Roughin It

I took the kids down to meet my dad's family for a short camping trip on Wednesday-Friday of spring break. Dave was not able to take off work for the trip, so the kids and I decided to brave it and make the nearly three hour trek to Dierks, AR. on our own!! If you've never heard of it, which I'm sure most have not, it is in southwest, AR in the sticks!!! I thought we would never arrive and thought I must be lost more than a couple of times on my journey. In my anxiousness to arrive, I was going 51 in a 35 speed zone in a little town outside of Nashville and got pulled over!! I truly thought the speed limit was 45, so in my mind I was only 6 miles over, in reality I was 16 miles over!!! I was so thankful that the officer only gave me a warning. Of course, Kennedy thought it made for a good story that mommy got pulled over by the police, good lesson in slowing down!!! The officer followed me to the next small town like twenty miles away, which made me so nervous, it is very hard to make your car go 30 miles an hour on highway, but I did and we made it to Dierks with no other news worthy for Kennedy to tell!!! The kids love the outdoors and were thrilled to arrive to fish with their Papaw Ricky, Uncle Colby, cousins, aunts, and uncles. Caleb had been waiting to open his spider man fishing pole since I brought it home from the store a week ago. The time had finally come and he went right to fishing, with no hook of course. He didn't seem to notice that he caught the same red (plastic) fish all weekend. Kennedy loves to fish as well, and even caught five real fish with her Papaw. I don't know who was more proud, Kennedy or Papaw!! This was my families first trip without Grandpa Dave and his absence was tough, we all miss him so very much!!! My grandmother wasn't sure she would go back to the lake when he passed away back in August, but I'm so glad she decided to carry on the tradition and go even though I know how hard it was for her to be there without her husband of 58 years. This is the second year I've taken my kids to join The Donaldson Family in their annual fishing trip and I'm so glad I did. Little did I know, our first time to go last year would be my grandfathers last, made this trip even sweeter knowing memories with family that we don't see near enough are so very important!!!