The Majestic Wichita Mountains...kind of.

This Monday was Martin Luther King Jr. Day...just in case you missed it.  Lucky for me this meant that Marty had the day off from his regular Army duties.

Growing up we - as a family - were always busy with projects, day trips or camping on weekends.  I loved it!  The problem now is that I don't know how to just chillax on the weekends and if we sit around all day I find myself slowly slipping in to the depths of insanity...known as boredom.  I can sit around and do nothing with the best of them all week long...but come the weekend and my mind and body ache for something to do, something adventurous, dirty (like playing in the mud people...come on now) or fun. 

This has been a bit of an obstacle in our marriage as Marty wants to use his weekends to catch up on all the sitting around that he is deprived of throughout the week.  And I want to use the weekend to get away from all the sitting around and being stuck in the house that I have been subject to all week.

So I let him have his Saturday and Sunday this weekend but put down my foot come Monday morning.  Yeah, I realize that was a ridiculously long amount of build up to get to what we did to celebrate MLK Jr. day, so sue me.

I had overheard (or secretly read on a blog) someone talk about going to the "Wichita Mountains" nearby and thought maybe that would be a fun adventure. Silly me, I thought that seeing as the name of the mountains is the same as the city we live in, they would be close.  Nope, they are about an hour and a half away in a different city.  Actually, in a different state altogether.  But hey, whatever.  I looked them up online and they looked great.  So I kindly asked my husband (with a little begging, whining and possibly with tears in my eyes) if we could PLEASE go do something - and by something I meant could we venture off to these majestic mountains, known as Wichita??

He agreed.  We went.  We saw buffalo, long horns, prairie dogs, lakes, rivers, the "Holy City" (which was a bit odd)...and a "mountain".  It was actually very pretty.  My visiting teachers were over today and when I told them where we went, one said "Oh, the hill?" and laughed.  I guess that about sums it up.  When compared with Utah's mountains, it really was just a hill. But when compared with the flat nothingness surrounding us here, it was HUGE.

The girls had a great time, I didn't go crazy and we were able to get a TINY little taste of Utah.  Me and Marty were both so glad that we went, it was a great family activity.  A place we actually plan on visiting again because it was fun and most importantly FREE! (Minus the half a tank of gas it took to get there and back).  So here are a few pictures of our adventure. 

This is the only picture of Addison "enjoying" the view (from inside her covered car seat...I'm sure she felt the change in elevation though.)

The "Holy City".  It is some sort of outdoor set for a production of the life of Christ (we think).  It was neat...but felt a little odd at the same time with all the buildings being labeled things from Christ's life (i.e. Gethsemane, Resurrection Tomb, Road to Jerusalem etc.).

The girls LOVED climbing to the top of all the "castles" (as they referred to them) and looking out over the side.

Inside the "Resurrection Tomb"...it got a little uncomfortable as Claire went running towards it shouting "It's my batman cave!  My friend batman lives in there!"

Back in the visitors center Marty couldn't help but take this photo op.  He also had Claire stand in front of it and yell, "Swiper, no swiping!" 

It was a fun little outing...one I'm SURE you all would LOVE to enjoy as well.  So, come on down and visit us and we'll be sure to take you to the Wichita Mountains.  Please.  Anybody??