Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It’s Off to Branson We Go!

This year for Thanksgiving we joined our “vacation friends” and headed over to Branson, Missouri. We rented this huge cabin and the 4 families all stayed in it together. It made the vacation a real one since we were able to put the kiddos to bed and the adults stayed up and played games.

It’s seriously the ONLY way to have a family vacation. It has completely changed the way we travel. Friends for the kids and friends for me! {{brilliant!}} It’s also nice that we’re all together in a cabin because the kids are free to roam and explore together.

This was our view from the back porch.

Thanksgiving morning the boys had their Turkey Bowl.

Laurie & I (yes we have the same name) took the younger kiddos on a hike to the lake. Getting to the lake was a breeze – hiking up back to the cabin was a doozy. 🙂

I was in charge of Thanksgiving activities with the kiddos.

We made apple turkeys,

and Oreo turkeys.

This is the kids table with little Chippy.

The adult table.

Drake really got into it this year and found new friends. He had so much fun hangin’ out with these two darling boys.

There was impressive food (not cooked by me).

And the men cleaned up.

More games after dinner.

Then we took a drive to see the Festival of Lights.

The next morning the kids went on a gold rock hunt where we had a little store set up where they could buy candy with their gold rocks.

Drake thought that was really cool.

We had a little time to kill before our first show, so we went and hung out with Santa.

We watched this really cool outside water/fire show. It was short but impressive.

We went to the Duttons and the Island Fire shows. During the Dutton show all the kids were invited to come up on stage. Drake was chosen to sit on Santa’s lap. To my surprise he didn’t freak out and actually loved it. He told Santa he wanted a “Lighting McQueen Color Movie”. It was really cute.

We saw also the Hamner Barber Show.

It was a beautiful week in the mountains and with dear friends. This post doesn’t even seem to cover the memories and bonding times we had as a family. I truly feel so grateful and blessed.