"Daycation"

A new term I THOUGHT I coined today. A ONE DAY VACATION - DAYCATION. (apparently, someone else thought of it, too...but hey, it's not WIDELY in use, yet!) Scott had a comp day (read: day off for working on weekends, for those non-mil folk!), so we took the kids to swim lessons together (Scott took pictures!).


Hannah swims on a flutter board, practicing side-glide kicks


Hannah on the return trip


Scotty swims underwater, without anyone holding him!
(his goal is to swim to my hand, which moves back, lol!)


Scotty practices jumping off the side of the pool.
(I can't talk him into jumping FEET first...he tries to
jump straight into my arms!)

After lunch we decided to go to the Beach Museum of Art here at K-State. Unfortunately, the museum is closed Mondays (and usually, that's when comp days come, sigh). So, what to do? Nice warm day, but Scott's not a pool rat, so he didn't want to go swimming...I suggested going to Wamego to the tourist trap...er...Oz Museum, but he didn't want to go there. So, we headed to Abilene to the Eisenhower Museum. We'd done Truman on our trip to KC, so why not Eisenhower in our backyard?


(Museum and Eisenhower home on museum grounds...photos from the web, not mine)

Nice little trip. The kids were not too bad, though Scotty wanted to do a RUN-THROUGH, not walk through. By the time we were done, it was almost 4:30 and the kids were cranky and hungry. So we decided to do Cracker Barrel (no, NOT a Weight Watchers friendly restaurant, but OH, SO GOOD!). On our way back, we rolled into Chapman.

Whoa. Chapman was hit by the same tornado that hit Manhattan. I thought the devastation in Manhattan was bad. Chapman....yikes. There are NO words to accurately describe it. You come into town and all seems well, then you see utter devastation. Now...the tornado strength was only EF3 in Chapman...it did not level any building down to the foundation. But it ripped through the center of this small town of about 1200...it destroyed ALL THREE schools...the elementary and middle schools were right in the path....right on Main Street. The high school was a few blocks west...and it was hit too.

Houses still stand...with big orange "X" on the sides where they were searched. It's sad. You can look into the homes, now lit with sunlight because part or all of the roofs are gone...you see living rooms strewn with furniture and clothing...as though someone will come home for supper any minute now. Except, the windows and doors are gone. The trees...man, there is no way to accurately describe the way these things are stripped clean.

We only did a quick run in....but it was enough to once again be thankful to God for not having been hit by the tornado here.

We ate at Cracker Barrel and headed home. Fun Daycation. Try it some day!