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| Merry Christmas from Silver Dollar City! |
- There were no baby doll injuries last night so that was good and everyone slept well. Campbell was ready to put on her clothes for school as soon as she waltzed down the steps. So I quickly ran upstairs to find her some clothes myself since yesterday she pulled out shorts and a short sleeved shirt. She was pretty upset that I made her change into something more weather appropriate.
- Actually, I don't think any of my kids have a good internal temperature gauge. The boys walk around without their shirts, Campbell is wearing shorts, Reagan sleeps without any covers-meanwhile, I am sleeping under a sheet, 2 comforters, and a blanket and wearing socks and a jacket around the house. Our cinder block/brick house is naturally cool (the main downstairs) in the summer and unfortunately naturally cool and drafty in the winter. Robby does have a few little heaters that help-when they are down from the attic!
- Robby and Keaton took Campbell to school and they were gone for awhile. He was giving us plenty of time to finish school but I was taking my sweet time this morning. I had made the kids do 4 boxes yesterday so today I gave them a list of things to do (1 box, brush teeth, 1 box, clean toy room, 1 box....you get the idea.) That meant that school was going much slower but I was able to get things accomplished for our trip.
- That didn't last for two long because soon Keaton came home. And picking up with her around is like raking leaves in the fall-just plain silly-rake one up and 5 fall down. As soon as she walked in the door, she walked right to me and said "me eat, Daddy, coke." There are no more secrets with that little child.
- I had told everyone when we were going to leave for Branson but no one really heard-Reagan thought we were leaving before lunch, Anderson thought we were leaving when Robby got home from work (though he was working from home) and Graham was convinced that we were leaving at 1. We did leave a bit after 1 and the kids climbed into the car as soon as they were given a chance.
- They have been watching every single episode of Liberty Kids in the car and they were nearing the final episode so they were ready for us to start the car. We held them off until at least the car was backing out of the driveway.
- Our first stop was to pick up Campbell from Grannymom's house. She had spent the afternoon over there and even went to Kroger to buy bread and to Target to buy "not shoes but cereal." I am not at all sure if that is accurate at all but that is what she told us.
- Apparently there was also some confusion about where and how long we were going to be gone. When I said "2 nights" there were some "awws" and possible even a "boo" coming from the back seat of the car. Then Graham asked a zillion questions and I finally figured out that he thought Silver Dollar City was the city we were going to and Branson was the name of the theme park. And if we heard once "are we still in Arkansas?" we heard it a zillion times. My Graham did think to ask how many miles we were going to drive on the trip and Robby replied about 400. Graham said that wasn't too many since last trip was 5,000.
- Now it isn't all roses on the trip. Keaton fussed pretty much the entire time-not loudly just whining. And when I was driving for a bit, Graham said "Mommy, when we get to a pull over place and ya'll switch places?" Personally, I think that he was saying that I am not such a great driver. And a few minutes later, Campbell said "I am not having much fun on our road trip."
- Lately, the kids have all been so funny. Every single time that any sound comes out of Whitman's mouth, at least 2 people come up to me and tell me what he said. Sometimes they say that he said "Daddy" or sometimes they say he said something like "I like to go to church." And I seriously think that all of my kids really think that Whitman is indeed talking-even in complete sentences. He isn't yet doing that but soon, he will be crawling-oh, way too soon.
- We pressed down the road and the car first stopped at Neighbor's Mill for some bread. Robby just ran in and when Anderson saw the place, he said "I remember this place, it is sooo good." Though he wasn't too crazy about our strawberry pecan bread that we had tonight (it is delicious.)
- A mile or two later was Arbys which was where we were going to pick up supper. Robby and I went back and forth on going in to potty or pressing on. No one had said that they needed to potty (you have to say it twice to be taken seriously in our car) so we did press on and they did great. Now once at the gates of Silver Dollar City we did quickly have to find a restroom for every single one of us.
