  I love catfish!  I did try a rib and it was probably the best rib I’ve ever had…so I know the BBQ was great!  Even though we were completely stuff we headed over to the Dari-B for some icecream…

Angie and I really enjoyed our cones…

We had a great weekend with family and loved being able to celebrate the 4th…again.  :) 

Tomorrow we’re heading down to Arkansas for a couple of nights at a cabin to celebrate my dad’s birthday.  It should be fun and of course I’ll make sure to take lots of pictures.  :)  Until then…

-Shannon

For those of you who don’t know, Missouri is known as the “Show-Me State”.  We like to see things before we believe them.  So I thought you might like to see some Missouri so you can know what you’re missing.  :)  Lucas and I have been surprised at how much we enjoy Missouri beauty again.  We were a bit worried that Vancouver had spoiled us forever.  And while there are no snow-capped mountains in the background, these photos give you a glimpse of what we see all around us…

Mind you all of these were taken out of a moving vehicle but I still think they are pretty.  :)

-Shannon

After missing out on 4th of July celebrations for the past two years, we figured we should celebrate it twice to make up for lost time.  :)  So last week we started the festivities here in West Plains.  First we went to the local firework show out at the airport…

They put on quite a good show but nothing compared to our homemade 4th of July celebration.  We started the evening with brats for dinner…

And then moved into the fireworks portion of the evening.  We didn’t get anything real big so we spent about an hour lighting black snakes and smoke bombs…

We put the smoke bombs in the firepit so it seeped out…unfortunately for Mom they were a bit much…

Lucas battled it out with the tank…I think the tank won…

And my dad and I were the lucky catchers of the parachutes…

Then things really got going…

Of course it wouldn’t the 4th of July without sparklers and my mom was quite the sparkler dancer…

Happy 4th of July…

-Shannon

As you may remember from my previous post, I’m a little obsessed with swimming this summer.  And while I’ve been getting by just fine with my adult sized kiddie pool I was spoiled last week when I enjoyed a REAL pool…

I had the luxury of this pool because I spent the week housesitting for some of my parents friends.  Sure I had to look after the pets…a teeny, tiny dog and a long-haired guinea pig…but it was all worth it to sit in the pool for hours each day.  :)

-Shannon

***Again I’m doing a little catch-up with the blog so here are some adventures from our trip back to Missouri from Duke…

As we traveled from North Carolina to Missouri we decided to go a different way than Lucas drove when he came out.  For one, we avoided the road where the incident happened and two, we wanted to add the great state of Virginia to our list.  (I have now been to 41 states)  So we set out through North Carolina and after a few hours we ventured off the main road to stop by Mt. Airy, NC.  This is the home of Andy Griffith and if you know Lucas then you may know that he LOVES The Andy Griffith Show.  With Mt. Airy being Andy Griffith’s hometown he used it as an influence for the show…although we couldn’t find Aunt Bea anywhere…

Pilot Mountain…hmm that’s pretty close to Mt. Pilot which was a nearby town in the TV show…

After adding Virginia we spent the rest of the day in Tennessee and stopped at Frozen Head campground for the night…

We tried to take a quick hike but I was a little overheated so we went to the nearest town and grabbed some Sonic for dinner.  When we came back to camp it turned into a gorgeous evening and we enjoyed playing Skip-Bo by the fire…

This campground has quite a bit of meaning for Lucas seeing as he spent almost 2 summers there.  When he worked out in Tennessee he led youth groups on home repair trips where they would help someone out in the area.  Most of the time the groups that Lucas led would stay in this campground during their week of home repair camp.  And when we pulled into the campground what did we see but this…

A group from Confrontation Point Ministries where Lucas worked.  It really made the camping feel full circle.  We enjoyed our time camping and even felt right at home with the moss covered ground…we grew accustomed to this from Vancouver…

Good-bye campground…

As we headed back to Missouri we said hello to Nashville…

We also said hello and goodbye to Kentucky…but not before we enjoyed a roadside diner just before we crossed the mighty Mississippi.  I don’t know if our friends around the world know this but we’ve been having a lot of rain throughout the Midwest and we were a little concerned about the bridges we had to cross.  Up river there was severe damage but thankfully we were down south enough to miss it.  All we had to worry about was meeting a semi-truck since these two bridges are extremely narrow…

-Shannon

We couldn’t go to Duke without trying to snag a peek at the basketball court.  We wandered around the building without much luck of getting in but the last door we tried was open.  We acted like we were part of one of the gazillion basketball camps at Duke and snapped some shots along the way.  Lucas’ dad really wanted us to get in there and take some pics so hopefully these will suffice…

Hope you enjoy these Larry…

-Shannon

Although I took a few pictures the first night I was in North Carolina, I decided to dedicate an entire afternoon to taking pictures as well.  So while Lucas met with his fellow Methodist scholars I wandered around Duke…

These are the dorms where the students live…I just can’t get over how beautiful it is…

Since I had the entire afternoon to myself I spent quite a bit of it in the chapel.  We went to church there while we were in Durham and it was fun to explore the place all by myself…

Of course…John Wesley…

And finally to the inside…the doors leading into the actually chapel…

The organ…

Some intricate door work…

Then I made my way over to the Divinity School to peek around the chapel there…

Richard Heitzenrater, who Lucas worked with while he was there, designed this logo when he was a student at Duke Divinity School…

This is part of the Divinity School building…

It’s a pretty beautiful place…I sure was amazed.  And all the stone you see is from North Carolina and looks like this up close…

If you ever get a chance to be in Durham make sure you stop by Duke because it is definitely the prettiest place in town…

-Shannon

***The next few posts will serve as “catch-up” for our time out at Duke…

 

One day while I was visiting Lucas out at Duke, we decided to spend the morning at the Duke Gardens.  So while Lucas found a nice shady spot and worked I wandered around taking pictures.  Even though it got quite hot during the day the gardens were nice because I could stay in the shade and there were plenty of benches to sit on…enjoy the pictures…

 

These plants were awesome and I swore I would remember the name but now I can’t…oh actually I just remembered that they are called Pitcher Plants.  They grow in bogs and they collect water but I thought they were pretty cool because of the top flap part…

-Shannon

After almost 3 weeks apart Lucas and I were finally reunited when I flew out to North Carolina last Thursday. Even though I spent the day traveling I was extremely excited to see my lubber and we even took a walk around Duke. I can’t believe how beautiful the campus is…I feel like I’m walking through an English village. But since I’ve never been to England I can only imagine that this is what it might look like…

Lucas with all the trophies he’s won since being here…

And some pictures of Duke Chapel…

It’s good to be back with my lubber…

-Shannon