{Life and Pictures} Adventuring in Missouri and Other News

I was born in Hannibal, MO. For the first six months of my life, I lived in a TINY little house in Curryville, MO (about 30 minutes from Hannibal.) Mom's been wanting to go back and visit our friends there for awhile. I think she has in her head that Tyler's going to graduate, leave, and we'll never see him again. I know better :) The first time he has to do laundry, he'll come back :) But anyway, we finally made it back for a visit last weekend.

Since we moved back to Kansas when I was only six months old, I have NO memory of our friends in Curryville. It was really strange meeting people who knew me, that I didn't recognize. I heard the phrase "You have grown up!" so many times! :)

While we were there, we visited our old babysitters (and their family. Who were SO, SO nice. They let ALL seven of us stay with them. That is a seriously big undertaking!), our old house, our old neighbors, our old church, and (the big one for me!) the CAVES behind our old house. Really, there was multiple (I think 4?) caves that can be explored near there.

My dad really loved the caves, so he wanted to be able to show us all. We tracked down the owners of the land (who graciously let us walk around in their woods), geared up in orange (we were tramping through the woods during Missouri deer season.), and explored the caves.

The first one was not so pleasant. It was basically just a rock jutting out that you could crawl under. Dad lost me at "Watch out for snakes. There's rattle snakes around here. They love caves like this." If we were brave enough to get wet, we could've crawled on hands and knees through water and reached the other cave, ladder cave. However, it was under freezing, so we opted for walking to the above ground entrance of ladder cave.

This was my favorite of the two. You climb down a a 20 foot, narrow ladder (which was the same ladder my dad put in 15 years ago-scary thought?) and wiggle your way between two walls to an open passage. It was much warmer in the cave, but the air was stale. We walked a little ways, then bent double to cross under a rock ledge. (More splashing!) The rest of the cave was really easy to walk through and just amazing.

At one point, dad turned off both the headlamps. It was the most complete darkness I have ever been in. So scary/interesting.

There was one freaky part.  I was innocently looking around the cave, when I noticed all my family staring at the ceiling 1 foot above my head. My dad said, "Look above you!" I just about screamed! There was a cluster of 6 bats right above me! *shivers*

Here's some pictures of the caves:

The first cave

Climbing down in ladder cave

End of the exploration

There's a bat near the right corner

Other news from the past week:

I have new baby goats, and some kittens showed up at our house. I do not like having cats... but when they just show up, what can you do? Obviously, I have pictures of that, too ;) (I'm realizing there's a lot of pictures in this post. Sorry :( I really enjoy pictures.)

"M" in front, "And M" in the back :)

Marshmallow

O'Malley...3

Gerdy