A Visit to Northwest Arkansas

4:52 PM

At the beginning of July, Kyle's younger sister, Kara, flew in from the West Coast to introduce her boyfriend, Daniel, to everyone. Kyle's parents live in the country outside Fayetteville, so it makes for a beautiful early morning running locale.

I was enchanted to find a herd of sheep grazing in a pasture. I later drove by the same pasture to show August, and there was no sign of the sheep. Mysterious. Or they just retreat to shadier pastures after a certain hour.

The area around where Kyle's parents live is truly beautiful. Rolling hills, farmland, cows...it's serene.

Looking back across a meadow towards Northwest Arkansas.

As I returned home after my run, the sun was beginning to make its presence known, and the deer that had been grazing were starting to return to the woods.

We had an unexpected adventure on our visit! Grandad (Kyle's dad) was giving Kyle and the kids a tour of their new RV and one of the kids turned the deadbolt - which apparently was broken. We realized this when they tried to get out of the RV and the deadbolt wouldn't budge. They were locked in. Kara, Daniel and I tried to unlock it from the outside with the key, but it had no effect. We even dismantled the whole locking mechanism and could not budge the bolt from the lock. It was no small amount of disconcerting. I knew, of course, that there must be a second exit point from the RV, but it was still causing my stomach to lurch feeling locked away from my babies.

There came a point when it was time to quit messing with the lock and just get everyone out of there.

So we had Kyle and his Dad pop open the emergency window and we lowered everyone out one by one. The kids found it incredibly exciting!

Thank goodness for emergency windows!

It was an experience that I'm pretty sure the kids won't forget anytime soon.

Once safely out of the RV, the kids rode bicycles, tricycles, drew on the sidewalk with chalk and just had a great time.

Kara and Daniel

Wyeth and his Aunt Kara

Dorien snuggled up to Daniel.

Freshly showered and ready for bed, but the kids needed one last hug from Kara and Daniel.

Sweet Wyeth munching on some Cheerios.

Nan and Grandad's house has a wonderful long porch that extends the length of the front of the house and looks out over their beautiful front yard. It was a lovely place to sit and watch the kids playing.

Wyeth was happy just to clamber around on the porch railings.

Kyle's older sister, Beth, came by with her two daughters. Reagan and Brooklyn tested out some new "Monster" feet from Nan and Grandad.

Wyeth wanted to sit on top of Kyle's bike. For just a second.

Because August's birthday was just around the corner and Reagan had been sick on her birthday, we did a joint celebration for the two of them. Cupcakes and cake.