Adventuring on our trip to Arkansas

When we were in Arkansas, we attended our son's church.  He played the keys.   

Jude, who is from Haiti, sang part of a worship song in Creole.  They put the English words up so we knew what he was singing.  I LOVED it!  I enjoyed visiting with him after church.  

In 2016, my granddaughter and I went to Haiti to work with a children's ministry.

After church, the guys began working on the deck again and I had a shopping date with Emeri.  She took me to a "thrift" store where she tried on multiple clothing and purchased a few.  

As I was looking through some of the clothing, I saw these plaids.  I had the exact same plaids when I was in my 20's, in the 1970's!  I had a red/black plaid skirt and black plaid slacks!  (I looked to see if I had any pictures in my old albums, but we just didn't take pictures back in those days like we do now.)

We both love ice-cream so we hit up an ice-cream shop!

There was a hill that I spied from where we were eating.  I asked Emeri if she knew what was on that hill.  She didn't, so we decided to go on an adventure and check it out.

There was a beautiful neighborhood with crushed gravel roads!

We went to a couple more stores.  I cannot recall why we are in an aisle with potty chairs.  Hmm.

When we got home, Emeri gave a fashion show.

The Bible talks about clothing:  

In Matthew 6:31-33, it says "So don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?’ These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs.  Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and He will give you everything you need." 

It was fun to shop for clothes, but of more importance, is that we "clothe yourselves..with the beauty that comes from within, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit which is so precious to God." 1 Peter 3:4 and "put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience."  Colossians 3:12.  

Then from Eph 6 13-17:  "put on the complete armor of God, so that you will be able to [successfully] resist and stand your ground in the evil day [of danger], and having done everything [that the crisis demands], to stand firm [in your place, fully prepared, immovable, victorious]. So stand firm and hold your ground, having tightened the wide band of truth (personal integrity, moral courage) around your waist and having put on the breastplate of righteousness (an upright heart), and having strapped on your feet the gospel of peace in preparation [to face the enemy with firm-footed stability and the readiness produced by the good news]. Above all, lift up the [protective] shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God."

These things are much more important, but it sure was fun to shop with my granddaughter!!  I wish we lived closer, but all our grandchildren live far away.

On Monday, Emeri had to go to school early so we gave her good-bye kisses the night before.   Before starting up on the deck again, the family played some basketball.

While Josh and Al worked on the deck, Eli and I played Sequence and Pente.  Then he needed to do his schoolwork.  They were going to go kayaaking after Emeri got off school.

We left after lunch, stopping in Rogers to see Uncle Bill.  I'm glad he lives right on the way to Josh's!

He showed us this old adding machine that Grandpa used in his shop and later at his home.  An old fashioned "calculator"!  

We found a new Starbucks.  However, we won't be using this road much longer as they are building the highway to by-pass this area.

We have driven this road for many years, and did not realize that Amish lived close to Parsons.  We drove around to explore.  

We have Amish roots way way way back in the 1700's.

We will need to go back soon to meet the new member of their family that they just adopted!  Reggie!!

Dogwoods and decks

 April is a good time to go to Northwest Arkansas.  The dogwoods were in bloom.

My mother loved dogwood trees.  She often remarked about the petals that formed the shape of a cross.  The pistil looks like the crown of thorns.  And the color at the edges represent the blood of Christ.   Mom would be thrilled to know Josh's have a dogwood tree in their yard.

Eli was outside playing basketball when we drove up to their drive.  Al had to show his stuff to Eli!  He was hot in highschool and still has skills, even at his "old" age!

We took a look at the tree house they built.

Josh had the insight and compassion to make the 

steps easier for us older grandparents to climb up

with the nice grip handles.  

We enjoyed a game of Life.  Emeri was gone for a sleepover; her first in over a year since Covid began.

The next morning, it was raining, so Al finsihed reading Sherlock Holmes to Eli that he had begun the night before.

One of the reasons we came (besides just to see the kids) was because Al came to help Josh with his deck.  This was a work weekend.  They needed to tear out the old wood that was rotting.

Josh drew up plans for the deck.  They will also be adding a lap pool later on.

Dismantling the deck.

