Go Karts and Water Park - Days 4, 5 & 6

Day 4 - Recovery day.  

We took our time in the morning and relaxed.  After lunch we went to Wild Woody's for go-karts.

Isak and Nels rode together.

Noah did not want to go on the go-karts and I couldn't...so we played mini golf instead.  

18 holes. We had a lovely time together.  

Seriously, Noah was so sweet!  He even asked if he could take my picture after I took a picture of him...

Here's the pic he took of me.

He was such a gentleman on our "date." 💙  I love these good times with Noah.

Isak got to drive a go-kart by himself.  

Here's some of  the gang...

Sofie rode the go-kart with Amanda.

Isak and Nels:

Kira rode with Madison:

They had a blast.

Then we went downtown Branson.  We took some fun pictures:

We watched the light and fountain show that lasted five minutes.  

Fun painting!

Cute family!

Madison watched our kids while the adults all ate at Longhorn Steakhouse.  I got the filet and Nels got the NY strip.  Great conversation and very enjoyable.  

Day 5 - Water Park day.

But first a picture of Noah with Slothie.  He loved this stuffed animal so much!!!  Presley was super sweet and let him hold it a lot.

Madison, Noah and Slothie.

Oops...I think this pic was from the amusement park day...oh well.  Kira and Madison.

We arrived at the Water Park at 10 a.m.  Isak went with the older kids and dads and went on all of the slides.  Even the super, super big ones!  

I played a lot with Noah.  The water was cold.  

Kira and Sofie went down some slides with Nels and played at the kid area.  

Around lunch time, I put on my swim suit thinking I would try to do the lazy river.  But No, my body was not okay with that.  I was still recovering from the amusement park day.  So new plan.  Amanda drove me and Noah home.  I'm so glad we did that!  I was able to eat and take a long nap.  And Noah was able to play and relax too.  

Later, the adults got to go out for dinner again!  We ate at Downing Street Pour House in Hollister, MO.  We each ordered an appetizer - potato skins, poutine (fries with brown gravy) and a giant Bavarian pretzel with mustard or cheese dip.  Yum!  

I had the best burger:  smoked gouda, bacon, avocado butter and fried egg on a burger!  Amazing!

We ate a lot of Blue Bell ice cream too.  

Day 6 - Travel Day

We packed up and left at 10:15 am.  We took a few pictures before we left...

Madison and Kira

Hunter and Isak

We said good bye and hit the road.  

No throw up, no accidents...that's what I call a good road trip!

We listened to Wrinkle in Time and finished the book.  It was so good!  Later in July, we watched the movie and we enjoyed it so much!  It was also fun to listen to the kids playing a few days later and saying, "Let's travel to another dimension!"  They used the tunnel toy as a worm hole to tesseract through space.  💛

Nels got tired while driving.  So I drove for about 2.5 hours.  I did pretty well, other than my left leg ended up swelling and lasted almost a whole day.  

We stopped near Springfield, IL and ate at a Steak 'n' Shake per Isak's request.  He loves that restaurant. We got some shakes, burgers, mac and cheese and grilled cheese sandwiches.  

As we were about a half hour from home, Nels got pulled over for going 60 in a 45.  We were driving through a small town and didn't realize the drop in the speed limit.  Plus Noah really had to go potty, so we were rushing a bit to find a bathroom.  We pulled into a gas station.  I quickly explained and apologized.  The police officer let me take Noah potty.  Then he was kind and only gave Nels a written warning.  Phew!  Frustrating, but so grateful for mercy!  Noah kept saying "I love police cars!"  Oblivious to what was going on.  But we agreed with him, especially after we didn't get a ticket!

We got home around 8:40 p.m. and everyone helped unload the van.  We unpacked a little and got everyone to bed.  

And that's the end of our vacation!!

Silver Dollar City - Day 3

 Day 3 was a big day at the amusement park.  I was pretty nervous for this day.  But thankfully, I did great.  I was able to walk the whole day and take care of Sofie and Noah.  I was so happy that it went well and that it was over!  haha.  

