Fishing From the Boat

On Wednesday morning while we were in Branson, we rented a boat and went out on Table Rock Lake.
It was the first boat ride for Lily and I think it was the first boat ride for Riley too.
Zach has been on a boat, but he hasn't been on one in years.
Riley and Zach loved being on the boat and they were really excited when Grandpa started to go fast!
Lily on the other hand, was not too crazy about it at first.

Once we got to our first fishing spot, she decided it wasn't too bad.

The boys couldn't wait to start fishing!

I love this picture of Zach. =)

My three fishers!

After what seemed like forever, Zach caught a fish!!

He was SO excited!!

Here is Jeff showing him how to get it off of the hook.

Such a good Daddy.

Not long after that, Riley caught one!

This is how Lily felt about the whole experience....

hot, and not fun when you don't catch anything.

We explained to her that she might want to leave her pole in the water longer than five seconds, and she might catch something. (this little piece of advice will be funny later on....)

Then Zach caught his second fish!!

Lily was getting a tad frustrated with this whole fishing thing, so Daddy helped her.

Her very first fish!!!!

Ever!

Yeah Lily!!

After that, we decided to move to another spot.

Mainly because we were HOT!

We were looking for shade. =)

The kids liked the cool breeze from this ride.

Here is Riley being our bartender for the ride. ;-)

Just kidding, it was just ice in his cup.

We had barely gotten our poles in the water when Lily caught her second fish!

Then Riley caught his second.....and third fish!!!

Zach was getting a little frustrated that his little brother & sister were showing him up.

Jeff let him borrow his big pole and Zach caught his third fish.

By this time Lily was getting a little bit bored by this whole fishing thing.

Actually I am surprised at how good she was for the four hours we were out there.

To make the time go faster for her, we would take turns throwing out her line, and let her reel it back in.

That was her favorite part, the reeling back in part.

By this time we were throwing her line out really far so it took longer for her to reel it in.

Remember when I gave her that great piece of advice about leaving her pole in the water & not just reeling her line back in?

Well, one of the times she reeled her line back in, she yelled out, "I caught a fish!"

No one really believed her because we had all been helping the boys and not really paying attention to what she was doing.......

until Sheril (my mother-in-law) said, "Hey! You really did catch a fish!"

We all looked over & on the end of Lily's pole was a fish!

She had reeled it all the way in by herself!

It was SO funny!

This is Lily's third fish, and the first one she caught ALL BY HERSELF!

She even threw it back in by herself. =)

After that it was time to head back, which was a good thing because it was starting to get hot, and the kids were getting tired and hungry.

We had a great time out on the boat.

I was so happy that the kids caught some fish, and it was a fun way to spend one of the days of our vacation.

Shows and Other Fun Things

While we were in Branson, we got to see two really fun shows, ride on The Ducks, and go mini golfing!

On one of the nights, Jeff & I got to go on this big showboat called the Branson Belle.....

....all by ourselves!!
Don't get me wrong, I love my kids, and I loved doing lots of fun things with them during our stay in Branson, but it is always nice for just Jeff & I to get to do things together.

The Branson Belle is a big paddle boat that goes around Table Rock Lake while the people inside eat a yummy dinner and watch a show.
We saw singers and dancers perform lots of great songs, and then we saw a very funny comedian.

We got to ride on The Ducks one afternoon.

The Ducks are military vehicles that drive on land and then turn into boats.

They also go out onto Table Rock.

Everyone gets a quacker for the ride.

The kids really like these.......the adults, not so much. ;-)

The kids also get a chance to come up & "drive" the boat!!

They thought that was a lot of fun!!

On another night, we went to the Dixie Stampede!

Jeff & I have been twice, but the kids have never been.

They thought it was SO fun!!!

You do not get any type of silverware; that was especially funny to the kids.

While you are eating, you get to watch a show where there are cowboys and cowgirls riding horses, and they have chicken races, pig races, and miniature horse races.

You are either for the North or the South.

We were on the North side and the kids waved their North flags for the competitors.

The kids were really excited when the North won!

These are some pictures that were taken before the show.

One afternoon when it was raining, we took the kids to an indoor mini golf course.

They had a lot of fun showing Grandma their golfing skills. =)

I know I already showed all of our Silver Dollar City pictures, but I made Jeff scan this one so I could show it here on the blog.

We got all dressed up as cowboys and saloon girls in the tintype picture shop in SDC.

The kids had fun dressing up and I think the picture turned out pretty cute!

So, as you can see, we tried to shove as much fun as possible into one week. =)

Stay tuned for pictures on the boat catching fish!!

Dinosaur Museum

While we were in Branson, we went to a Dinosaur Museum I had seen online.
I was a little disappointed in this museum.
It wasn't quite what I thought it was going to be.
But, the kids had fun and really liked looking at the dinosaurs, so that's all that really matters.

Here they are posing in front of one of the dinosaurs.
They were really big!

They had re-creations of dinos throughout the museum.
Some of them were just heads sticking out of grass.
The kids thought those were funny.

Their favorite dino was the T-Rex.

