Branson Triple Birthday Trip

The second weekend of October we went to Branson to celebrate Family Birthdays.  My Dad's is September 26th, Mike's is October 3rd and my brother Todd's is October 9th, so this year we decided to celebrate by the whole family going to Big Cedar Lodge for the Weekend and end it with a trip to Silver Dollar City (which has to be a separate blog because of so many pictures).  I had not gone to Big Cedar probably since I was around 9? (for those of you keeping up with my age that's 20 years ago) so I was looking forward to the trip. Mike and the boys had never gone, so of course they were looking forward to going somewhere new.  My parents went, along with my brother's family and us.  That's 6 adults and 5 kids :)  We got there early on a Friday afternoon.  We checked into an amazing house.  It was huge, definatley the nicest largest house I have ever been in.  We unloaded food for the weekend and checked out the house including 2 master suites, 2 kitchens, a pool table, poker table, 2 porches, 5 bedrooms, and a movie room.  Below are some pictures I took throughout the weekend.

 

 

Here  is us arriving.  You actually drive through the falls.  I was a little hesitant at first, but we made it.  It was a beautiful drive.

The first activity we did there was make smores.  The kids had a blast.

Max made a smore, but mainly just wanted to eat the chocolate.

We went swimming Friday night too.  Here is Grandpa, Laney, and Mary Frannie playing a game of checkers while waiting on our shuttle back to the house

Max and Mabry drinking their "hot" chocolate

They had a lot of logs in the main check in area that the kids loved playing with.

Alex loved swimming in his car

All of us in the pool.  It was a great pool, plenty warm, even had a slide.  My mom brought a lot of pool toys that the kids loved.

I love this picture of Laney eating a smore.

Alex and Grandpa were the first ones out of the pool

They had an outdoor hot tub.  I wasn't sure about this at first since it was about 35 degrees outside, but it felt great.  I went in it both nights.

Me and Mike took this picture one morning after breakfast on the balcony.  The house had beautiful views.

The house had a MOVIE room.  Isn't that neat?  It was perfect.  It had comfy chairs, blankets, recliners, pillows. surround sound, tables for snacks, an awesome touchscreen remote, and a huge pull down projector screen.  It was pretty neat to watch movies, tv, and especially the hog game in the movie room.  I think there was atleast one person at all times in the movie room during the trip :)

Max and Mabry being silly

We played some mini golf on Saturday.  It was sort of raining, and really cold...but we wanted to play because the kids really wanted to play and it was free, and we had planned on it so we are kind of stubburn....but it actually was a lot of fun.  It was Max's first time to play putt putt.  We definately didn't play by any rules, but enjoyed watching the kids play.

 

We celebrated Birthdays on Saturday night.  Mike turned 32.  Here is a picture of him opening up a gift from Todd, Jennie, and the girls.  They got him a Van Es & Stinnett visor and shirt.  Mike is excited about the new stuff and excited to help out with a little Marketing at the same time, haha.

When the 5 kids are around you always have plenty of help opening gifts.  Here is Grandpa attempting to open one of his gifts.

this is a cute picture of Alex eating his icecream inbetween his Daddy and his Uncle Todd on the couch.

Alex's favorite spot

 

Great picture of the Birthday guys

So Sunday morning they had a fishing derby at the Lodge.  They provided the poles and bait and everything.  Max had never been fishing before so Mike, Grandpa, and Todd took Max and Mary Frannie fishing.  Me, mom, and Jennie stayed to help pack up the cars(and because it was freezing outside!) Mabry and Laney stayed to help as well.  Here is a picture of Mary Frannie with her Trophy!!! She won her age division.  She was so proud of her trophy and we were all very proud of her.

pictures on the balcony before check out

Here are the boys leaving that Sunday morning.

and here are the boys a few minutes later....

 

and so we headed to Silver Dollar City.  It took us a little longer than expected with a few U turns (yes a few) but we made it there and of course, we all had a blast.  I'm so glad Todd and Jennie set it up for us to visit Big Cedar.  We were really impressed, and can't wait to go again.