Sunday-Time to go home!

It's Sunday! I finally get to go home and see my kiddos again, but first James had a few more places to stop before we left. We slept in a little this morning and after showers we packed up to get ready for check out time. After checking out about 10:00 in the morning, we headed of to Dixie Outfitters. All Dukes of Hazzard stuff and a lot come from the original Cooter's Museum in Tennessee. James LOVED it!

At Dixie Outfitters, James got a new shirt, some magnets, a bumper sticker, and some pictures with the "General Lee." If he had his way he would have bought one of everything, but he was happy with what he got, especially the chance to take pictures with and sit in the General Lee.

After Dixie Outfitters, we decided to do a little more shopping and play a little mini golf and skee ball before we headed home. As I am not a good golfer, this was definently a funny sight, but what I would have to say was funnier, was when James got it all handed to him. He made so many comments about how he has actually played golf before and how it helps to have experience. Well I couldn't have laughed any harder than when on a par 2 hole, it took him eight putts to get the ball in and it only took me four shots :) He didn't live it down the rest of the game and I no longer had to hear him talking himself up.


After the exhausting round of golf, we grabbed a quick lunch at Qizznos. I had never eaten there before and it was really good! I can't wait to get another sub soon. After that, we got in the car for the trip back home. We arrived home around six and picked the kids up around 7 ish after dropping off all the presents and getting them organized. I was so happy to see them and they were shockingly happy to see me as well. Nex up is Johnson's Shut-ins on the 28th!

Comedy Jamboree-Saturday

After we grabbed us a bite to eat at the '57 Grill, then headed on over to our 2:00 pm show at the Grand Country Music Hall. We went to see the Comedy Jamboree, which was also part of our package, so we didn't know what to expect for seats, but we had the best seats you could ask for. Front row, middle section, on the aisle. James didn't think these seats were as good as I did, seeing as how he was brought up on stage twice :) Once to win a hundred dollars and once to be shrunk. To win a hundred dollars, he was asked to eat six saltine crackers in one minute with no liquid to wash it down. He failed, but he won us two tickets to a show of our choice and some souvenirs at a $63 value. He went up on stage and was shrunk down to a miniture puppet man the second time. His arms was playing the feet and the other guy was the hands, but it looked like James tried to grab the assistants boob and it was halarious watching both her and his reactions.


This was probably my favorite of all the shows we seen on our trip. It was halarious and they had great singers. The comedians had great skits and incorporated the audience in every chance they got. Beware: If you go to this, pick seats that are further back unless you like the stage, because you will be chosen.

Because of the tickets James won, there was no rest for the wicked. After the show we went to Golden Coral (majorly packed) of which I was not to impressed. I have been to Golden Coral before, but this one did not match up in my opinion. After dinner we headed back tot he hotel for a quick change out of our sweaty clothes and then we were back on the road for the Grand Jubilee. Unfortunately, I forgot the camera, so ther are no pictures :(

This show had the America's Got Talent final 10 contestant Jason Prittchet. I voted for him so many times when he was on the show and I was excited to get to see him in person (he's hot :)). He was good, but unfortuneatly, I was not impressed with this show. They had some good acts, but for the most part it was a flop for me. James liked it, but his opinion don't matter :) Just kidding! I did get to meet Jason Prittchet during intermition and that was cool! He was so nice and I told James I was leaving him for Jason, my new man :) James said, "He won't want you, a girl that can eat to big tubs of cotton candy is to expensive for any man." I was so mad, because I forgot that I had the cotton candy in my hand that I had bought for the kids and I just realized that I did look like a pig, but it's all good. I stick with my hubby :)

After the show we were off to the hotel for bed. A hot activity filled day that lasts all day equals exhaustion at the end of the day. I did manage to convince James to give me a foot rub though :) Tomorrow we go home!

Ripley's Believe it or Not

After the Titanic we went over to tour the Ripleys Believe it or Not Museum. I was kinda iffy on this, because I thought it would be a lot of stupid stuff, but it was awesome. As many of you know, the outside of the building looks as if an earthquake had struck it, well so does the inside. It looks like the building has been busted in half all throughout the museum.

As we first walked in there was some artifacts from other country's. Stuff like odd attire commonly worn or unusual machinery they use, but as you go further through you come to a magic room. You had to guess how many squares were in a picture, try to roll your toungue in a mirror (which turns out to be a two way mirror), try to grab a gem, and guess answers to riddles. This was cool, but I was no good at it. Finally something James could beat me at :)

Then you walk into a room with a Limo and in the trunk of this car was a heart shaped jacuzzi. Also in this room was the laws of gravity bowl and the sign says, drop a coin in this bowl and see what happens. What happens? It falls, straight down the hole and into the underneath. Oops, lost a penny :)
After that came the cool stuff (to me). The had sculptures made of match sticks, camel bone, shredded money, and anything else you could imagine. There was a life size Volkswagon Beetle carved completly out of wood and a ship made out of thousands of matchsticks. It is cool to see, but it makes you wonder how much time people actually have on their hands :)

Of course they had the biggest ball of yarn, but they also had things like insect paintings (real insects that were painted), clothes that were made to fit fleas (believe it or not), and a two headed cow (fake, but based of a real one). I would have to say, it turned out to be pretty cool :)

Branson Trip- Saturday

Saturday was a busy day for us. We woke up early (around 8 am), made some coffee, took showers and got the day started. We already had tickets for Ripleys Believe it or Not, the Titanic, and the Comedy Jamboree that we new we were going to do, but that was not going to fill up the whole day, so we started off at the Hollywood Wax Museum.

