Getting Wet at Jordan Valley Park

Kristy was introduced to another of Springfield's city parks by one of her other new friends named Alicia. Her and Alicia have been hanging out at this park for many reasons. The park is free, there is lots of water to cool off in, and there are plenty of other things for the kids to do.

Molly loves the trademark robot sculpture for this park which can move it's legs, arms, and head through the use of a man powered gear.

Neleha is very fond of the climbing rock that is surrounded by big chunks of blue rubber. Even if you fall off the climbing rock the impact on the rubber is so soft that you would not even notice. When you walk on the stuff it feels like your walking on air.

The water fountains and wading pools are of course the biggest draw to the park. a free mini-water park, how could we say no?

The wading fountains are made up of a series of pools all declining down to a main pool that surrounds an area where the water is sporadically shot up into the air.

The depth of the pools is perfect for our girls, and when the water starts shooting up out of the fountains the fun really begins.


Jordan Valley Park conjoins with the Missouri State University campus of which Kristy has recently completed her admission application to. I got her an official MSU t-shirt to commemorate her application and hopeful acceptance into their program. She has gotten great grades at Wright State so I do not foresee any problems. The photo above is my beautiful sweetheart sporting her new MSU t-shirt.

The girls sure have fun at this park, they are at such a wonderful age of exploration and enjoyment of life in it's fullest.

Jordan Valley Park is certainly a wonderful perk from living in Springfield.

Lambert's Cafe "Home of the Throwed Rolls" and a Movie

We decided to explore the local legendary Lambert's Cafe, home of the original "throwed rolls". We have heard about this place from many different people all of which praised the place to the highest degree.

We were forewarned that we would have to wait, they do not take reservations, and they are usually packed. The cool thing is that they give you a menu while you wait so you will know what you want when you get seated.

After a 40 minute wait we were shown to our seat. The atmosphere alone won us over. It is as if you are on a farm, just outside a barn or something. The wait staff were most friendly and then of course there were the throwed rolls.

I caught my first throwed roll when a young kid in red suspenders came by with a cartfull. He yelled out "rolls" and I indicated I wanted four. He yelled "heads up" and then he started throwing them at me one at a time but when I caught the first one he tossed the remaining three as fast as he could one right after the other. I think they like to keep you on your toes. The rolls were fresh and hot, right out of the oven and those babies were good!


It was so fun to ask for more rolls just to be able to catch em, sounds weird I know. But you really get caught up in the excitement when everyone is yelling for rolls and their flying through the air in all directions. The dude just stands pretty much in one spot and lets em rip, even all the way across the room if needed.

All the food was great and although it is not exactly advertised, seconds is free of charge. The wait staff also constantly brings around what they call "pass arounds". It is basically the sides for your meal, fried okra, fried potatoes, some macaroni in a tomato sauce, sorghum molasses for your rolls, etc.... There is plenty to go around, let me tell you. We had a very great time and a great meal, Lambert's is certainly worthy of the legendary status they hold. To learn more about Lambert's Cafe to go: http://www.throwedrolls.com/


After our wonderful meal we headed to a local park for free movie night.

Founders Park is located right downtown Springfield and is perfect for a movie. With the skyline as a backdrop and the stadium style seating, you would almost think they had these movie nights in mind when the built the place.

Springfield has a wonderful park system from what we have seen so far. This movie night is put on two weekends a month during the summer on both Friday and Saturday night. It obviously draws a pretty big crowd.

The movie was "Wizard of Oz" and not only did we get to enjoy the movie, they also passed out temporary Wizard of Oz tattoos for the kids. Our little family had a wonderful time enjoying each others company and watching this wonderful classic.

July 4th, Missouri Style

Our new friends Rachel & Sean invited us over for a holiday cook-out. Our kids got along great and we all had a relaxing time just getting to know each other. The food was plentiful and the kids put on a little 4th of July parade for our entertainment. We had a great time.

After the cook-out we headed out looking for the city fireworks display. In Ohio we always used this method and it worked. However, in Missouri fireworks are not illegal, I'm talking any fireworks.

So many people were shooting off professional style fireworks that we could not discern between the city display and private citizen displays. We decided to just find a parking spot on a hill so we could just watch fireworks going off all around us.

We lucked out by finding a hill with a family lighting some off in their yard. I am not talking a big yard, I am talking their tiny little in-city front yard. We jumped up on the roof of the van and enjoyed the show. We could fireworks all around us, as far as the eye could see. It was nice however to be only about 100 feet away from these guys who were letting them rip right in front of us. The girls and Kristy and I were overwhelmed by the great colorful show in the starry sky.



