The Herndon House: Welcome Summer!

This weekend we went to Branson for a mini-"vacation" of sorts, to celebrate school being out. We had several "snafus", but ended up having a great time despite that! :o) Friday we dropped Max off at Gumma and Poppy's to "board" there. They have several runs in their dog pen, so Max stayed there and was very loved while we were gone. :o) We had a nice quick lunch with Poppy too before heading to Silver Dollar City. We arrived late in the day, but that was to our benefit as there were virtually no lines to wait in. We played in the usual places, the water area the boys just LOVE and Trevor, Cody and Nathan rode the Lost River of the Ozarks water ride. (A little too early in the season for me! Besides, who would take pictures if I rode too?!) :o) Trevor rode his first "big" roller coaster, Powder Keg. He really enjoyed it after the fact. Nathan said he was silent and cringing the whole ride. But, when he and I went to ride a smaller coaster, Thunderation, he couldn't stop talking about the bigger one. :o) Nathan and Cody went and enjoyed the kiddie rides as Cody still lacks about a 1/2 inch to an inch to ride the bigger rides. He doesn't mind. :o) We stayed in Branson at the Fairfield Inn--where Nathan had reward points from travel w/ work years ago. We only paid $25 for 2 nights stay!! :o) The boys were SO EXCITED to see the hotel had an indoor pool. They'd never swam in an indoor pool before. They actually enjoyed the hot tub more. :o) Saturday, we headed to Table Rock Lake where we rented a Pontoon boat from the Marina. SO FUN!!! We found a cove to stop in and have lunch--there wasn't an anchor, so we had to make our own "redneck anchor". (A rope tied to a tree stump sticking out of the water.) It was a breezy day and that made the lake a little "wavy"--plus there were LOTS of other boaters and so for a bit we were tossed back and forth and back and forth and back and forth........ :-( After traveling further down the lake, we found a better cove--more tucked in and off the traveled path. Very nice and calm. :o) (much better on the tummy!) We quickly realized that Nathan forgot to purchase his fishing license, so we headed back to the Marina for a license, ice (we forgot that too--remember when I said we had lots of "snafus"?), a potty break and perhaps some dramamine. :o) After our "detour" back to the Marina, we headed back to our nice cove and fished and the boys swam a bit, it was so nice. We really enjoyed our time at the lake. Trevor and I ended up getting burnt a bit. When our 4 hours were up we were so tired and went back to the hotel for a nap and then out to dinner. Then we played some miniature golf--the boys first time. They had a great time. Cody was able to play for free w/ a little plastic club and he had a blast! Trevor did really well for never playing before and he did great waiting for his turn. It was a course with a dinosaur theme so they were entertained inbetween turns by a "volcano" that went off every 15 minutes. After golf, we visited our favorite ice cream place in Branson, Cake and Creams. So good. We headed home Sunday--after stopping at Gumma's for a quick swim and to pick up Max. We ended our weekend (after a nice nap and dinner at home) with a fishing trip over in Carthage. Such a nice weekend, but it went by too fast!