Vacation Time!

Vacation was wonderful. This was our first family vacation and we went to Branson. We stayed in Kimberling City and drove into Branson all but 2 of the days. We loved our condo (#97), it was Ozark Mountain Resort and we were lucky enough to get a semi-secluded spot complete with a deck and bbq grill (Thanks Dad and Susie!)

We spent a lot of time in the pool which the kids absolutely loved! We also window shopped at the outlet malls. We found the best creek at Stockstill Park that we went to 2 or 3 times. This place was not busy at all and I think we were the only out-of-towners...definitely a place to go if you go to Branson. The playground was awesome and the park had a jogging trail, tennis courts, baseball field, etc. Megan didn't want the playground she only wanted the creek! Of course we forgot to take pictures of the creek. We forgot to take a lot of pictures, I guess that's what happens when you leave the world behind!

The first several days in the pool Megan would not let go of our necks but finally she gained the confidence and took off on her own. We were very proud of her and she was ecstatic as well. The last day we were there an older girl was playing with Megan and the next thing we knew Megan's entire head was soaked and she was crying...apparently the girl though Megan would like to be dunked. Luckily Megan recovered and got back into the water and still had a good time!

This was the small kids pool where Jacob purposely tried to let go of us and dunk himself!

Here are the kids playing cave under the kitchen table, this occupied them for quite some time.

While playing cave a sweet look between the siblings! Ahh, notice the pink paci in Jacob's mouth, poor kid, when it was time to leave for the trip we looked all over and could only find this pink paci to take with us! He didn't want a paci for so long and then he finally started using this one and they don't carry it many places anymore hence why the pink paci was bought in the first place!

We decided to try Dixie stampede with the kids. To get tickets to this show we thought we'd attend a timeshare presentation so we could go to the show for free. OK, so other people have done this and got tickets to tons of shows and it only took a couple of hours...we stopped at one of those ticket outlet places and after 45 minutes we were set up to go see the presentation...once we got to the place the kids went into a childcare place with the other kids and we were there for 3 and a half hours. We kept saying no but they just wouldn't listen. So we figured it out the we basically "made" $10 an hour because the show tickets were around $100. That made us feel a little better but it definitely was not the way to start out vacation, we felt horrible for the kids (even though they seemed to have a good time) and we were exhausted, a whole day wasted...never again! In the end we did enjoy Dixie and the kids loved seeing the horses in action and cheering for the South (our side won of course!)

Here we are at the fish hatchery. Megan was putting her hand in the mystery box where she pulled out a snake skin...after that she didn't want to play that game anymore! She enjoyed the hatchery outside and she especially enjoyed feeding the fish!

Jacob and Michael looking at the fish.

Megan standing in front of the fish.

Jacob's attempts at feeding himself some applesauce! He really enjoyed it, he seems to do better with his left hand so we'll see what happens!

Here are the kids in good spirits!

Here is Megan fixing Michael's hair, complete with ponytails and clips! He is such a good sport about this kind of thing.

On the way home Megan finally fell asleep (her second nap of the entire vacation). She is snuggling her first Build-a-Bear flamingo that she named Homee and her penguin. The car rides weren't too bad although Jacob revolted the last 45 minutes but overall they did great.

This vacation was wonderful and it was great to leave our worries behind and really get away from everything. We didn't have access to the internet for a week and we managed so that was good! Megan is already talking about our next vacation and we can't wait!