Buchholz Family Homestead: Vacation 2014

Wow, we are to August--I know I say this all the time but where has this year gone?!

We just got back from a week in the Ozarks with my family. We got to hang out with some friends while we were down there and really just enjoy our time as a family. We dreamed again, and not like dreams as in stuff that would never be possible but dreams we want to make happen in the next few years.

To start the week off we pull into town and Kypton say's, "Mom, this is my favorite place." As we cross over the big bridge into Osage Beach. Melts my heart, because it's one of my favorite places as well. I could really get used to the shower every now and again, all you need is swimsuits and cover ups kinda life. No worrying about your hair or make up...totally simple lifestyle, right?!

The next big thing happened while at Dinner the second night there. We went to one of our favorites, Backwater Jacks. We met up with a college friend and his parents and got to chat for a while, Kypton got to check out their boat. The sound scares him for a bit. After dinner we were just hanging out I had taken Kypton down to feed the fish and then I was throwing him up in the air just messing around. As we finished paying the bill a women walked up to us and introduced herself. She had sold the biggest piece of land in Osage Beach back in 2007 right before the real-estate crash. She now lives in Colorado but was on vacation. She is now a minister. She was asking me if I did workout videos and if I didn't I should really think about it. She said I had the "look." She was talking about doing videos with the kids for other Moms who want to workout at home and use their kids as their weights. She said she has a friend out in Colorado who does just that with a YouTube channel and that's how she makes her monthly income. She went on and on about how happy we were with our kids. She told us to look around there are a lot of Moms and Dads around here that aren't happy, regardless if they are on vacation or not. We really took her words to heart. Our lives are far from perfect and we aren't happy all the time. But we do realize that we have so much to be thankful for. We don't have the nicest house, the nicest car, the highest paying jobs, but we have a home, we have cars that get us where we need to be, my husband is employed, I get to be with my kids everyday and we are healthy! Now the kicker for all of this happening--I had prayed right before leaving the condo for dinner about leaving the worries to the Lord. I put our finances, housing and business in his hands. I prayed that he would build our business in his time, that he would provide a bigger home when and IF we really needed it, that he would do his will with our finances. Then this minister talks with us out of the blue about each of those things. Now, I'm really just getting back into my faith so you can imagine the shock I was in, I was a little shaken but it felt so cool at the same time. Really, this is how I put it all into words and now I can look back at this but it was one of the coolest things of the whole vacation and we had a lot of fun the whole week.

Anyway, moving on...we spent a day with our college friend and his parents swimming in the lake. Kypton LOVED it and feel asleep before we made it out of the cove to head home. Dan and I got to spend a day acting "young" again. The guys golfed 3 mornings while we were gone, we went mini golfing, the girls did an afternoon of shopping, we went to the beach and the pool, rented a boat for a day and skied and looked at some real-estate (always fun!) We went to the Dam and had ice cream and played ski ball. We did go-carts. The whole week was so fun as always!

We got home on Wednesday and Thursday Kenzlie Grace woke up with her 1st tooth! She is growing so fast. Hard to believe she will be one in a couple months and Kypton is going to be 3. I honestly don't know how it's possible we are going to have a 3 year old! We have been working on birthday stuff the last few days because life gets busy in the fall for some reason and then I feel overwhelmed when birthday months to arrive. So, I got the cakes picked out and found the lady who is going to do them.

Dan and I head out of town in a week for Dallas to get some training and hang out with our Advocare team and we are so excited for what this is going to do for us. We have a lot coming up between work, birthdays, competition and then the holidays following right behind. Here is to finishing the year off as strong as we have since the start!

Here are some photos from the trip--

Start of the vacation--exactly how I ended it too...