Trip to Branson

Well, it's been a couple weeks since our trip to Branson, and I'm finally sitting down to write about it. :) Pat, Annabeth, Pat's mom Maria, her best friend Glenna and I left for Branson, MO on Saturday morning. Annabeth did very well in the car... the time I took before the trip to make her a box of activities and a box of snacks was worthwhile. Here is a picture of Annabeth with one of her car activities. The stickers were meant to go on a piece of paper, but she had a blast putting them all over herself. :)

We stopped for lunch in Amarillo at the Big Texan. It is a big steakhouse decorated like the Old West, and their gimmick is that if you order their 72 oz steak and eat it along with the baked potato and salad that come with it within an hour, you get it for free. (otherwise it's $72!) At the end of our meal, the waitress brought Annabeth her own cowboy (cowgirl?) hat.

The first night of our trip we spent in Choctaw, OK (outside of Oklahoma City), with Pat's Aunt Judy and Uncle James. Annabeth enjoyed playing with her second cousins, Jessie and MacKenzie. Aunt Judy and Uncle James had some motorized Thomas the train engine and a train depot (which Annabeth called the "car house") that they enjoyed playing with together. There was also a doll stroller there for MacKenzie, and one of Annabeth's favorite things to do at home is to push her doll stroller around, so she felt right at home. We had brunch with them the next day, then continued to the Big Cedar Wilderness Club in Ridgedale, MO, which is about 15 min south of Branson. This was our first "vacation home," which is how we described it to Annabeth when we got there. I neglected to take any pictures of where we stayed or while we were at the resort, but here is a link to some general pictures of the resort. http://www.bluegreenonline.com/explore/resortDetail.aspx?ResortID=2plore/resortDetail.aspx?ResortID=2 If you click on the photos link to the right, picture 3 is what the outside of our lodge building looks like, and pictures 14-17 is what the inside of our unit looked like. Picture 18 is a picture of the lazy river, which we enjoyed during our time there.

We stayed in Ridgedale for 5 days, and enjoyed relaxing while we were there. Annabeth's favorite activities were the pool and the playground. The indoor pool had a water slide, which she enjoyed a lot the first day, but she was afraid to slide on it the second day. She did the same thing with the playground - the first day she wanted to slide on all the slides, and the second day she was afraid. I think maybe she's just at an age where she's starting to develop caution (this is a good thing!) We went on the lazy river with Annabeth, and I thought she'd really enjoy it, but I think it was actually a little too lazy for her. She kept trying to crawl off of the inner tubes and all over us. She didn't like the idea of sitting still, but wanted to climb into the water and walk around.

One day we had to take our car into the Honda dealership in Springfield (which is another story entirely) and we visited the Bass Pro Shop while they were working on our car, which was about 2 miles from the Honda Dealership. They had a huge store, including an indoor waterfall which Annabeth thought was really cool. On our way back, we stopped in Ozark, MO at Lamberts, "The Home of the Throwed Roll," http://www.throwedrolls.com/about_lamberts.html where they have various side dishes that they bring around to the tables during your meal, including dinner rolls, which they serve from a cart that they push down the middle of the restaurant, and they throw the rolls at you, especially if you sit at a table farther away. We were close to the middle, so we didn't have too many rolls thrown at us, though Pat did make a couple of good catches. The food was excellent and plentiful - in fact, we had another whole meal on the leftovers. Between us, we had smoked pork chops (which basically tasted like ham), chicken fried steak, and catfish, which were all excellent. Some of our favorite sides were the sweet potatoes, the fried okra, and the fried potatoes. I highly recommend Lambert's if you ever happen to be in the area.

While in Ridgedale we also enjoyed mini golf and daily visits from the cookie lady, who brought us a different kind of cookie every evening. Pat and I went horseback riding one afternoon during Annabeth's nap, while Grandma and Glenna babysat for us. This was the first time I'd been horseback riding in over 10 years. We took an hour long ride around the resort property, through the woods and along the lake. It was a lot of fun, and gave Pat and I some quality time together, just the two of us.

After we left Big Cedar Wilderness Club, we spent 2 nights at The Falls Village, right in Branson. Once again, I didn't take any pictures while we were there, but here are some generic pictures from our timeshare's website if you would like to see them: http://www.bluegreenonline.com/explore/resortDetail.aspx?ResortID=10 While we were in Branson, we got to take in a couple of shows. The first was the Baldknobbers, "The First Show" in Branson. Glenna's cousin, "Stub", is one of the comedians in the show and got us complimentary tickets to the show (thanks!). The show has patriotic, country and gospel music performances, and comic relief from three comedians. The violin player in the band was from Las Cruces, NM. Maria really enjoyed the show - she said she hadn't laughed that hard in a long time! Here's a picture of Maria, Glenna and I with Stub.

Unfortunately, since we didn't get into our new "vacation home" until late in the afternoon, Annabeth didn't get a nap that day and was very tired and grumpy, so Pat stayed with her instead of bringing her to the show and risking a further meltdown there.

The next day Glenna and Maria went to visit some of Glenna's family (Glenna grew up not far from Branson) and Pat and I spent the morning with Annabeth at the pool.

That evening we went to Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede, which is basically dinner with an indoor rodeo. The first part of the show is a history of the Old West, and the second part is a competition. They divide the crowd in half, one side was the "Yankees" and the other side (our side) was the "Rebels". Each side cheers for their team in the various rodeo competitions. They had a barrel race, other horse races, racing chickens (little kids from each side chased the chickens from one side of the arena to the other), pigs, and ostriches among other competitions. Unfortunately for our team, the Yankees carried the day. The dinner was great (cheese biscuit, soup, cornish game hen, corn on cob, ham, and an apple turnover for dessert), though you had to eat it without utensils. In fact, the Dixie Stampede wasn't the only place we did without utensils. It seems that Missourians, at least those around Branson, don't believe in spoons, because we never had a spoon with our utensils the whole time we were there. :)

The next morning we left Branson and traveled back to Oklahoma City area, where we had dinner with Pat's cousin Josh, his wife Shannon, their kids Ty and Wes, and Pat's uncle James and his second cousin Jesse. We really enjoyed our evening with them. They put on a great spread, and we enjoyed touring their 10 acres on their golf cart. Annabeth enjoyed playing in the yard and getting her first driving experience on Ty's motorized John Deere tractor and 4-wheeler. Don't worry, even though it looks like they had a head on collision from the picture, no one was seriously injured. :)

We spent the night again at Pat's aunt and uncle's house - they have a beautiful home, and we are so thankful for their hospitality. The next day was our long day's drive back to Edgewood. Two memorable moments on the way home were when we stopped at a rest area a little over an hour outside of Edgewood, and Annabeth got out of the car and said she was going to "stretch her legs". This is what she did:

Then, when we stopped to pick up some dinner at Arby's right before we got home, she saw the hotel next door, and said, "There's my new vacation home!"

We had a great trip, and Annabeth must have enjoyed it, because several times since we got back, she's asked to go on vacation again. :)