Branson

(Warning: this is a very LONG post)

We survived a week long Family Vacation!! We set out Sunday afternoon for a quick 3 hour drive to Branson. I'm so glad our kids are good travelers. It make life so much easier. We got to our condo just in time to grab dinner, do a little grocery shopping for the week, unpack, and put the kids to bed. We had a beautiful 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom, 2 kitchen, 2 living room, screened in porch condo located right on Lake Table Top. It was roomy and worked quite nicely for our big family. It was very nice to stay in a condo vs. a hotel. much bigger and we could make our own food (when we were there).

Day One: We hung out at the condo in the morning and then we had to go to one of those "high pressure sell you a timeshare" meetings. It was really easy to say no due to the fact we have no money to buy into it. How ever they still put the pressure on and the 1 hour meeting turned into 2.5. I was mad. But we got 2 day tickets for our whole family to go to Silver Dollar City for only$34 (it would have cost over $200 if we paid out of pocket). The rest of the day was spent driving around Branson seeing what it had to offer. We found a mall on the river that had a great fountain and fire show set to Christmas music. The kids thought that was fun.Day two: Got back in the mini-van and drove 4 hours to Independence, Missouri to check out the Visitors Center, the funny Community of Christ Temple, Adam Ondi Ahman, and Liberty Jail. We thought since we were staying in Branson we were already half way there, so we took advantage of the opportunity of seeing all the Church History Cites in Missouri. Very neat. I think my favorite was Adam Ondi Ahman. The fall leaves made it gorgeous! The history there is amazing and the future is even more incredible. It is such a peaceful place, similar to the Sacred Grove. You can definitely feel the strong spirit there.

Day Three: Silver Dollar City. Their "Old Time Christmas Festival" started the beginning of November, just in time for us to see it. Every building was lit up with a million lights, they had all kinds of Christmas Shows going on and all the shops were filled with Christmas Decor. It was so much fun. Of course the kids only cared about the rides, the light Parade, and all the little candy shops. The rides were great and there was something for everyone. Among the favorites were the "little roller coaster", the frog, the shooting boat ride, and the indoor roller coaster.

Day Four: Isaac woke up throwing up. Hayden followed a few hours later. While the boys were home sick, I took the girls shopping. We got to the outlet mall, I put Halle in the stroller and Caite says, "Mom I need a rag, I just threw up." I looked in the van and all I could see was vomit on the floor and seats. Sick!! So I spent an hour cleaning it up with baby wipes, just to get it clean enough to go to the store and buy carpet cleaner and real rags. No real shopping was done. So sad and so sick. So day four was a bad day.

Day Five: Hung out at the condo until after lunch...making sure everyone was okay and not going to throw up anymore. Back to Silver Dollar City (it didn't open until 1). This time it was cold out side. We bundled up and had another fun filled day. The favorite was the Foam Ball House we found at the end of the night. It was a 3 or 4 story open building that has these cool foam ball guns. You could shoot at people from across the house, or up to different stories. It was really fun. Aaron really got in to it.

Day Six: Back to the outlet mall for some shopping. It took us 20 minutes to get to the parking lot from the road...too many cars...too many old people...no parking places...I was annoyed and didn't want to fight the crowds with 4 kids. No shopping was done. Went back to the condo, ate lunch, packed up and headed home.

Vacation was fun, but it's soooo nice to be home.

Thanks for the Condo Nana and Papa!