- My Anderson was pretty quiet on the trip-his attention was only on the movies. That boy is so tenderhearted. Yesterday, I didn't give Campbell more drink at supper because she poured the rest of hers on Reagan's head (oh, and she was also given a pretty good spanking) So she started wailing over in the corner "my drink, my drink" over and over again. Anderson went and stood beside her and said "Mom, can't she have another chance?" Unfortunately, all of my second chances had been used up much earlier in the day so I said no. Then he looked at Campbell and said "if I had some more drink, I would let you have some of mine." Sweetest boy ever. (Now, drama queen was told that she could have her water bottle so she wasn't going thirsty. The "my drink" screaming went on until Robby came home and hearing the garage beep as it went up quickly stopped her antics.)
- It was almost dark when we pulled into Branson and Campbell noticed the beautiful orange sky. She said "I can not believe that sky is orange. Grahammy, I found your orange sky. You like orange." Aww, she can be sweet sometimes too.
- After the tram ride and pottying at Silver Dollar City, we went at a non Dennie pace and slowly walked through shops-even saw them making peanut brittle and had samples (which Anderson and Graham asked multiple times if we could go back there-we will have to tomorrow) The kids really noticed the lights and talked about them. Even though it is a bit early for the Christmas spirit, seeing all of the lights does make you want to hum a few Christmas carols.
- We stopped to take a picture of Santa. I hope it was a decent one because I barely was able to get Keaton to set near him even after I showed her that he was a statue. I know that she will never get near the real thing.
- The kids rode the kiddie roller coaster twice and then I somehow ended up on this massive spinny thing with Reagan and Anderson (the only ones tall enough) It was not my idea of fun-though I did cackle and squeal the entire time. Reagan loved every minute of it but Anderson was silent only saying "Momma" a few times. I tried to turn my head over to look at him but the spinning wouldn't let me. Later he told Graham "you can have my spot next time" and "I thought it was going to spin us out into space."-my thoughts exactly.
- We then went to the kiddie area for Keaton and everyone rode the frogs and butterflies. Poor Whitman was not too happy by now-I don't think he was cold-even though he kept losing his socks over and over. Thankfully, we found them each time-tomorrow he is going to wear Robby's socks so they will be long enough that they will not come off. His mother probably should have brought him some shoes.
- Soon it was time for the parade-lately, I moaned about how my children were never able to see the parades at Disney. But we were all about the Silver Dollar City parade-maybe because we were the only folks around (the park was frightfully empty tonight-wonderful for us though). The kids sat wide eyed as the floats went past them. They waved, gave high fives and just had a great time.
- Then as we walked out, Robby turned so we ended up at Fire in the Hole-a Dennie kid favorite. Well, a favorite for Reagan, Anderson and Graham. Campbell wanted no part in that one and Keaton was too small. They rode it twice-the first time with me and the second time with Robby.
- While we waited, I decided to head on up the hill to meet Robby there. He had said that we could go towards the hill but we pressed on. 3/4ths of the way up the hill, a lady said "ma'am, you lost a sock and I put it on the bench down there." I could see the bench back down the hill that we just climbed (me pushing the double stroller with Campbell hanging on to it so I was dragging her too). I looked at that bench, looked at the hill, looked at Whitman while trying to decide if it was worth going back down. They lady was still staring at me so I had to turn around and get the sock. Probably if she hadn't been standing there, I would have not turned around-you can't get frost bite that quickly! (and I had a spare sock in the bag-not a spare pair or I would have changed him, just a spare sock that I found in the car).
- Soon we were back on the tram headed to our car. We loaded up and headed to our hotel just a few miles away. It is a big room with 2 beds, a pack n play and even a fold out couch. Sweet! I know this sounds crazy but I could easily live in a little space like this-I like being near the fam. And I might just want to live here because they had hot chocolate and apple cider downstairs.
- Robby had already bought my hot chocolate at the park so this was the kids turn for some. Of course I was a basket case with them holding scalding hot hot chocolate (even though they did have lids) but they did fine and made it up to the room so Robby could put some ice in their cups. But I had the apple cider. When we were in Vermont, we had to skip the cider place that I wanted to go to so we could keep driving and get to the lasagna place that Robby wanted to eat at (I am still a bit bitter-though the lasagna place, Boves, was sure delicious and we did need supper more than a drink.) Anyway, the apple cider that I had tonight was excellent-almost enough to ease some of my bitterness.
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