Three generations at work.

If Jobi were a cat, he would have no problem getting across.

Eli took a couple of breaks.  He played the piano,

and played games with his Nana.

Since the guys are tearing apart and building and Eli and I were "building" Jenga, it reminded me of Eph. 4:29

Don't tear eachother down.

In the evening, we went out to eat.  Staci's parents joined us.  We stayed at their house...the Prier Hotel.  Each night after we left Josh's, we would talk with them until 11:30!  At home we usually go to bed at 9, but we have such fun with Dan and Lisa!!  Josh picked some pretty good in-laws!

A sunflower silo and a couple of towns

I had seen a Facebook post about a silo outside of Augusta (KS) that was painted with sunflowers.  Last time we were coming home from Arkansas, we tried to locate it, but I didn't have the correct directions.  This time, we found it!

The owner of this farm is a realtor in Augusta, Diana Burress, and she painted this.  She and her husband also have a field of sunflowers for people to enjoy.  Here's how to find it.  At Lulu Street (the east side of Walmart on 400) drive south to 6th street.  Turn right (west).  6th turns into SW Thunder Road.  It will curve around a couple of times.  When the road runs parrellel with the railroad tracks, you will come to SW 120th street.  The house and silo are right there.

We drove around Augusta for a little bit.  I looked up the history of Augusta.  Originally, this area was inhabited by the Osage people.  In 1868, C.N. James settled in this area and built a log cabin to serve as a general store and trading post.  He named the town in honor of his wife, Augusta.  There is a neat little historical museum and the log cabin that I would like to visit sometime.

We got a later start than normal.  We generally eat lunch in Webb City, MO, but it was past lunch when we hit the town of Fredonia.  We decided to see what was available.  There were several places, but we thought we'd try this place out.  It seemed pretty busy!  People coming and going.  A good sign.

The waitress asked us which car was ours.  The wait was pretty long.  We think the locals call in their orders and pick up since many just came and grabbed their food.  Had we known, we would have placed our order, done some sight-seeing and then come back.  That's ok.  We weren't in any huge hurry.  We waited in the car and then about 20 minutes? later (maybe it just seemed that long), the worker waved at us to come pick up our order. 

When we were done, we decided to drive around the town.

Fredonia was laid out in 1868 along the St. Louis & San Francisco Railway in SE Kansas.  It was named after Fredonia, New York.  Today the population is approximately 2,225.

Fredonia has a town square, with the town built around the court house.  In the 1960's, they tore down a magnificent court house and rebuilt it with a modern one.  It is so very sad that they did that.  What were they thinking??  Guess, they were trying to modernize and save $$.

The Gold Dust Hotel, listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

When it was completed in 1885, the Wilson County Citizen asserted:

The Gold Dust is without doubt as fine a hotel as can be found in Southern Kansas. It would be splendid hotel in a city of ten or twenty thousand inhabitants. It is not only a grand building externally but contains the most modern appointments and conveniences of first-class institutions of this kind and is furnished in all respects in a most elegant and comfortable manner. Its ventilation is perfect and not an important essential feature for a number one hotel has been omitted.

There wasn't any gold found in Fredonia, but a large vein of semi-anthracite coal was discovered near town and it was "said to be of better quality than any other found in Kansas" at that time.  Today this "hotel" has been converted into apartments.

There were these unusual stone walls with amazing steps at 6th and Washington.  We wondered what it was.  I saw a little plaque on the wall.  

It was built by the Works Progress Administration and school board back in 1936.  The Works Project was part of the American New Deal agency, employing millions of job-seekers to carry out public works projects all across the US.  It was established by presidential order under Franklin D. Roosevelt.  In Fredonia, women were employed whose husbands were disabled or who were heads of families.  Wage scale was 35 cents an hour and not more than 6 hours a day.

There was a school on the property that had been built in 1880 for $10,000.  Because the school is right by one of the mounds in town, it was called Mound School, as well as south school.  There was a north school also.

When you pass Fredonia, you will see these 2 "hills".  We explored them once.  You can see that post here.  The school has since been torn down and a physician built a home there. 

We have been going to Arkansas on 400 for years now and we learned new things.