Branson Vacation

Last year, my mom and dad took us on an awesome beach vacation to South Carolina.  Coming up this December, we will be taking our first family trip to Disney World for Hannah's 5th birthday.  Since we are all saving up for that, my mom and dad suggested we take a long weekend to Branson this summer.  We did these past few days and had a ton of fun!

We left really early Thursday morning all piled in our minivan for the four-ish hour drive to Branson.  My dad found a great cabin on a golf resort right outside of Branson to stay in.  It was great for our family!  Once we checked in, Tim and my dad played golf while my mom and I took the kiddos to the pool.  They had a great time swimming and were able to show off some of their new water skills for Nonnie.  After some rest and showers, we headed to Branson Landing for the evening.  It is a redone area right on the lake with some restaurants and shopping and a really fun water/fire show.  Poppy even got a special picture with the kiddos!

We went back and forth on whether to do Silver Dollar City on this trip.  I was worried that the kids wouldn't have enough to do there and the tickets were really expensive.  Instead, we were up bright and early and went to the water park.  It was an awesome day!  It wasn't a huge park so it didn't take too long to get to the different rides.  Hannah could ride all but a few slides and she had a blast!  She was a little nervous at first, but once she got going, there was no stopping her.  Cameron also loved the slides he could do, but was also content to just sit on the lazy river with Nonnie.  He even took a little snooze while dad and Tim rode a few of the bigger slides.  We had a super fun day!  That night, we ate a great little hamburger place and went to the outlet mall to shop.

Day three started early for my dad and Tim as they headed off to golf.  Mom and I took the kids to the park and the fish hatchery in the morning.  They loved seeing and feeding all of the fish at the hatchery.  We had been told it was a must do outing and I'm really glad we did it.  Once the guys were home from golf, we all headed to the pool to swim for an hour or so.  That night, we went to the Dixie Stampede show.  The kids had a great time and really loved seeing all of the animals during the show.  It was a fun experience and a great way to spend our evening.

On our final day in Branson, we started with the Ride the Ducks experience.  My mom, dad and I had done this in the Dells several years ago, but Tim and the kids had never been.  The ducks are fashioned after a military boat/car and they go both on land and in the water.  The kids had fun driving around town and especially on the lake.  I think they had the most fun using their "Wacky Quackers" whenever our driver told us too!

After lunch, we hit the outlet mall again before heading home.  We found lots of good deals for both the beginning of school/fall and for the kids for next summer.  We wore the kids out and they slept pretty much the entire drive home!

We had an awesome few days as a family and we are blessed that my parents wanted to spend a few days with us on this awesome vacation!  We can't wait for more trips with our family!