oh hi.

It's been awhile! Thought I'd update before the entire month of August passes by.

This month we went on vacation with my side of the family. We traditionally go to Branson and my parents reserve the guest house at the Bradford Inn so we can all stay together. It's always great to spend a couple days together jet skiing and swimming, eating, and playing games. Thanks for another awesome getaway, Mom and Dad! We chose to leave Miss Talia with Nathan's parents. Big thank you to them for watching her! It was nice knowing that she was in good hands while I was sitting back and actually enjoying restaurant dinners and not changing any diapers! We did miss her, though.

I don't have pictures of a lot of the good stuff, like the lake and Branson Landing, but here's what I have:
Before playing games one night, Nathan tried to talk everyone into eating some stuff he bought at a little shop called It's Sugar. These were not sweet, however. Cheesy larvae and crickets?? I passed. Bekah was brave. Julie was brave. My mom was brave. Even Sophie ate a TON of larvae when we got back home. So gross.

We visited College of the Ozarks, where we milked a cow and toured a tractor museum. They had good food at the restaurant on campus.

I think one of my favorite parts of the trip was stopping at Talking Rocks Cavern on our way out of town. Too bad Jarrod and Bekah couldn't come with us! There was a beautiful nature trail that we were able to spend some time on before our tour started. Nathan and Sophie found a rock with fossils. {It's on our kitchen counter now.}

The cave was really neat! I liked the story of how it was found--back in the 1800s by a couple boys chasing a rabbit. Rabbit went down a hole, and the cave was found. They called it Fairy Cave at first, which Sophie and I both liked better than Talking Rocks.

The cave was small, but we saw some awesome things! These aren't the best pics, but at least they're something. Sophie was scared going down all the steps, so Nathan had to hold her pretty much the whole time. {They really shouldn't charge almost $10 for 4-year-olds, amen?} Even though she was nervous, she still said the cave was her favorite part of vacation.

After the tour, we spent $6 more on a bag of dirt so we could try sluicing. Found some pretty rocks. Stones. What have you.

And then to round out the past few weeks, here are some pictures I already put on Facebook.

Talia was eating Lucky Charms when she suddenly said proudly, "I did it!" I looked up and saw this little face beaming happily:

Isn't she precious?

Sophie started preschool last week. She's going to a different school this year and is going four days a week instead of two. Big changes! So far, so good. She has a sweet teacher and a super small class (six kids) with lots of help (one teacher and two paras). Here is her first day of school pic.

I'm so proud of my Sophie girl!