It's a Vacation!!

This is coming to you from Lakeview Resort at Lake of the Ozarks, MO. We're on a vacation with a BUNCH of our friends from college. We only arrived yesterday afternoon, and we're already having fun!

We left on Thursday afternoon, picking Ray up from work as soon as he was finished for the day. We drove to Champagne, IL to a Red Roof Inn that night. We slept, got up, and headed to McDonald's the next morning, where the kids started the day with some wild and crazy playtime in the McD Playplace. This was essential to our trip's success!

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It doesn't take much imagination to see how a trio of kids could benefit from running and climbing and sliding and lots of LOUDNESS after driving several hours the night before, and prior to 8+ additional car hours.
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At lunch time Friday, we stopped in St. Louis. Henry declared the Arch to be TALL! And GRAY! And HUGE!

A kind stranger offered to take a photo of our whole family near the Arch. We don't have very many pictures of all of us together, since one of us is usually behind the camera.

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And here we have a view up the small noses of a few Mears kids, with as much of the Arch as Mommy could manage to capture.

There is a lot of mowed grass all around the Arch, and the already car-weary kids really enjoyed romping around. There was a lot of running and jumping.

We had lunch at a Subway near the Arch, and Gregory thought this planter set-up was very pretty, and wanted his picture taken up there. So ... here's Gregory at Subway in St. Louis.