Beautiful Sunday

This past Sunday, we packed a picnic lunch and headed for Lake Red Rock in Pella after Sunday School.  It was a georgeous day, perfect for picnic-ing, playing, dam climbing, and ...well, you'll see :-)



After a little change of attire...
(The promise from two blog posts ago: the sight not seen since Josh's highschool gym days.  I do believe this is the first time Josh has worn something other than work boots or cowboy boots since his last day of gym.)





...and some lunch...





...and gathering of materials to throw into the water....



...it was time to find and play on the playground.

The slides were a big hit!

And so were the big tree trunks that were meant for climbing.  There were four or five of these large trunks.  I'm not sure how much of these were natural made and how much man had to do with shaping them out, but they were cool nonetheless.



Back to the ladder climbing from the day before when we put the tire swing up.  Caleb made it to the top with little effort but needed help climbing over to get to the slide.  I think Josh was really teaching Caleb how to throw his leg over not to help Caleb get to the slide, but more to teach Caleb to climb gates for a farm helper sooner rather than later.




Fun Fun Fun

After playing for a while on the playground, we headed out on the paths to get a look at the water.

Sarah took the easy way out and hitched a ride with Daddy.



It wasn't long before  Josh spotted the trail that led us up to the dam.  And away we went.




It was a really neat veiw.  There is a walking path all the way up to the dam.  When you get to the top, you can stand right beside the gates that regulate the amount of water that is let out during flooding.  You can also stand right on the ledge and look straight down into the water below. 





And as you can see, my children are queen and king of "no fear".  They were standing anywhere between 30 or 40 feet above the water (that's just a guess) looking straight down to the turbulent water below with no nerves whatsoever.



The view from the top of the path looking down.

After exploring the dam, it was back to the park.


Caleb and Sarah were quick to discover the shaded rest benches and took advantage of them.  For thirty seconds...they don't stay still for long.

 After the rest at the park, we jumped in the car to search out what other areas were there for the viewing.



We got a good chuckle from this sign...



...until we found out they were serious.  It took no time to pull us out and we were on our way again.
(I'm sure this would have been much funnier if I took more time on Google Images to find a car that looks like ours, but my time is limited.  Hopefully it got a little chuckle anyway.)



On our way to where, you ask?  Well, to Pella of course.  We stopped for ice cream and then walked around to take in the sights.  Nothing like Eddyville tourist on a Sunday afternoon! 



Thats itty bitty Josh, Sarah and Caleb there at the bottom of the windmill.



As promised in the previous post, here are my holy tulips.  Why holy?  Well, they were pulled on Sunday!  We had no idea that we would end up pulling a few bulbs, but since the tulip dig had been very recent we thought that it would be okay.  Not sure if its exactly Pella protocol, but we were doing it pretty well right in front of the police station so if they had a problem with it, we figured they would let us know.  Next spring, my flagpole garden will be bright with tulips straight from Holland!




And no trip to Pella is complete without a drive by Ver Meer to check out the bailers sitting out.  Its a Josh thing...I just smile and enjoy the ride  :-)