Silver Dollar City was a lot of fun.  We arrived at 10:30 a.m. and stayed until it closed at 7 pm.  Nels took Isak and Kira on the big coasters. They went with the older kids and the dad's of the other families.  Amanda and Casey hung out with me and my littles.  

The weather was perfect.  Yay!

Here's some pictures:

Notice Kira's pouty face in the above picture.  I can't remember why she was upset 5 minutes after we arrived, but a picture by herself helped cheer her up.  Phew!

Here's all of us!

While we walked around with Sofie and Noah, we found an outdoor music show.  We sat in the back and watched Sofie and Noah dance to the music.  

Then we waited a long time to ride on a train.

They loved the train ride, especially Noah.

Here's the girls:  Amanda is wearing the red hat and then Casey, then Sofie.

Me and the twins.

After the train ride, we rode on the carousal.  Sofie loved the bear and Noah liked the carriage.  

We rode it a few times with no waiting in line!

There was a treehouse to play in too.  A swinging bridge that we walked across.  Then Sofie and Noah rode on a  butterfly/bug ride.  

Then the Happy Frog ride...which turned out to be not so happy.  The ride went up and down quickly.  Noah freaked out and screamed his head off.  He cried out, "How do you make this stop!!!??"  And all I could do was watch.  It was the saddest thing ever.  Noah kind of laughs about it now when he retells about his experience.  

He was very hesitant to go on any more rides after that and I couldn't blame him for feeling that way.  It took him several hours to recover.  

Sofie rode the ladybug ride by herself.

Then we met up with everyone for lunch at a BBQ place.  We ate sweet potato tots, amazing mac and cheese and a turkey sandwich.  The kids ate the 10 pb&j sandwiches I had packed for them and some other snacks.

While we waited for the food to arrive, we took pictures in front of this cool sign.

I LOVE Sofie and Kira's matching outfits and poses.  💗

We loved the cinnamon roll bread.  MMMMmmm.

After lunch Kira went with us for the afternoon.  I'm so glad she did.  She was so helpful with Sofie!.

I rode the hot air balloons with Sofie and Kira.  

Then we played at this awesome Firehouse with balls that you could shoot and drop and throw and put them up sucking tubes.  Oh, they loved it!

Noah had this bag to fill with balls.  He happily skipped around collecting balls to put in the shooter.

It was fun to watch them.

The girls went on the puppy ride and little swings.

Noah asked to have his picture taken with the puppy.  He was so excited about it!

We watched a pottery demonstration.

Then Amanda went on a little rollercoaster with Sofie and Kira.  Noah saw the teacups and said he Loved that ride.  What?!  I was surprised, but happy he wanted to try a ride.  So we went on the ride twice.  He snuggled right up to me and I loved it.  

Sofie and Kira went on the big swings, then I took them on the elephant ride (kind of like Dumbo at Disney's park).  

These two are so cute!

Then we rode the carousal a few more times.  Our last ride was the carousal as a family.  

Other things about the day:  Dum Dum suckers saved me!  Sofie and Noah ate the whole bag!  At least 6 suckers each.  It helped them whenever they were whiney and not wanting to walk..."here have a sucker!"  It worked almost every time! 😂

Isak, Nels and Kira rode the big coasters.  Outlaw Run, PowderKeg and Thunderation (Isak rode it 3 times!).  Isak and Nels rode a log ride called American Plunge.  Nels rode Time Traveler and Wildfire.  

We all had a good time.  

Here's photos of the older kids riding the big rides.  Outlaw Run:  You can see Isak and Nels...and barely the top of Kira's head!

Oh Kira's face!!  I almost cried when I saw this picture.  She's so tiny and scared!!  Madison is sitting next to her.  

Here's Isak riding the ride...

You can kind of see little Kira in the back of the ride next to Madison.

There's Nels on the American Plunge.  Isak's head is behind the boy with the orange shirt - Carson.  

Then the second row - Hunter, Ryan, John and Nels.  Nels face is classic!

60th year!

I was so happy we all made it through the day!

We got Panera take out and went back to the house.  Sadly, I had such a huge headache, I couldn't eat and just went to bed.  Nels put the kids to bed and I slept for a long time!