Memorial Day Getaway

 We had just bought a couple of kayaks off of Craigslist, when we realized we might not be able to go on a far away nice vacation. Why not set ourselves up with fun for years to come instead?

The only thing we needed, was somewhere fun to take them. Scott asked around at work and found that a co-worker's sister owned a small house a block from a very nice (and large!) lake near the Ozarks in central Missouri. We found a really nice and affordable place to board the dogs, and took off on Sunday afternoon.

We were impressed with the amenities and the cleanliness of the house, even after not being used since last season. We settled in for a nice quiet evening and decided to do the bulk of our kayaking on Monday.

We relaxed on the back porch while waiting for the coals to turn ashen and ready for our homemade veggie seitan polish sausages. I really outdid myself there, changing up the flavor and adding more moisture so the middle stayed tender. The best I have made so far!

In the meantime, some odd close up pictures were taken....

Don't you love the contrast of our eye color? It'll be so much fun seeing what our kids get. We thought Pixie might be taking the green from Scott, but recently I'm not so sure.

(Ignore my melted make-up look. It was hot and humid that day!)

Pixie found some sticks to play with..

..and I realized I had packed two different colored flip flops. At least they were the same kind of shoe and the right feet!

Scott and I went to bed at around 9:30pm on Sunday night. It was lovely to get a good night's rest. Even better for him since he only gets to sleep in once a month or two, during holidays normally.
We had a leisurely morning and headed out to kayak at around 10:30am. The weather was perfect. It was so nice of it to go on hiatus from the thunderstorms and tornadoes we've had for weeks on end.

We weren't sure how Pixie was going to handle it. She had been asking to go boating ever since we got the first kayak a few weeks ago. She took to it immediately.

My kayak is made for the ladies. It's an eleven foot ocean kayak, so it does better with choppy water.

Scott's looks like a canoe hybrid and is fourteen feet. It's more suited to lakes and hauling children in the cargo hold. :)

We had such a blast stopping at inlets and exploring the area. We waded around in the water some too and I found two small white snail shells for Pixie. She's still carrying them around the house now. It was the least I could do to give her a fake beach experience!

She was not happy when she couldn't reach the water. We had to situate her so she could.

We had a fun and relaxing Monday evening. We went back out to kayak Tuesday morning, got into some windy and choppy water, so we turned back because we weren't comfortable getting into that with Pixie. I had fun crashing over those little waves though.
We paddled around the sheltered inlet for a while, until Pixie asked to go eat.

We returned home that afternoon, picked up our doggies and went home. 

The next day, yesterday, Scott called into work because the sunburn he got was worse. On Monday we all slathered on the sunscreen, but while we waded around it must have come off. Pixie and I didn't get burned at all, but look at what happened to Scott's delicately white legs. Can you see how swollen the left one is? He's home today too. Poor guy couldn't even walk on it!

Easter

 We had a very nice Easter this year. 

Here is a craft I made for the women I visit teach in church. 

While Daddy was at work on the weekend, Pixie and I did a little decorating. I snipped some branches off of our magnolia tree and we decorated them with sticky backed foam easter eggs. It was fun, easy and cute!

Since Scott doesn't get home from work on Sundays until just before church, we met him there and opened presents later. I found a wonderful Easter presentation on Christ's life and resurrection and showed it to my Young Women group for the lesson. There weren't a lot of dry eyes in there. :)
I also made these 'carrots' and filled them with good Easter candy. I mainly used orange paper, but ran out and used yellow instead. There are yellow carrots, and they are yummy!

Here are a few pictures of us opening the Easter box from Grandma Maridee and Grandpa Dennis. Thank you guys!

I start holiday shopping too early. I tend to forget how much stuff I have!

I gave Scott a little Easter bowl. :)

They decided to take a nap on the back porch, while I talked to my mom and prepared the dye for eggs.

Egg coloring!

We did a little egg hunt in the back yard, but I didn't get any pictures. It had gotten pretty chilly by that time. It was hilarious. Scott went out to hide them, then I took Pixie out. The first thing out of her mouth was "daddy made a mess!" She wasn't sure about putting eggs all over the lawn!

We had our old standard of eggs benedict, consisting of poached eggs, homemade bread toast (no english muffins this year), steamed asparagus and hollandaise sauce for brunch.

For dinner I baked a seitan roast in the crock pot, with tri-color fingerling potatoes and veggies. I also made some roasted asparagus. It was quite the delicious feast!