After we hung out for about an hour we decided that it was time for a cold treat. Missouri does seem a bit more hot and humid compared to Ohio, so even at 9:00pm we were all getting a little warm. We headed to "Andy's" it is a local chain of frozen custard stands. Let me tell you they are soooooo good. You start off with vanilla or chocolate frozen custard and then you tell them what to mix in it. This place is going to be hard to stay away from. To learn more about Andy's go to www.eatandys.com


Another great Independence Day.

Goodbye Fairborn ........... Hello Springfield

In a matter of a few days we packed up and moved away. A small U-Hual trailer behind my Sidekick and the van fully loaded, we were all ready for our next adventure in Missouri.

After a long nine-hour drive we arrived at our new home, which is actually a campus apartment, in the late morning, signed our lease, got our keys, and began to unpack.

We got some help unpacking from our neighbor Rachel who is a member of our church that we met on one of our previous visits to the area. Rachel's family (husband and 2 children) live right across the sidewalk from our apartment. Its so nice to have instant friends.

Molly and Neleha were very exhausted after our big move and so we set up their beds first and they quickly put them to use.

And so our life in Missouri begins.............

Farewell Lunch at the Piqua China Garden

As the tradition has it, any Case Manger departing from Miami County Mental Health Center (MCMHC) has a farewell lunch. My last day finally arrived and they all came out to Piqua China Garden to eat well and bid their best for my next chapter in life.

The photo above depicts the most humorous person I had the wonderful opportunity of working with at MCMHC. Duke made life very interesting for all of us. He supplied us with chocolate which at times was all that separated us between sanity and hysteria. He also introduced me to the world of the "Star Wars Kid" (for info on the Star Wars Kid go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_wars_kid ) and the "Numa Numa" dance (go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numa_numa ) which has all made my life so much more peaceful.

I will miss Duke as well as the rest of the crew:

Jodi & Carol

Kathy & Chrissy

Duke & Heidi

Linda & Angie

Maggie & Ann

Tom, my faithful counterpart.

I will miss them all including those not pictured: Tina, Paul, Abigail, & Mindy

I sure had a great time with this crew and will ever benefit from this experience.

Batchelder Family Vacation 2006 Days 1-2

What better way to start our annual family vacation than with the police pulling us over before we can even get out of our own city. That is exactly what happened at 3:30am as we departed from Fairborn. I guess I was a little excited about heading out for the west that I wasn't watching my speed. He clocked me doing 15 over but was very nice and only issued a warning.

After about 7 hours of driving we stopped at our first attraction, the historic Mule Trading Post in Rolla, Missouri. This was once on the famous Route 66 but now interstate 44 zips right past this all but forgotten reminder of bygone days. As a child on a trip to Maine I can actually remember stopping in this place with my family. I got a t-shirt that had the Mule Trading Post logo on it. Over the years I have had very fond memories of the Missouri Ozarks simply because of that memory of my first visit to this trading post. It was very inspirational to now bring my family here to form new memories. While we where there the girls got stuffed animals, Molly got an opossum and Neleha got a squirrel. Kristy signed the guest log before we left.

Our next stop was in Ozark, Missouri. This is a small town just outside of Springfield. We were doing some apartment hunting and even looked in one apartment. However we concluded that life may be a bit easier if we just lived in the Forest Institute student housing. We made some calls and in 10 minutes secured our new apartment.


With the girls approval we sealed the deal with a quick stop at the playground and it was back on the road for us.


We arrived in Lubbock, Texas early in the morning after about 18 hours of driving.

The girls got to meet Jarred and Johna for the first time and we had a very relaxing couple of days.

We even got to visit Jarred at work. He is the Assistant Manager of the local Denver Mattress.

The girls loved the idea that this store encourages everyone to jump on the mattresses. It did not take them long to fit right in.

We fell in love with the many mattress options available and the girls especially loved the thought that some of the beds came with remote controls.

Kristy was soled on the spot when she experienced the adjustable massaging bed options.

We all had a great time just visiting with Jarred and Johna. One night we were able to stay up and just catch up with life and things, a very good start to our vacation.


We soon headed on back down the road and arrived in Safford, Arizona 18 hours later just as the moon was setting behind Mt. Graham.

UVMC .......... Always Been Good To me

As my time runs short here in Ohio I have had to come to terms with the fact that I will soon be leaving my current employer. Upper Valley Medical Center has provided me one of the greatest employment experiences ever, second only to the Navy. I originally started out as a PCC (a glorified nursing assistant), then I did some time as a Mental Health Tech on the in-patient Mental Health Unit and finally landed one of the coolest jobs ever as a Community Support Specialist (a case manger for clients diagnosed with sever mental health disorders). I have really enjoyed working as a case manager and working with my fellow comrades at the Mental Heath Center in UVMC.

As you can tell from my desk I really felt relaxed and at home, UVMC is certainly one of those things I will miss when we leave Ohio.