Day 1,292 - Branson, A Park, Some Ponies, and Lightning McQueen

 Happy Summer!

Life has actually felt somewhat like a whirlwind since May 27th when Ellie happily trotted out of school with her teachers spraying water guns and chucking water balloons in excitement. And yes, that did really happen. That Saturday was fairly normal but practically as soon as we were done with church on Sunday, our family was loaded up in the car to head to Branson for a short vacation with my parents. Even though we were only there from Sunday until Wednesday, it felt like we jam-packed a lot into that short period of time.

On the part of Ellie and Ethan, they were incredibly enthused for this vacation. The major reason for their excitement was that we would be taking them to Silver Dollar City for the very first time! Of course, that wouldn't happen until Tuesday. In the meantime, there were plenty of other fun things to do with the kids.

On Monday morning, the thing that the kids were most excited to do was go swimming. However, we really couldn't do that until the temperatures warmed up a little for the day. In the meantime, we decided to head to a local park so that the kids could get out some energy by playing for a while. That wasn't our only plan for the morning though as there were two points of interest near said park. One was the Dolly Parton's Stampede horse stables with the other being the Branson Celebrity Car Museum.

We made our first stop at the Dixie Stampede so that the kids could walk through the stables and enjoy seeing the horses before we made our way back for the actual show later that evening. For the kids, the highlight was most definitely getting to see a horse named Jesse who inexplicably kept his rear end to us at all times. You can probably guess the jokes that came out of that experience. After that, we got back in the car and headed across the street to the Branson Celebrity Car Museum.

Me and "Jesse"

At this point, I feel like it's pertinent to share that we had no intentions of actually paying to go through the museum. For one thing, the price was $18 a person. More importantly than that was the fact that the thing we actually wanted to see resided outside the museum. It's no secret that Ethan is a huge fan of Lightning McQueen from Cars. He even has pictures of Lightning on the side of his bike! Therefore, when Bethany was researching things to do in Branson and learned that there were life-sized versions of Lightning and Mater parked outside the Branson Celebrity Car Museum, it was an absolute certainty that we would be stopping by.

The second we turned into the parking lot, Ethan's delighted screams of "McQueen!" echoed through our Traverse. He then excitedly began to ask over and over if we were going to go see "McQueen". Finally, the time came to park the car and we wandered over to the entrance of the museum so that Ethan could meet his hero. Unfortunately for Ethan, he underestimated the talkative nature of Mater and found himself slightly intimidated. It just so happened that Mater was hooked up to a sensor and would begin speaking anytime someone walked by. While this didn't phase Ellie at all, Ethan was understandably frightened for a bit at this unexpected turn of events. Soon enough he overcame his fear and was willing to get some photos taken with Lightning and Mater.

After finishing up our morning activities, we headed back to our condo and changed into our swimsuits for a trip to the pool. While the kids were understandably excited to get in the water, Bethany and I were much more apprehensive. That's probably a direct result of the water temperature being somewhere in the high 70's or low 80's. After an hour of splashing around in the pool, all of us except for Ellie were done swimming. While she wasn't stoked to be leaving the pool, she was excited to have lunch. Therefore, we headed back to the condo for a quick lunch of pasta before naps and quiet times.

Our afternoon was wide open so I took the opportunity to go shopping for a new pair of sneakers (unsuccessfully I might add) before heading to the Stampede for that evening's show. Once we arrived, we were ushered inside to a waiting area where Ellie and Ethan took the opportunity to play with some Lincoln Logs before finally heading into the "arena" to find our seats. Upon taking our seats, I made sure to take in the inquisitive looks on my kids' faces as they waiting for the show to begin. Finally, the lights dimmed and riders began to make their way out into the arena on horseback. At this point, I could see just how excited Ellie and Ethan were at everything that was unfolding in front of them.

As the show went on, our dinner for the evening consisting of a rotisserie chicken, a pork cutlet, potato, corn on the cob, potato soup, and a huge apple turnover were deposited in front of us for our dining pleasure. While I proudly ate every bite, Ellie was certainly flabbergasted at the amount of food she was receiving. In fact, at one point she asked Bethany if they would ever stop bringing her food. Eventually, the food did cease and the kids really settled in for the show. Both Ellie and Ethan even took turns sitting on my dad's lap while talking about everything they were seeing. 

 

Finally, the show ended and it was time to bid adieu to the Stampede and bring an end to our first full day in Branson. Lucky for us, there was plenty more fun to be had the next day at Silver Dollar City. That being said, this blog post is plenty long as it is so you'll have to read about that next time.

#DaddyWrite