A Branson Thanksgiving

This year for Thanksgiving, it was our year to spend with Casey's family. Instead of heading to Shreveport, Casey's parents paid for us to all take a trip to Branson, Missouri! Casey and I went to Branson for our honeymoon, almost 8 years ago, and we were excited to get to head up there again. However, it was a ten hour drive! We left here Tuesday, after I got done with inservice, and drove to McAlester Oklahoma to spend the night. Then we drove the rest of the way to Branson on Wednesday morning. The girls did really well! Lots of snacks and movies!

On Wednesday afternoon and evening, we did some window shopping (in the dark, coldness, as you can see!) We also ate dinner at the Hard Luck Diner, which is where the waiters and waitresses sing to you as you eat, which the kids loved! On the way back to the condo, we drove through a Christmas light park, which the girls loved also.





On Thursday (Thanksgiving), we spent the late morning looking around, trying to find some place that was open for shopping and lunch! We finally ended up at The Landing, which is like an outdoor mall area. Most of the stores were closed, but the kids had fun walking around, and we ate pizza for lunch, which was a first for me on Thanksgiving! At 5:30 we went to the Dixie Stampede show, which the kids loved! It was one of those meal shows where you eat while you watch (with your hands!). It was yummy! It was a Christmas show with horses, which was a lot of fun. The girls each got a horsie as a souveneir. On the way home we stopped at a game place for the kids to burn off some steam!







On Friday, we decided to spend the day at Silver Dollar City. Since it was "Black Friday" they were having a special on tickets. Usually it costs $55 per person to get in, but if you got there before 10:00am, it was only $30! We definitely took advantage, but the bummer was, that there was nothing to do except shop...so the kids were not big fans! We took a few pictures, and then left and decided we would come back later that night when things were open!





Later that afternoon, we headed back to Silver Dollar City. The best part was this huge kids area. It was the neatest thing ever! There were about 3 or 4 levels were kids were shooting balls into this big area. The kids on the bottom level were putting the balls in these vacuum tubes that sucked the balls back up the kids that were shooting. Kailey loved shooting, and Makenna was her little helper. She scooped up the balls and handed them to Kailey, so that she would have ammo to shoot! Then when we went to the bottom level, Makenna was fascinated by the vacuum tubes!





We also saw a Frosty the Snowman show, and rode the night Christmas train around the park. It was really fun!

The next day we hung around the condo, went out to lunch, and then let the girls take a nap. We left Branson around 4:30, and then spent the night again in McAlester. The trip home went well too, except for some major traffic in Hillsboro on I-35 (what's new?).