little rock rocks: major crafting, yahtzee & a mississippi squirrel revival

I mentioned that we traveled to Little Rock last week, and I have photos for you to view. Matt's Aunt Jan (husband Jim along with son Jeff and his wife Mandy) live in Little Rock and this year Grandma and Grandpa (Robinson) sold their home in Springfield (Missouri) and moved to Arkansas. So we packed up our car (including Lottie Sue and Sydney) and met Matt's parents for a big drive West.

We spent our time visiting, eating, crafting and playing games - it was great. If you don't believe me take a look at the photos!

hubba hubba

Matt's mom volunteers at a local nursing home and she is starting a Red Hat Society there for the little ladies. You wouldn't dare be caught at the luncheons without fabulous red and purple hats, it's required. We spent a lot of time decorating hats and making pins, it was like our own Project Runway! We then we spent a lot of time wearing them for photos. You'll see below.

an inspired sydney

Dad did a little yard work and "found" Jan and Jim's water line. Bad thing is he found it with a pickaxe. Oops. When Dad sat down to dinner he had his very own place card.

not sure if you can tell but the place card is set inside the broken pipe dad butchered, we laughed for a long time over this one

Mom and Dad brought these pears all the way to Little Rock, they grew them on one of their trees and were very proud. Don't they look huge?

objects in photo may appear larger than they are

ha, we tricked you with props - they are tiny pears, but still special

lottie sue reads a book while we decorate hats

here we have (from left to right) sydney,
lottie sue, jan, grandma and mom

doesn't dad look adorable here???

and lottie sue looks adorable as well

here i am with sydney, we donned some of our creations

grandma and a super relaxed lottie sue play together on the couch

lottie sue gave grandma lots of kisses

lottie sue could not get enough of jan's koi pond,
she would point and say "oooh"

matt and grandma in the kitchen

dad and lottie sue play ball

grandma and mom here

sydney and my hubby (fyi - matt is officially a four-eyes now)

mandy and lottie sue play games before dinner one night

We of course had a family photo session, I can't tell you how hot it was out there. I was melting.

grandpa, grandma, mom, dad, lottie sue, matt and moi

same players here but sydney is in the center

jim, jan, jeff, mandy and lottie sue

the cousin shot (jeff is crouching down here,
he's actually 10 feet tall)

And here we have the "red hat" section, it was after dinner and us girls became a bit excited about modeling.

this is my favorite hat i made, i think it looks GOOD

here we are waiting for our closeup

we make these hats look GOOD

mandy and jan vamp it up

here we are wearing the headband/veil thingies
(we made these in case they ran out of hats at the luncheons)

Afterwards Mandy performed her interpretation of the "Mississippi Squirrel Revival" (any Ray Stevens fans here?) song for us. Mandy works as an interpreter for deaf and blind persons, and she performed the song in sign language. She first did it last Christmas and brought the house down, if you know the words you can see why it's a hoot.

mandy signs away

Here is the first verse of the song so you have an idea...

Well when I was kid I'd take a trip every summer,
down to Mississippi.
To visit my granny in her ante bellum world.
I'd run barefooted all day long,
climbing trees free as a song.
One day I happened catch myself a squirrel.
I stuffed him down in an old shoebox,
punched a couple holes in the top and when Sunday came,
I snuck him into church.
I was sittin way back in the very last pew
showin him to my good buddy Hugh,
when that squirrel got loose and went totally berserk!

You get the idea, it was really cute and we actually video taped her performance. Maybe I'll post it up here if I can edit the videos we have. I'm sure Mandy won't mind...

jan cues the song while looking like the cutie pie she is

here is matt with a big smile

grandpa and grandma enjoy the show

So there you have our trip in a nutshell, a great time was had by all and I am now obsessed with Yahtzee. The Robinson family loves to play games so I was in heaven, we played every night and also during crafting breaks. I must note how delicious the food was and let me also say that Jan and Jim were wonderful hosts to us. Next time I go I may not leave.