Time Away!

Matt and I have been keeping the roads pretty hot for about a week and half now! The girls spent a few days with my parents the week of the 4th of July. My niece (I like to call her the Activities Director) had made all kinds of plan for them! They were going to have streamers and fireworks and a dance and I don't what all else. And no, my mother had to inkling of these plans!! They had a good time. Mom got a new pool so I think they spent most of their time in the water. They did make it up to the lake and watched the fireworks on the 4th. Here are a few pictures of the party.

They somehow managed to decorate with balloons outside on the clothesline! :)

This was the dance!

The last night they were there they remember that they had not swam all week after dark. Granny let them swim until after 10:00 by the light of the Tiki Torches!

They had a great time!

Matt and I took advantage of the girls being gone and to a weekend trip to Branson. We didn't see any shows. We thought about it, but when it took us over 30 minutes to get only 1 mile down the road...we ate lunch and went back to the hotel!! We stayed at the Hilton at Branson Landing. What I like about this hotel is that there are shops, restaurants and entertain without having to drive anywhere! For those of you that have never been there, Lake Taneycomo runs right beside Branson Landing, and in the middle of the shopping area is a water fountain. At the top of every hour, there is a "fountain show" with music, lights and fire cannons.

This picture isn't that great, but I think there are 16 fire cannons across the back (on 2 are shown "firing" in this picture). It's really spectactular at night. One evening the group "Six" performed for free by the fountain. The are an acapella group, but use their voices to sound like instruments. Then Friday and Saturday at 10:00 each night these two guys, they call themselves Buckets 'N Boards, came out and did a short routine. They were definately entertaining! We had a pretty good weekend ourselves.

After we left Branson and picked up the girls the next day, we rested and repacked for another weekend trip with the whole family. We went to Memphis this time. We toured Graceland. Never been much of an Elvis fan, but it was interesting. We toured the Mansion, the Automobile museum, the Jumpsuit museum and the Jets.

The mansion itself wasn't as big as I thought it would be. But when we got home and were thinking back, it had so many other buildings on the grounds that it really was a big place. Also, they don't let the public tour the upstairs of the house, so we didn't even get to see that part.

Matt enjoyed the looking at the all the cars, us girls didn't really get into all of that! :) The jets were cool. On the big jet, there is a bedroom at the back of it. Kyla said that the bed kinda creeped her out! Not sure why, but we all laughed about it.

We ate dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe on Beale St. That was where Kyla wanted to go. She is really into music and singing. I don't think it was all that she had anticipated though.

Friday we went to the Memphis Zoo. It was nice, but not all that I had anticipated. The penguins were pretty neat. The polar bear exhibit was really cool. (And I mean that in every sense of the word. It was indoors.:) And the panda bear was fun to see. However, they have this whole section of the Zoo for the panda and the actual bear was only in one part of that. I was a little disappointed that there wasn't more to it.

The weather got hot in hurry that day, so we didn't tarry long. We went back to the hotel and jumped in the pool!

I really like these short weekend trips. You're not there long enough to be too overwhelmed with all the coming and going. You have just enough time to enjoy the trip! And that's what we did-Enjoyed it!!

Matt is conteplating another trip before school starts, but I think we'll probably hold off until next year.

It's good to be home!