Newton County

Chad and I took our little vacation to Newton County and it turned out pretty nice. We hiked at Alum Cove, which is about 14 miles south of Jasper. There is a 130 foot long natural, sandstone bridge and some other crazy geological formations.

Natural Bridge

There are over 700 elk in Arkansas, but I only counted 43.

The Natural Bridge is really a collapsed cave.

Easter Eggs

Thanks to Karen Whitmore's wedding on Saturday, Henry got the hang of Easter egg hunting and was fully prepared for Sunday afternoon in advance. At her reception Henry got an egg filled with M+M's. He ate them all (of course) and then the rest of the night and the next morning he kept handing me the empty egg and signing "more." On Sunday my parents had an egg hunt for Henry and his cousin Karl. Henry had to stop and open each one and eat it right away. You can see him doing this in the last action shot below.

Spring Break

A few days ago I decided to plan a mini vacation for tonight and tomorrow night. Maybe I'm just unlucky in the vacation department, but right after I booked a cabin in Jasper I fell ill with the flu. I spent Monday night on the bathroom floor and yesterday curled up in the fetal position in bed all day. If there ever was a good day to be sick, it was yesterday. We got something like 8" of rain in 24 hours. That brings me back to my Buffalo River vacation. When I booked the cabin there was 18" of airspace under the Ponca bridge, which is ideal for a canoe trip (not too hard, not too easy.) Yesterday when I checked the water level on buffaloriver.com the opening line on their webpage was, "Holy water level, Batman!" The National Park Service has closed the river. They anticipate that only highly experienced floaters will be able to attempt the river Thursday and Friday. I canceled the room for tonight, but we are still going try and hike tomorrow. I think it will still be fun, but I'm a little bummed.

Henry has changed so much over the past few months. His likes and dislikes are evolving. Here are some things that Henry likes:

1. Numbers - especially the number eight. Henry can identify his numbers 1-10 and has been able to do this for over a month now. We finally got it on video so everyone can see his skills. A budding accountant perhaps?

Click To Play

2. Stop signs - on our walks he takes them literally. He stops and points and is fascinated by them. He is hard to budge after he sees a stop sign.

3. Frogs - he kisses them. (Only in books, thank goodness!) It's really weird because we have never showed him this; he just does it.

4. Silverware - he loves loading and unloading the dishwasher. He also likes carrying them around the house. I have thought about buying him a tea set, but they look like they are all for girls (they are all pink or have Barbies on them) and I'm not sure if Henry's male relatives would approve.