When you first walk in there is a big giant King Kong and a camera. They take two pictures of you, one with you standing there smiling and the other with you screaming for your life. Each picture cost ten dollars and after seeing them, James and I opted not to get them. I looked more like I was laughing rather than screaming and we already had a pretty picture from the night before, so we carried on with our tour.

It was a self guided tour and you were allowed to step in the sets with the characters and take pictures. I would have to say it was cooler than I thought it would be and most of the characters actually looked real!

Next up came the Titanic and I had been waiting out whole trip for this! This was also a self guided tour, so we opted to get the audio players. It was really cool, but you were not allowed to take pictures inside, but we did get the ones they take for you, even though I did not like how I looked. I also snaped a few of the outside.

There are a lot of artifacts, many from the Titanics sister ships, but it's basically the same and they let you know when this is the case. As you walk in they give you a name of a passenger. I was Salena Cook and James had Wallace Hartley. I was a 22 year old second class school teacher who was married and about to surprise my husband with the news of our first child. James was a 33 year old band leader whose band played on the ship. He went down with the ship and you heard music till the last possible second from him and his band members. I survived, but my husband did not leaving me with a child that he never new about.

As you go through, there is information about you as a passenger and then towards the end you get to find out if you lived or died. I lived but sadly James went down with the ship. There is also an iceburg as you first walk in that you can touch as well as a bowl of water that is the temperature of the water the night the ship sank with a timer to see how long you could hold your hand in. James and I both lasted 3 seconds (it was COLD!). My favorite part was James and my friendly competition on who could get up the furthest on the steepest plank. They had these three planks, one was the normal ship, the second was the ship a little after it started to sink, and the third and final plank was the ship right before it finally sank. Almost upright! Of course, I won, but he did better than I had originally thought.

Legends In Concert-Friday

Friday night we went to see the Legends in Concert show, featuring The Blues Brothers, Marilyn Monroe, The Temptations, Gretchen Wilson, and a young Elvis. I wondered about it and hoped to see singers more like Alan Jackson or Shania Twain, but it turned out to be an awesome show.

The First up was Justin Clark and Art Vargas, who played the part of The Blues Brothers. This turned out to be one of my favorites for the night. They were halarious and I couldn't imagine the originals that crazy, but they were. We watched a tribute to them on TV as they sung their songs and these guys were NUTS! During intermition we talked to them for quit some time as well as the other acts and they were all really nice and stayed within character the whole time.

Up next came Stacey Whitton as Marilyn Monroe. I have never been a Marilyn fan myself, but this girl was good. She sang good and she was halarious. She pulled up some older guy and I would have bet this poor guy was going to die of a heart attack before the act was over. When he was picture on the big screen, you could see his poor lip just a trembling away and he was as stiff as a board, but to us watchers, it was halarious! This turned out to be my favorite of all the acts, mainly because of the audience participation.

Next came the Nate Grang Group who played the Temptations. They sang really good and sounded just like them, but in my opinion the act was to short. They only sand a couple of songs and then they were done.

After the Temptations came a short break where we were able to purchase some pictures that were taken before the show. I did purchase them, because I knew there would be few pics of both of us on the trip. It wasn't to badly priced, it was $20.00 for a 5x7 and 4 2x3 photos with a frame that we had autographed by each act.
After the break came Gretchen Wilson played by Stacey Whitton (played Marilyn as well). Even though I don't care much for Gretchen Wilson, I went in with an open mind. Howeve, I still did not like this act. I think she did a better job playing Marilyn Monroe, but James and I had fun making fun of the back up dancers. They were the same dancers throughout the show, but in this act they looked extremly gay and were halarious to watch.

Of course, they saved Elvis for last, which was played by Deaan Z. He was an excellent impersonator! I again am not much of an Elvis fan, but he was GREAT! He was the longest of the six acts and the older ladies in the audience went crazy. He also pulled people up from the audience, but I was unable to get very many good pics due to his constant moving. I snaped a couple though, so enjoy!

Branson Trip-Friday

On June sixth, James and I celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary. In honor of that milestone, we decided to spend part of his yearly vacation time in Branson. It was fun, but I had a hard time leaving my kids. They were in safe hands, but I have never gotten rid of all four of them for longer than one night and the seperation anxiety showed. The kids left Thursday night and James was constantly finding stuff for us to do in order to keep my mind off them being gone.

