Vacation Crashers - Branson Days 1 and 2

A few months ago, I started polling my family to see if we could figure out a time to have a family vacation with all of us. It pretty quickly became apparent that it wasn't going to happen this year. Schedules just weren't colliding. One of the limiting factors was my oldest brother's vacation time with his brand new job...or rather, lack there of. All the vacation time he had was allocated to trips, one of which was a trip he'd planned for his family in Branson, MO. A couple of weeks before their vacation was to start, we decided that we would just crash their vacation so that Dylan could get some quality time in with his cousins. So, very early the morning after our Red Sox VIP experience, we headed to the airport to crash their vacation.

This was the first trip we'd taken with Dylan that 1) wasn't direct, 2) we bought him his own ticket and 3) that he could\would sit focused on watching a movie for a good period of time. #'s 2 and 3 contributed to making the trip down pretty uneventful (yay!). Once there, we found the shuttle to our rental car place, headed over, got outfitted with some wheels and went to meet Jody at the resort we would all be staying.

Once we got to the address of the place we had booked, we tried to locate Jody and Ryker who were waiting for us at the front of the resort. Following their instructions to where they were, we couldn't find them. After a few frustrating minutes of driving around, we finally figured out that we had booked ourselves in a different resort! Doh! Apparently there are a several "Falls Creek" resorts of slightly different names in Branson. Although a big bummer at first, it ended up being not so big a deal. We were only a mile apart and were able to get to each other to meet up easily enough.

Jody's family was going to a show that afternoon so we hung out with them until they had to leave for that. Our check in time was still a ways off so we drove around Branson a bit, took a snooze in the car then went and found a store to get a few groceries for our time there. Then we were able to check in and settle into our hotel. Dylan enjoyed playing out on our screened in porch while Mike and I unpacked the suitcases.

Once Jody's gang finished the show, we met back up with them to head just across the state line to Arkansas where my great aunt Ted is in a nursing home. Her youngest sister, my great Aunt Elizabeth, and her daughter, Jerry Anne, met us all there for a visit. My grandmother's sisters are some pretty cool ladies that I rarely get to see so it was wonderful to spend some time with them and give them some hugs. After we left, I wanted to kick myself (very hard) because I completely forgot to take in the camera to take any pictures of those lovely ladies. Major fail! We called it a night then, caravaned back to our hotels and settled in for some much needed rest.

On day two, we met up pretty early to caravan over to Silver Dollar City, a big amusement park. The youngest were presented with sheriff badges as we entered the park, which they both enjoyed wearing a lot.

Cute Little Sheriffs 

We wandered around a bit and made it over to where the sheriffs could ride some rides while the bigger kids (Jody, Mike, Reece and Presley), headed for some thrills. I had the honor of taking Ryker and Dylan on their first ride. Unfortunately, it was torture for the both of them. While waiting to start, Dylan was a wreck and Ryker and I both tried to calm him.

Once we started, Dylan's tears stopped and he seemed to enjoy it. Ryker screamed in excitement....or so I thought. Soon, the screaming turned into blood curdling and he was shaking and freaking out a bit. I had to try and calm him then! Phew! Just can't please them both at once!

We tried a couple of other rides in the area with a bit more success. Dylan seemed pretty happy with the butterflies and caterpillars while Ryker had fun on the ladybugs (Dylan was too short for that one).

Actually, Dylan was too short for most of the rides...poor guy. He SO wanted to ride the big swings but was a couple of inches shy of the height requirement. He also wanted to ride the tea cups and the elephants (much like the Dumbo ride at Disney) but had the same height issue there. I guess I should have put some platforms on him that day and spiked his hair! Due to the fact that he wasn't it all that great of spirits (already suffering from too little sleep on vacation and not enjoying the southern heat), I stayed with him most of the day. He and I wandered and found ways to entertain ourselves while others were on rides. My biggest entertainment was lemonade slushes...they helped to endure the heat. Yay for them!

There were a couple of rides that we all were able to enjoy together. We went on the Flooded Mine where you shot at targets for points:

Marcy and Reece

Dylan's Ready to Fight Crime

And then followed that up by a super cheesy scripted train ride. Other fun Dylan was able to partake in was the carousel:

And the big playground area where he and Ryker enjoyed tromping around:

Chillin' With My Goat Bud

Look at that, he's got a tail!

Goat Close Up!

It had been a late lunch and the heat had gotten to us all so we decided to go to another ride we could all go on together. It just so happened to be a water ride - Riverblast! Even though Marcy opted to stay "ashore", we blasted her with our water guns so she didn't get left out. The kids LOVED this ride. Even more fun than riding it was running around getting shot by the water guns as spectators for the ride. We hung out for some time because Ryker and Dylan (and even Reece and Presley) were having such a fun time with it.

Mike, Dylan and I went back to our hotel\condo to shower and freshen up then met back over at Jody's for taco night. The kids all watched Tangled (Dylan's first time to see the movie) and played together well. A long fun, very hot day wore us out and we slept well that night!