BRANSON WRITE UP. BOUT TIME.

good grief, this has taken me forever to write!

i think i needed some space between me and the ride down there still. i am scarred.

and now it's been so long that i can't remember everything. but i will try.

so we rolled in friday night. after getting the kids to bed, we had some drinks on the back porch and decompressed. i had a much needed glass of wine. maybe two?

the next morning dave left early for work and the rest of us headed to smallin civil war cave for a tour. it was awesome.

i love caves. they are so mysterious and..mossy. this one was beautiful and perfect for kiddos. it had a concrete path with rails and it didn't go back super far, but far enough.

you could see where native americans had built their cooking fires inside - the ashes were still there. and there were tons of carvings in the rocks from civil war soldiers. it seriously was neat.

the water was gorgeous and LOUD. my pictures sucked big time, but please believe me that it was stunningly beautiful - especially when you turned around and looked back at the opening of the cave. it was super lush and green.

i wore henry in the wrap and he passed out on me. love that kid.

we went out to (a crazy *ss) lunch, grabbed some cupcakes to eat in the park and then met dave in branson. we went to the dixie stampede and IT WAS AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!

so much fun. hallie loved it. like, couldn't take her eyes off of the show. she was dying laughing at parts, which had me cracking up. the food was awesome and it was the perfect length of time.

i wore henry in the wrap and he passed out on me. again. i love that kid.

we took it easy on sunday. the kids were totally pooped and we just stayed close to home. we ended up going to godfather's pizza for lunch and played around in the arcade there.

and won 700 tickets. for reals. it was nuts. zach and i zeroed in on this one game...you send a quarter down this little ramp and try to get it in to a slot for 50 tickets. if you make it in, the ramp tilts down and you have a slim shot to send another quarter down the ramp to try for 500 tickets. the first time, we got the 50. we are awesome!

we tried it again, this time trying for the 500 too. nope, missed.

please take a minute to imagine the intensity. zach lined up the ramp thing into the slot. i had two quarters ready - one for the 50 tix and the other for the 500 JUST IN CASE.

so, zing, we got the 50 and the ramp started moving down. i was waiting for zach to tell me when to drop it. he made a noise, which i thought he meant to drop it, but he didn't, but i had already let go. i said, DANGIT - right as it WENT THROUGH THE SLOT AND WE GOT 500 TICKETS!!!!!!!!!

and the crowd went wild. okay, just zach and i went wild. and we did. we scared people. but it was so awesome, i can't even describe.

then the kids got a bunch of crap that probably cost a total of twenty-five cents to make in china.

whew.

this is a long post.

we went to the springfield zoo that afternoon, which was perfect. we fed giraffes and fish and sweated our butts off. the kids ran around like crazy, because they ARE crazy.

this is henry the hippo!!!

we did a quickie super at mcdonald's after and then left from there. and had the perfect ride home. we rolled in around 10:30pm. i put the kiddos in bed and headed there myself. they we had all day monday to recouperate and do laundry.

the end.
ps - i did not proof read this, because it is so ding dang dong LONG. so nigore nya ypots.