Family Vacation 2k13

Forty years of marriage is something to celebrate and that's just what we did - with a vacation! My parents, sister, niece and the four Schrag's loaded up and headed southeast to Branson, MO to celebrate my parents' 40th wedding anniversary.

Our family of four had an apartment to ourselves and my parents, sister and niece had a condo/apartment to themselves. It worked out pretty well, although our two locations were far enough apart that we usually drove to get from one to the other. 

Anyway, when we got there it was raining. What a downer! Levi was pumped to go swimming as soon as we arrived, and Noah had BIG plans to golf with Ben. But no. It rained and rained. 

Once we got settled in to our place, curiosity set in about what the place looked like where Rylee was staying. The boys wanted to play in the rain - like we do at the farm - but just could not understand that it's not that simple when you're surrounded by other people and cars.  Eventually, we let them go outside, but with strict instructions to stay on the sidewalks. But no. They decided to go exploring in the rain anyway and Noah slipped on the wet ground and fell down part of a hill. Nice. Ben and I were  at the end of whatever patience remained after a six hour car ride.....but we got Noah cleaned up and finally left to go find the rest of our family. 

We found their place, down the hill, around several curves, up, up, up a hill and around some more curves....only to realize that we had locked the key to our apartment inside the apartment. Yuck.  We were not off to a good start. Notice how I don't have any photos of any of that? :-)

But, after we ate a good supper, the rain let up and we decided that mini-golf would fit the bill for something fun for all of us to do! 

We arrived at Dinosaur Canyon Golf (after sitting in traffic for a good 30-45 minutes - who knew Branson had such traffic issues?!?!).

 These pictures I took on my phone don't quite capture it. There's actual fire coming out of the volcano in the photo below. Rylee wasn't so sure about the fire, but the rest of us thought it was a pretty amazing feature!

 We had a great time at Dinosaur Canyon Golf.  Phew! A good end to our first (somewhat rough) day of vacation!

The next morning we walked a nature trail. Or hiked a nature trail. Something like that. 

 There were several different trails we could have taken so we had to study the map for a little while. We decided on one that had caves and a waterfall. Did I mention it was warm and super-duper humid with no wind?  Yep, it was incredibly sticky outside.

 Levi and Rylee kept running ahead.....it made the adults nervous since we didn't know what was ahead of us on the trail.

 Eventually, we came across an old farmstead. The folks who lived at this place created the hundreds of steps that went down the hillside toward the lake. The place was fully lined with these stone walls. I cannot fathom the amount of work those people went to in creating these walls, the steps and running a farm.

 Down, down, down, down, down....

 We found a couple caves, but this one was the biggest. It gave me the willies!

 Finally, snack time!

 We came across where the waterfall would be, if it was raining. The Branson area has been short on rain this summer, so there wasn't any water falling.

 The hike back up the steps was more challenging for everyone, but especially the kids. The boys actually made it on their own, but Rylee caught a ride from her mommy.  The view from the top of the trail was pretty amazing.

 When we made it back to the old farmstead/top of the trail we were drenched in sweat.

 But the sense of accomplishment was nearly as thick in the air as the humidity.

 Gosh I love it when they spontaneously show us that they actually love each other!