Zach wanted his picture taken in front of him.

Riley decided he needed his picture taken too.....only he needed to make a scary face when he did it.

Lily also wanted to be scary for the camera. =)

There was an interactive part of the museum at the end where the kids got to be archaeologists and sweep away sand to find "fossils".

This is the one Zach found!

The kids had fun finding lots of fossils!

As we were walking back into the gift shop, Zach spotted this huge T-Rex head coming out of the wall.

It was just the right height for him to stick his head into....which he thought was pretty funny.

Then the Monkey-See Monkey-Do Twins decided they needed to stick their heads in there too.

The only problem was that they weren't tall enough, so Jeff had to hold them up to the head.

As my sister Amy pointed out after seeing this picture, it looks like Jeff is feeding Lily to the

T-Rex. ;-)

Even though I was not too impressed with this museum, the kids did have fun and they got to see lots of dinosaurs, so it was a good trip!

Fishing

While we were in Branson, we stayed at the condo that Jeff's parents get one week each summer. Behind the condo there is a creek that feeds into Lake Taneycomo. There is a dock that we can walk down to and people can fish off of it. One of the things the boys wanted to do this summer (and number 9 on our summer list) was to go fishing. So this was our chance.

Look at these two eager fishermen.

Once Jeff got their poles ready, they were off fishing!

This was Lily's first time fishing, so she got some extra help from Daddy. =)

She figured it out pretty quickly though!

Our plans were quickly dashed though when it started pouring down on us!

The kids hadn't caught anything either!

As we walked back to our condo, the rain began to let up a little and the boys thought they might try fishing from the bank right in front of our patio, but it started raining hard again. =(

We decided to give up and go to dinner.

By the time we got down to the Branson Landing, (it is a new water walk that is a really cool place for shopping and eating) the sun was shining and there was not a raindrop to be found!

After dinner, we walked to the fountains.

They have a fire and water show every evening.

Lily liked it until this started happening:

The boys however, loved the fire shooting high up in the air!

After we came back, it was still clear, so we decided to try fishing one more time.

They didn't catch any fish, but they had a lot of fun.

(Don't feel too sorry for them, they all caught fish later on in the week when we went to Table Rock Lake.)

More on our vacation to come soon!

Branson

We went to Branson last week with Jeff's parents.
We had so much fun!!
We packed in as much fun as possible. =)
One of the things the kids liked most was Silver Dollar City.
We went three days during the week.
That last day was enough for me.....
luckily it was the last day before we left. =)
This post will be all about Silver Dollar City.
I will post more about our trip and what we did throughout the week.

The first thing the kids did when we entered the park was to play on these cool wooden trains, tractors, and trucks.
Since they were so easily entertained by these things (that did not move) I knew they were in for a big surprise just a few steps farther into the park. ;-)

Don't be fooled by the smiles on Lily's face in these pictures.
The first few times Lily rode these, she HATED them!!
So much so, that we had to have the operator stop it so we could get her off. =(

After Lily refused to get on anything else......

Jeff & Zach got on this thing:

Riley was mad he wasn't tall enough.

He got over it though when he got to ride some roller coasters.....the big ones......

There was a Stunt Dog show starting just when I didn't think I could stand the heat & humidity anymore. Air conditioning, yeah!!!

Here are the kids with their grandparents waiting for the show to start.

It was a pretty good show.

The dogs did really cool tricks.

After the show we went to ride a roller coaster Lily could ride.

She was mad she couldn't ride with her daddy and brothers on the big ones.....

even though she didn't want to ride the little kiddie rides.

Don't ask me to explain a three year old's logic.

Not surprisingly, she did not like this ride either.

The boys did though!

Here are the boys posing as criminals.

I like the look on Lily's face in this picture......

like she is not surprised to see them there....

Since Lily wasn't big on riding rides that first day, and it was HOT, we got her a lemonade ice.

They are YUMMY!!!

They are also good for cooling off.

She decided for the next two days (no we did not go three days in a row, we spread them out, do you think I'm crazy?!?! Don't answer that.) that she really needed more lemonade ices.

Here is a picture from each day.

For those of you who remember our 2006 trip to Silver Dollar City (when Riley was 18 months old) he also felt like he should have a lemonade ice every day (and pop!!). We thought it was funny that Lily was following in his shoes.

The second and third days that we were there, Lily got better at riding rides.

She even went on this one with all of us:

She was OK with it.

The boys wanted to go on it again, but Lily & I declined. =)

The second day was very hot and humid again.

When we found this part of the park, it was GREAT!!

The kids could just play in the water.

SO refreshing!!

On the last day, we stopped to see a magic show.

Zach got called up to be a helper!!

When the magician gave him his wand, it fell apart.

Zach thought that was SO funny!

He helped make the pictures in a book colored, then he made them disappear & reappear!

He had a lot of fun doing it!

At the end of the last day, we stopped in an ice cream parlor that I remembered from the last time we were there.

It was still as delicious as a I remembered it.

The kids thought so too.

So, that's a very condensed version of Sliver Dollar City.

We had lots of fun there and the kids can't wait until we can go again!