Christmas 2020!

    It was going to just be a normal/quiet Christmas at home.  Then my husband came up with the idea of going to Branson.  We had always heard how amazing Branson was at Christmastime and so why not?!  A week before we were still able to get an amazing airfare so we pulled off a last minute Christmas trip!!!

    I feel like Branson, MO is one of the best kept secrets out there.  It is seriously the last family friendly/Christian establishment out there!  We didn't get away from all the virus/mask-wearing stuff but we had fun anyways!  

    We left bright and early Tuesday, December 22nd--5:20 am.  We caught our Allegiant flight to Springfield, MO.  We were STARVING when we landed so we most definitely had to hit the best restaurant in the state--LAMBERT'S CAFE!!!  "Home of the throwed rolls!"  It's just good ol' home cooked meals (kinda like Cracker Barrel) but the wait staff walks around with huge pots of side dishes that you can get at any time--sides like black-eyed peas, fried okra, and of course...ROLLS THROWN right to you!  And HUGE mugs of Cherry Coke went with our meal perfectly.  

    We then headed over to Silver Dollar City--our tickets were buy one day, get a second day free.  So this day was like a bonus day.  The weather was perfect (in the low 60s) and we needed to walk off some of our lunch.  We hit a couple rides and then decided to head out.  It was the busiest I had ever seen the place and the wait times for most rides were about 30 minutes.  We knew we had the entire day on Wednesday to really get our fun in.

    That night, we went and saw the production of "Noah."  (A couple years ago we saw "Jonah."). It was AMAZING!!!  The set was incredible!  And they used many live animals in the production which was just awesome.  The shows/actors/talent in Branson is top notch.  Some incredibly talented humans live there for sure.

    Wednesday...the MAIN EVENT!!!  All afternoon (it didn't open until 1:00 pm) at Silver Dollar City!!!  The weather was definitely colder (in the 40s with some rain) which kept the crowds away!!!  So yes!!!  We braved the cold and the rain all day and it was worth it--the rain felt like tiny needles hitting your skin while on a ride but thankfully the rain didn't last too long!!!  We rode every single ride we wanted to!  They added a new roller coaster a couple years ago that we had never been on--The Time Traveler.  Seriously MY personal favorite roller coaster up to this point of my life!!!  We rode this 7 times today!  (The kids rode 8 times:).  What is so unique about this roller coaster is that the carts you sit in free spin WHILE you're going around the track.  So NO two rides were every exactly the same.  Sometimes you were head first, sometimes backwards, and even sideways other times.  We LOVED LOVED LOVED it!

Good times at Silver Dollar City: The plastic Santa was the only Santa my kids wanted to see:)

Coffin-measuring--gotta do this EVERY time
we go:)

Just a pic of my IVY OBSESSION!

BEST COASTER EVER!!!

In line at Time Traveler--
have I mentioned how many times we rode this???

  

    Nighttime at Silver Dollar City was SPECTACULAR!  We didn't get to do our traditional "drive around and look at lights" this year (because we would be flying home late on Christmas Eve) but this definitely made up for it.  

  

 

So we ran ourselves RAGGED Wednesday.  Grabbed a pizza on the way back to our hotel and then watched Wonder Woman and crashed for the night.  Headaches and runny noses all around!😂

    We had all day Thursday to hang out until our flight home so we headed back to Springfield to go to the Bass Pro Shop/Aquarium/Museum.  Apparently the owner of Bass Pro Shops lives in Springfield, MO so he's opened up a HUGE museum/aquarium there.  It was a perfect way to spend our last day there as it was VERY cold outside and we were exhausted/still recovering from the day before.  We spent about 4 hours going through the entire place.  Very impressive and good news!!!  I FOUND MY NEXT DOG!😂. There was a "therapy dog" that works at Bass Pro Shops.  His name is "Ara" and he is a 180 lb. Armenian Wolfhound.  Apparently, this breed is TIGHTLY controlled so they aren't over-bred and as a result, these large dogs live 12-15 years (HUGE improvement over the normal 8 years of other better-known large breed dogs).  So OF COURSE we had to pet this guy💕 And OF COURSE I follow him on Instagram now too!!!

    My other favorite part was petting the Manta Rays.  Cool AND freaky all at the same time!  Whenever there are animals to be touched...MEEKERS ARE THERE!!!

    Our flight went perfectly and we arrived home at 10 pm Christmas Eve.  We quickly opened our Christmas PJs and then went to bed--I actually forgot to take PJ pics until Christmas morning.

    Max got Lola a Christmas sweater and she wasn't quite sure how she felt about it but darn she looked CUTE!!!💕😍

She's looking at herself in the mirror
in my bedroom😂

Rocco just appreciates being left 
ALONE in his old age😂

    There was no snow in AZ but there was a few drops of rain.  We enjoyed what we could of that:)

    We did keep our Christmas tradition of a movie at Harkins.  We went and watched Wonder Woman 84.  Not as good as the last one but it sure felt GREAT to be inside a movie theatre again.  We also talked to Carlie later on in the day--her last Christmas away!!!  So glad to have her coming home SOON!!!  Can't wait!  February 17th can't come fast enough!  So all in all it was a great Christmas.  So grateful for this little family of mine.  Words cannot express how much I freakin' LOVE these crazies💗💗💗