The Bradleys go to Branson

We took our annual trip to Branson- Silver Dollar City in September. We had so much fun in September but I'm about 5 blog posts behind!! Greg, Logan, Tyson, and I rode with Grandma and Grandpa Bradley in the red van. Julie and Ryan, Nick and Alex came down after Ryan got off work on Friday. The boys were very good travelers. See my other blog to see what I packed for them to do in the car. Logan stayed pretty busy on the way there. His favorite activity was the sticker books. He also liked that Grandpa and Grandma packed their portable DVD player so he got to watch an episode of Blues Clues and a home video of himself! That definitely helped when Tyson needed to sleep. We only made one stop for the bathroom and to feed Tyson. Logan kept his pull-up dry all the way until we stopped at the gas station (and then he used the nasty gas station toilets. Should I celebrate that? Gross. And um, why do they have to touch all the parts of the toilet??????)  Ok, back to the trip... we arrived in Branson around 5 pm, unloaded, and went to eat supper. We ate at Pizza World. It was a Pizza buffet and it was really good... or I was really hungry but regardless, I loved it. Logan ate pizza but Tyson just flirted with all the older ladies in the restaurant. (I knew all the old folk in Branson would love my Tyson.)
After dinner we went to the hotel to swim. I have swimming pictures on my camera but I'm having fits with them. Greg?? Help?? Please??? Logan loved swimming.. Tyson- not so much. In fact, he wouldn't even look at anyone who was in the pool because he was terrified someone would make him get in! He ended up sitting out on the side and taking a bottle from Grandma.
The first night there, the boys didn't really sleep much. They kept waking each other up and when we would have let them cry at home, we had to get them up at the hotel. They also woke up at 4:30 am and did not go back to sleep. They were both pretty tired for Saturday. I was kind of bummed about that because I wanted them to have fun at SDC. It worked out ok because they BOTH took naps during the day at SDC.
On Saturday morning we had breakfast at the hotel and then went to Silver Dollar City. At SDC, they  measure the kids and give them a colored wristband which denotes which rides they can ride. Tyson couldn't ride any of the rides-- except the train. But he just enjoyed being with everybody.

Logan could go on the bugs and the butterflies by himself and most of the other rides with an adult. He couldn't ride any of the big people roller coasters except for Fire in the Hole- but I nixed that! None of the rides scared him. He even liked "the fast boats." I rode that one with Alex and I gotta say, it is pretty intense for a kid ride. I was holding on the Alex. I think he thought I was pretty strange. Logan's favorite ride was the frogs. He rode it several times.

Our very nice parents decided it would be fun for Julie and Ryan and Greg and me if we all got a "break time". Julie and Ryan went off by themselves in the morning. I think they went dancing and shopping :) We stayed with all of the boys.

Then Greg and I went off by ourselves in the afternoon.

We went on the cave tour.

It was a hot day and much cooler down there. It's nice to just "escape" and see some natural beauty.

 I couldn't go in the cave last year because I was preggo.
After the cave, we all rode the train. If you've ridden the train at SDC, you know that they have a mock train heist with train robbers. It's the same thing every year- same corny jokes that would only work at a theme park like SDC. However, this time, my nephew Alex decided to spice it up. Alex loves to roar at people. So when the train robbers got really close to Alex, Nick told Alex, "You should roar at them." Alex got right in their face and roared. Alex loves to scare people so when the robber responded with a "He scared me!" (and I think he really did.) Alex was glowing! And the rest of us were laughing hysterically.

Logan was pretty tired by train time but Tyson enjoyed his only ride of the day.

Oh, yeah, Tyson also got to ride in his stroller.

All of the boys did really good. They took turns in the sit and stand stroller. Although, Logan was determined to walk the entire day!! When Nick rode in the stroller, I made Greg push because he is much, much stronger than me!

After SDC, we went to Country Buffet or something like that for dinner. It's a really, really, really yummy buffet. Seriously, I have never had food like that off a buffet. Luckily, Logan was free because I think he ate some shredded cheese and that was it, (Two year olds!) But Tyson loved the honey biscuits. After eating, all the guys played a round of mini golf (the restaurant is attached to an indoor mini golf course).

There was a lady waiting behind us who was obviously frustrated that we had brought kids to golf. I guess she thought Tyson would be holding everybody up because she huffed, "Babies? Golfing? Seriously??" By the way, Tyson did not golf- he just practiced his "walking" on the course and huffy lady picked the other course to play!

The boys slept much better the second night- hallelujah! Sunday morning we had breakfast at the hotel again, loaded up, and headed home. We had difficulty getting out of Branson because the Iron Man competition was in town and they had shut down all kinds of roads for them to compete. But the boys did pretty good on the ride home- despite all the twists and turns we had to make. We stopped at one rest area that had a playground and we tried to stop at Mc Donalds- but when we got off the exit, we saw that the McDonalds had been completely bulldozed over! So we ate at Burger King.
When we got on to Old HWY 21 headed toward our house, Logan said, "I want to go back to Branson." Ugh- no more long drives for now buddy-- but we'll take you back next year because we had  alot of fun too! Thank you to Grandma and Grandpa Bradley for treating us all to a trip to Branson. We love it!!