Silver Dollar City

The kids and I are in Branson with Grandma and Grandpa for a couple days of early Christmas. After driving to Cape Cod and back, a 4-hour trip with the three kids feels like a jaunt across town (and they were great in the car, which probably helps a little). Grandpa did a most excellent job of entertaining the girls with a guessing game. It went a little like this:

Grandpa: "Ok, I'm a number. Ask me for some clues and guess the number."
Mary: "Two!"
Grandpa: "No, I'm not the number two. You should probably ask for some clues."
Mary: "Four!"
Grandpa: "No, I'm not the number four. You should probably ask for some clues."

I for one found it to be a very entertaining way to pass the time.

Today we had lunch at a restaurant near a little shopping boardwalk village street whose name I can't remember, but it meant there was a place to run. There is always a lot of running going on nomatter where we are.

Look, it's Mary in a Christmas ball.

We fed some fish and ducks before lunch. Michael made it very clear during lunch that he would much rather be back outside feeding the ducks than inside not feeding the ducks.

Then we headed off to Silver Dollar City.

If you haven't seen that place through the eyes of a preschooler lately, you should give it a try. There might not be anybody who believes in the wonder of Christmas more than Mary.

It was a beautiful day today but still being in the middle of the week, the park wasn't crowded at all. We didn't even have to wait in line to take a picture in the sleigh in front of the Christmas tree that puts on light shows coordinated to Christmas music.

That Christmas tree was definitely Mary's favorite part. She described it as "ginormous," "amazing," "beautiful," and "my favorite Christmas tree ever." The whole park was lit up with thousands upon thousands of Christmas lights, but I don't really have any pictures of the singing tree or the lights because I don't know how to get good pictures of Christmas lights at night.

See? Told you.

But we got in a full day of playing before it got dark. We took in a Frosty show which, honestly, was pretty funny and the kids loved it.

At one point it snowed bubbles. Big hit.

The kids also rode a rocking horse...

and a train...

and a carousel...

and some swings.

They also spent a lot of time climbing and sliding and shooting foam balls around a giant climbing tower space filled with foam balls. It's a little hard to describe. But they liked the slides.

We all had a really nice day. Michael feel asleep while we were walking to the parking lot at 6:30 and was so konked out that moving him to the car and then to the room and changing his diaper and putting on pjs did not wake him up enough to keep him from instantly falling back asleep when I put him in bed. He'll need to be well rested for tomorrow's Dixie Stampede!