Enjoying Family Time

A little over a week ago, my entire family embarked on an epic road trip to my house in Oklahoma. Now, for most people, this wouldn't be anything to write home about, but I live 17 hours from my family and I only get to see them once or twice a year. With my parent's both battling different health issues over the years while still maintaining full-time jobs, and my sister running her own business and raising 3 kiddos, it hasn't been easy for them to come this way. So, I was thrilled when earlier this year my Dad mentioned they wanted to come and stay awhile with us. As the planning commenced, what was just going to be my parent's coming out turned into my parents, sister, brother-in-law, and their three children. This is in addition to myself, my husband, and my mother-in-law who lives with us.

For one extremely hot week, I had 10 people and 4 dogs in 1 house! Luckily enough I have a larger home with plenty of space for everyone, including an outdoor space and a pool. Boy, am I glad that we have a pool because several days that week were in the triple digits. With it being so very hot, it was difficult to do much of any sightseeing or really want to go outside. However, we mustered up some energy and gathered our gear to head out to the Gathering Place.

The Gathering Place is a large park that sits on over 66 acres and cost a whopping $465 million to build. The most amazing thing about the Gathering Place is that it is a free, public park. We, unfortunately, decided to head out on one of the hottest days, but with impending storms in the forecast, we decided it was best to go and deal with the heat. So we packed a picnic lunch, geared up with ice water, ice packs, sunscreen, and excitement, we headed to the park. This park is massive, and boy it was hot and crowded, but we had so much fun watching the kiddos run around, play on the mini zip line, and explore every area they could. What I really loved is that there is something there for everyone to enjoy.

Besides the Gathering Place, we had so much fun eating all the food and having multiple pool days! But my favorite thing about that week was, Fireworks! Something that I really love about my house, is we are directly behind the ball fields of the local high school. And this is no small high school, this school is pretty large, with well-maintained sports fields. I can literally walk through my back gate, down a short path, and be on the school's track. My neighbor had mentioned that on the 4th of July if we headed out to the track bleachers, we'd be able to see the firework show put on by the golf course across the street. So as soon as it turned dark, with kiddos in tow, and phones charged up, we walked to the bleachers and watched one of the best fireworks shows I've ever seen.

Even though I live so far away from my family, I feel so blessed to have had this time with them, and to be able to make these memories with them, also. We all had such a good time laughing, sweating, eating (and boy did we eat,) and swimming. This is one adventure that I am going to cherish for a long time, and I can't wait for our next adventure in the Fall, a trip to Universal and Disney World!