Mini-Vacation to Branson & Soccer

One of the things on our bucket list was to go to Harvest Festival at Silver Dollar City. We have never been and heard the colors on the drive would be good. Since we have soccer on Sundays, I was having trouble finding a good time to go. Noah was out of school Friday  and we had a free hotel stay so we took advantage and drove up! Nathan had to work, he is very busy lately, which is such a blessing but we do hate him not being able to come with us!

The leaves were changing and the weather was great! I should have known it was going to be busy when we had trouble finding a hotel room that it would be busy, but since this was one of our only chances to go, we went for it. We ended up waiting an hour to park. Then rode a ride and decided to get in line for food. We were all "hangry" and had to wait in line for an hour for food also. It was touch and go for a little bit, but thankfully we all felt better after we ate. We were only able to ride 4 rides in the 4 hours we were there. We just decided to get a cinnamon roll and head to the hotel to relax a little.

Our hotel was pretty nice! It was in a gated area and had 24/7 security with a guard shack checking vehicles entering or exiting. This made me feel better about traveling alone with the kids. After we enjoyed our cinnamon roll and watched some Sprout we headed to check out the new Ci Ci's Pizza and Family Fun Center. The kids love arcades and had such a good time. Then we all ate some pizza and headed back to play in our hotel room - which is one of the kids most favorite things to do.

Saturday we got up and went to the Butterfly Palace & Rainforest Adventure. We have drove past this place several times and finally decided to stop and check it out. It was really a cool place. We started by looking at all the Rainforest animals - mainly just frogs and lizards. Then we did the coolest mirror maze I have ever been in - we had to do it twice it was so much fun. Then we went to the aviary to feed the butterflies. We did a bungee course and watched a 3D movie about the life cycle of butterflies.

Mirror Maze

Bungee Course

Feeding butterflies nectar

3D movie

Next we decided to take old time pictures! I love taking old time pictures and Nathan is not a fan so I decided this would be a good time to do them since he wasn't  with us. Like I said, Branson was busy, so it took us 3 stops before we found a place with no wait, but this place was perfect. They were great with the kids and got some great pictures. The kids had so much fun and are already asking to do it again :)

We then did a little shopping  - GAP for Momma and Disney Store for the kids before we ended our trip with a round of golf. We ended up golfing at a course that Nathan and I golfed on when we went up one weekend during the time we were struggling with infertility. It was such a good, weird, full-circle feeling to be there golfing with my TWO kids 8 years later. It was a great ending to our trip for sure!

We even made it home in time to have movie night with Daddy! Sunday we got up and all got ready for church. I had been having a headache off and on that morning - only lasting a few seconds each time. Then when it was time to go, the vision in my left eye was blurry and streaky. My head felt fine, but my vision worried me. We actually made it all the way to church and decided the lights and music may make it worse so we went back home so I could rest and see if that helped. Thankfully after about a 30 minute nap my sight was back to normal and I felt fine the rest of the day. Ryan had her first soccer game back after having to sit out for her tonsillectomy so I was glad I didn't have to miss it! She hustled the whole game and looked really cute and even managed to kick the ball a  few times. Noah had a pretty good soccer day too. He was playing Avengers the entire time, but did manage to kick it a few times and even scored a goal!

This was Noah about 75% of the game  :)

The rest of the day was spent doing laundry and cleaning and Nathan even reinstalled my dishwasher that I have been asking him to do for 3 months now.  We ended the weekend with the kids asleep early while we enjoyed dinner and 48 Hours - just like old married couples do :)

Next up on our agenda is pumpkin carving, a birthday party, Halloween parties and Trick-or-Treating!

Checking a Few Things Off Our Fall Bucket List!

We spent last weekend checking a few things off of our Fall Bucket List! I love having bucket lists for each season - it isn't anything we don't usually do but it so cute watching the kids get so excited checking things off.

While I love our hometown pumpkin patch and always plan to support it, we also like to make a trip to a bigger town one that has more fall activities. The last two years we went to Farmland Adventures in Springdale with my brother's family for their daughters birthday party. But, this year they had it somewhere else. The kids and I like that patch so much we decided to just make a trip there by ourselves.

There is so much to do and see there and we always have a good time. We started out at the petting zoo, then pig races, corn maze, pedal bikes, spider web course, tractor ride to feed cows, hay maze and corn box! There were a bunch of pumpkins there also, but we wanted to wait and get some at our local patch.

After the patch we headed to lunch. Noah requested mashed potatoes and gravy so the only thing I could find, without going way out of the way, was Logan's Roadhouse. Our food was just ok, but the kids had the best time dancing and laughing and being goofballs - and the mashed potatoes and gravy were good so I guess that is all that matters :)

Fake Sleeping :)

From lunch we headed home to go get pumpkins at our local patch - we like to shop local when we can :) We did the haunted maze like always and then started looking for pumpkins. I was really disappointed with the pumpkin selection! There were hardly any pumpkins at all - so I guess we got there a little late this year. We did buy two small pumpkins so we would have Johnson County pumpkins, but ended up getting our carving pumpkins at Walmart :/ I wish I would have known and we would have just got them from Farmland Adventures.

Daddy had to work Saturday while we were on all our adventures but were glad he could meet up with us for dinner Saturday night. Sunday Noah had another soccer game. Ryan was still not released yet to play since her tonsillectomy. We talked to Noah before his game about being more aggressive and trying to go around people and get the ball instead of standing behind them. I didn't think much of the talk, but after seeing him at his game I think it may have helped - or maybe he just decided to play harder, who knows! But he did so great! He was really trying hard to get the ball and even shot the ball 4 times! He barely missed each time, but the fact he had it four time to take a shot is amazing! He was a whole other kid! At practice they gave him the Christlike Award for trying so hard and constantly cheering his team on during the game, even when he was on the sideline. We are so proud of him. I am hoping this continues and hoping Ryan is able to get back out there this weekend.

This week has been crazy every day! It just seems like my normal routine is far off and I am not sure when we will get back to it. Monday after work Noah had soccer practice and I had a Parental Advisory Committee meeting, then back to work until 10:00 p.m. Tuesday Noah had a flu shot after school and then Ryan had ballet. Wednesday Ryan had her tonsillectomy follow-up and we celebrated Boss's Day at work with lunch and shopping. Today is more soccer and parent-teacher conferences! I am looking forward to the kids being out of school tomorrow so we can take a little trip to Branson for some fun and mark a few more things off the bucket list!