Our First Fall Break

This is the first year that Ben has been off of school for Fall Break.  We decided to make a family vacation out of it and head to Branson for our belated Silver Dollar City trip that we had cancelled in August.  We planned to hit the outlet mall while we were there as well to get a few more fall clothes and finish getting our family picture outfits.  We didn’t leave until Thursday for Branson so on Wednesday, Ben and Mom got to spend a day together.  We mostly shopped for clothes which was a total drag, but we also got to eat out at Pei Wei and take Ben back to Elizabeth’s school so he could visit some old teachers when we picked her up that day.  

On Thursday we headed to Branson.  We stopped for lunch on the way and always try to sneak in something new for the kids to try.  It wasn’t very adventurous (but the kids thought it was), but we tried Cheddar’s with the kids for the first time and had great success.  They both loved it and gobbled up their food.  We got into Branson around 2 and headed straight to the outlet mall.  We shopped until dinner time and wore those kids out!  The good part was that they ended up with lots of new things and everyone ended up with appropriate family picture outfits.  Success!  That night we headed to dinner and ended up at a sports bar.  We searched for a place that met all of our needs and finally convinced the kids that this would have kid friendly food.  Ben’s response – “Well, I guess we can go if they have cable.”  That got us a good family laugh.  We sat in a room with a giant TV and Ben was set.  The only problem was that he didn’t like any of the food.  At least he got to watch some football while the rest of us ate.  

We got checked in to our room and were ready to sleep hard after our long day when we started hearing this shrill noise.  Was it a child screeching outside?  Was it an annoying bird in a tree below our room?  It went on for what seemed like hours since bedtime started around 8 or 8:30 for the kids.  It seemed to stop before midnight though.  Well, the next morning we discovered the source of the noise.  In our beautiful hotel there were water features downstairs and really nice plants and landscaping in the lobby.  There were also two parrots in cages.  They were the source of the noisy squawks from the night before!  

We headed out to Silver Dollar City on Friday.  It was pretty cool so we wore heavy jackets.  It was nothing as bad as the fair weather though!  The kids got measured and Elizabeth was about 40 inches and Ben about 48 inches.  Tall enough to ride way too many things!  Elizabeth was braver this year than last.  She loved the smaller roller coaster along with several of the other rides in the area for littler kids.  There was plenty to ride if you were over 36 inches.  Ben fell into the adult category except there was one ride that he was not big enough for.  He could do most of the big roller coasters though.  We really loved Thunderation and Ben ended up riding it 9 times in two days.  He also was very brave and tried PowderKeg where you accelerate from zero to 53 mph in just 2.8 seconds.  Yikes!  Dad and Ben did that and Mom and E watched nervously.  Ben came off with big eyes and a big smile.  He was so pumped and jumping up and down with excitement.  Whew!  We also saw ten year olds get off crying so Ben’s reaction was a huge relief to Mom.  He said he wanted to make Mom go next, but then thought twice and said he had enjoyed it, but would prefer to do Thunderation again instead.  Good choice!  The kids rode hard Friday and Saturday.  They only stopped to watch one stunt show and of course stopped to eat.  We enjoyed lots of yummy treats while we were there.  The biggest hit were the apple dumplings with vanilla ice cream.  Yum!  Saturday was much warmer and by the afternoon we even got brave and tried a water ride.  We did the river float ride and got completely soaked from head to toe!  It was warm enough that it was fine, but neither kid liked being wet.  Elizabeth kept asking to change clothes.  We let them play in one of the giant play house areas for a while to distract them while they dried some.  

 

We really didn’t do much in the evenings since we skipped nap and rode so hard all day.  The kids were so tired!  We hit the Olive Garden on Thursday night and added yet another new place to our list of where the kids will eat.  So adventurous!  Then on Saturday night when we left the park, the kids were both asleep within 5 minutes so we headed out of town a bit and woke them up to eat some fast food on the way home.  We packed a lot into those three days and can’t wait to go back next time!