We left for Branson around 11am on Friday and after a couple of delays from road work and a storm, we managed to arrive safe and sound around 2 pm. We had originally planned to do some mini golfing and other outdoor activities, but due to the storms rolling through, we decided to go straight to the hotel and see if it was possible for an early check in. They allowed us to check in, so we checked out our room and the complimentary basket they included with out package, we skimmed the coupon book that also came with our packaged, before getting bored and deciding to do some shopping. Well, I decided and James followed :)

The first store we came to was a video/gaming store. I rolled my eyes and proceeded to follow James in wondering how much junk we would leave with, but James actually found nothing. Instead, I bought out the store! I would have bought a lot more to if I could bgring myself to pay some of the prices :) I found some posters for my dad and James for Father's Day and a couple for my neices. They all had information such as; movies they starred in, songs they sung, their age and birthday, ect. about the actors/singers that were pictured. I got a John Wayne (dad), Dukes of Hazzard (James), Twilight (Amanda), and Hannah Montana (Emilee). After that we looked around somemore, but really didn't find to much before we had to get to our reservation at Outbacks.

I was really excited about going to one of the "original" Outbacks. We walked in and the decorations were amazing! They had authentic Austrailian artifacts and I just new that this was going to be a great meal, but boy was I wrong. I don't know if I am just used to the other Outback chains or what, but their serving sizes were small and the prices were high. It was cool that the meal was served on metal plates like you were truly in the Outback, but other than that I was disappointed. James said, "It's alright, not to bad to me." After our dinner we decided to try some Crim Brulee for dessert, seeing as neither of us have had it before. We both came to the conclusion that the dessert was the best part :)

After we were done with dinner, it was still a little early for our show, so we decided to find me some tennis shoes, being that I left mine at home on the coffee table. We checked out the local Wal-mart and the Branson Mall (connected) and picked Quentin up an emboidered dinosaur shirt and managed to snap some pictures of a baby alligator, a parrot, and a giant snake of some kind. They were setting up for a magic show and I asked James if he thought they would let me take some pictures. He replied, "yeah if you pay the $30 a ticket to get in." So Me being the person I am, decided to prove him otherwise and asked the nice lady who replied to me, "oh yeah go ahead, just don't get in their way." So not to rub it in or anything, I turned and gave a big cheese eating smile to James :)

After the mall we went on to our show. They asked us to be there 45 minutes early which I thought was insane, but we did it anyway. Once again I was right, it was insane! So we goofed around in the souvenir shop and took some pictures before going in and taking our seats. Great seats! Row 6 smack dab in the middle right next to a beautiful baby girl who couldn't get enough of me. Made me miss the kids a little, but managed to keep me entertained! As we walked in we got our pictures taken with Marilyn Monroe and Elvis, that I purchased so that I could have a few pics of the both of us. I will talk more about the show in another post! Enjoy!

Big Surf!

Today we went to Big Surf. We went after 3pm (plenty of time for us) and all the kids got in free, so it wasn't to bad on price. It was a little chilly due to some storms moving in around us, but not to bad for the most part.

The girls loved it after they played for awhile, but Zach hated it. He warmed up towards the end, but other than that he played in the baby area. In the last 30 minutes he rode down the rapids twice and played in the wave pool. Good thing he was free :)

Quentin on the other hand loved it. Go figure, my little scardy cat loved it! Me and him went on the rapids, the challenger chutes, and Zambeezi Falls. As we went over the edge of Zambeezi falls he screamed, "okay, I'm scared," as we came to a stop at the bottom he shouted, "AGAIN!" He also rode down the rapids and Zambeezi Falls with James, as well as the slides within the youth area.

We all played in the wave pool and took a ride or two on the lazy river and headed home around sixish. As we walked through the door, the tornado sirens started to sound and three out of the four kids went crazy. Quentin is deathly affraid of storms, so he kept screaming, "I don't want to die!" Kariana clung to my side at all times with her heart pounding out of her chest and her body trembling. Kierstyn was okay, as long as she was beside me or daddy. Zach was halarious! He sat downstairs in the corner eating his supper just taking it all in. I can even remember him saying, "what is everyone freakin' out about, it's just a tornado." His words not mine :) After the storms passed they went to bed so as to get ready for the trip to grandma's and our 5th anniversary trip to Branson.

Don't turn your head...

I was making supper and Kariana was standing on a chair looking out the window. As I turned my head to drain the hamburger, I looked backed to find her perched up in the window like a little monkey. Her halo was not as shiny at this point, but she looked so cute, that I had to snap a few pics.










And Then...

Of course, what one does, the other will soon follow. After Kierstyn noticed me taking pictures, she decided that she could do that too. So she had me pick her up and put her in the window and take pictures of her as well. What do I say, but that there is never a dull moment in this house :)

"I Dressed Myself!"

This is what happens when you allow your two year old to dress themselves :)



Let's see; peach shorts, pink shirt, oversized cowboy boots (Zach's), and a purple headband. Let's not forget the rockin' Backyardagains radio that she is Jammin' to :)



















Boy, is she proud though!?