Tara Rocks

Well, she does…

what i did on my summer vacation

so last week i went on vacation, a trip to missouri and to kentucky then back to missouri

i will now regale you with stories and pictures from said vacation.  

i flew to saint louis and got in my rental car, all very uneventful other than the fact that my suitcase was the first on the baggage claim thing and then the rental car shuttle was pulling up to the curb as i got there. so that was cool

i got in the car and hooked my phone up to the fancy ass bluetooth thing and got my gps directions map up and running and headed out.  about 2 hrs later i stopped at public house brewing in st james, missouri, drank a few tasters and loaded up on their fruit ciders, a peach ale and of course revelation stout.  

Hard Cider

Peach Ale

after that i headed to my cousin  angie’s to be amazed by how well she is doing on her weight loss journey.

and then on to colton’s to meet my friend jamie that i initially met in one of my facebook groups, she was on a road trip of her own and we managed to coordinate  meeting in the great metropolis of rolla, mo.

we had a great dinner and i caught up a little bit, each meeting with her (this is our second in real life) is like hanging with someone i have always known and there is no awkwardness we just keep on talking like it hasn’t been 2 years since we had dinner together the last time

after that i headed on to that ‘blink and you will miss it’ town of my early childhood, and got to my mom’s just about bed time.

we got up bright and early for our road trip to kentucky.  it was time to meet the newest great nephew and his mom, and see my nephew.  

we left the house around 5:30 am and headed out.  my mom, awesome person that she is, knew of a dunkin donuts on the way so we stopped there to fuel up on sweet coffee and donuts.

as we drove, we laughed, told stories, ate junk food

DQs 5$ meal box is delightful

and just had a fabulous time, we also stopped at a few tourist attractions 

Boomland was a favorite i think

do you need a pink camo high heeled chair? if so they have them at boomland!

We got to our destination that afternoon and i got to meet my new niece (by marriage) and she was just as awesome as i expected her to be, and of course my new great nephew who will learn that i am the fun aunt and have no real rules.  

Nathaniel napping on Aunt Tiggy

Great Grama and Nathaniel

my nephew came in from work a little later and we had a wonderful time catching up.

as always there is never enough time and on Saturday morning after letting the new parents sleep in a bit and getting a picture of the new family with grama/great grama we headed back out to Missouri, this time my 13 yr old nephew joined us to go back home as he had been staying with his big brother for a few weeks.

Road trip fun!

There is nothing like being with family and definitely nothing like being with them at the river.

After a few days at the river, there was rain and lots of it in the forecast so we loaded up and headed to mom and dad’s house. 

They promptly put me and baby buttercup to work shucking corn.  i am not a fan of those little worms that live in corn, so at one point i pulled the husk down and screamed and hit the corn against the side of the bucket and jax decided that was how it was done, so he started screaming and hitting the corn every time,  it was quite entertaining.

Later that day i headed over to visit my aunt but she wasn’t home, so i just spent a little time at the pond, enjoying the rain drops on the lily pads (she came to mom’s to see me later in the day)

and then more family!! my nephew and his kids came to visit

I love my babies!!

It is impossible to capture everyone and everything, but i hope you enjoyed this little glimpse of my vacation!