Last weekend the kids had Friday and Monday off, so we decided to join Jeff on his work trip to Arkansas and then head up to Branson for a fun-filled time! This time we brought Grandma along, who is celebrating her semi-retirement. She is only working part-time now and is enjoying her new free time! Our trip started off a little rough with a very cranky Harrison. He was mad that Grandma made him wash his hands after using the bathroom and threw a monster-sized tantrum about it. These are fairly new for him, but he's definitely decided that he knows what he wants and that is that! A few days later I took him to the bathroom and he threw another tantrum because he only wanted to wash his hands and not actually use the potty! Goodness gracious!
In between the tantrums though, we had a great time!
Harrison has always been nervous about riding most of the rides, even the kiddie rides, so I was proud of him for trying some new things this go around. He rode the swings and was scared. He said, "it made me couldn't breathe" and then declared it his favorite.
After we had finished the day I was up at the entrance with the big kids waiting for Jeff, Grandma and Harrison. We were next to this set up for photos and I offered to take lots of pictures of families for them. Lincoln was being a stinker and kept trying to photo bomb all of them. I laughed at how all of the families could manage to site down, pose and move on; mine wasn't so easy. This is the best we got.
The next day we decided to explore some caves. Before our tour we found a river where we skipped rocks for a few minutes. The kids could've stayed there for hours.
Jackson complained all day about going to the caves because he "didn't want to walk." As much convincing as we tried, we couldn't get him out of his funky attitude until we got there. He was fascinated by the caves and had a million questions for the guides. We all really enjoyed hearing the history of the second cave - it had been used to make whiskey during the prohibition and was later used as a dance club! You could see that it had been damaged by all of the people in it over the years, especially compared to the other cave which was just discovered 10 years ago. I was amazed at how long it takes to create the formations.
The next night we stayed in the same resort that we had gone to previously with Granny and Papa. We got in kind of late, so we just did some of the activities around the lodge the next morning and then headed home. It makes me laugh how much the kids enjoy shuffleboard.
