Sunday December 13th

Sunday we decided to go to a gospel group for their 2:00 show. We got dressed up in the morning & I agrain tried to get some pictures......When I first told her this.....she ran into the kitchen and hid. But it actually gave me a bit of a photo op anyway! Meet Miss Pouty!!



Then she decided to let me get some pictures! Look at the cool lollipop!



Then the Tom-Boy in her kicked in!!



For lunch we went to the Hard Luck Cafe! I highly recommend it! It's a little 50 style diner where all the wait staff are actually wanna be musicians! Most of them have recorded a CD that can be purchased in the gift shop as well. The second song that was sung when we got there was "Part of your World" - the Ariel song!! Amie went nuts!! This is the gal that sang it - she kept calling her Ariel!!


Our waiter was John & he sang right after "Ariel" - and he sung the Lee Greenwood song - "Proud to be an American" (Tim's favorite song!)


After lunch it was time to head to the gospel group. We had front row seats. It was a family that was quite entertaining! Amie flirted with the piano player the entire time!


After the show, we rode the ducks (the amphibian kind) through a different lighted Christmas display.




It was hard to see them & even harder to get a good picture of them because the ducks sit so high & the windows reflected the flash!



Amie decided that taking a bath in the big jacuzzi tub was pretty darn cool!




Monday morning we got up and headed home! Got quite a bit packed into those few days!

Saturday December 12th

Saturday we spent the day shopping, then went to a 2pm show of the Hughes Brothers. They have an incredible open staircase - so I thought I'd try to get some good pictures of Amie on it. None of them turned out spectacular - but some were cute!




During the show - a very memorable occurrence happened! This year Amie has been wanting a nerf gun (she calls it a squirt gun). I told her that Mommy doesn't buy guns, if she wants a squirt gun - she'd have to ask Santa for it. Well.....she wants no part of visiting with Santa.
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So - during this show - Santa was on stage. Amie had been figgity, and all of a sudden - she stands up, puts her hand to the side of her mouth (the way people do when they shout something) & said, "Amie want a squirt gun" & then turned to me & said, "There I did it". I told her to sit down & that it didn't count!! Little snot!! How much trouble are we in if she's already looking for loop holes!!!
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That evening - we were again taking pictures - here's the one I took of her.

And here's the one she took of me!

Branson

The second weekend in December, Amie, Grandma and I went down to Branson for a long weekend. Grandma had been wanting to go during the Christmas season.

We left on Thursday morning - but had to stop in Peoria for a few unintended reasons! Grandma had to stop at the respite house where Victoria was staying for the weekend & my car all of a sudden had an alarm on saying low tire pressure! I filled the one tire that looked a little low... but the lite was still on! So, we stopped at tire plus. The checked all the tires. The one I had worked on he said was still a little low - but there was no sign of anything leaking. So, he filled it up. We got back on the road...but the lite was still on. Called the dealership & they said it could just be the frigid weather causing the sensor to be stuck on.

So, we continued on down the road! A few hours behind schedule - but at least we were headed in the right direction!

We arrived in Springfield Missouri around dinner time....you know what that means?!! LAMBERTS!! Home of the throwed rolls!!

Amie got an enourmous "child's size hot cocoa"!!And look at all the food!! We were stuffed!!


On Friday we got up and went to breakfast. At the restaurant we were at, they had a little stage set up with trees and such! A perfect backdrop for some pictures! (Although - the cook came out and chewed me out for taking some of the stools off of the stage!! As the manager just looked on.....so I made sure to put the stools back exactly as I had found them!)


Then we went shopping at a cute little Christmas shopping center! There was a fountain outside that was very frozen! Another good backdrop for pictures!

I told Amie "lean over" - wanting her to look into the water. Instead she started to climb in!!! NO AMIE!!
There!! That's what I was looking for!!

The big rocking chair - but I didn't realize the sun was streaking the picture!

Then I tried to get Amie to get her picture taken next to Santa.....but she wanted to get a picture of me next to Santa!! Notice she got Grandma in the window too!!

Then I got her to stand next to him!! That was the closest we had gotten her to any type of Santa!!


Friday night we had tickets to go to the Dixie Stampede! A family must in Branson! I got Amie dressed up in her Christmas dress!! And of course tried to get pictures.......
I'd get one - and then she'd start running towards me again!!


Here's the curtain for the Dixie Stampede.

And here was our waitress Tara!! She was an excellent waitress!!

Amie getting ready to eat her Dixie Stampede food!!

The Dixie Stampede show was amazing! If you've never been to the Dixie Stampede - I highly recommend it! During the rest of the year - you sit on either the "North" or the "South" side. Through out the show they have different competitions after it is over either the North or the South wins....but then they have a moral to the story that we are all in one great nation where there are no sides, etc. During Christmas - they still had some of the competitions - and it was the North Pole versus the South Pole - but they also had some incredible Christmas sessions.

This was the Nativity Scene where they had camels come out!! And an angel!



The show was the highlight of our short time in Branson that's for sure!!

After the show we drove through their festival of lights. Similar to the Peoria Festival of Lights - except much bigger & with both displays made from lights & displays that were lite up....if that makes sense...here are a few examples:






This was a lighted tunnel. It was cool!


Deer in a cave off of the side of the road!


An outhouse........
And I had to take pictures for Chris of the cosmic Christmas display!



When we got back to the hotel - I tried to get pictures of our little Christmas girl again.........she did do a little dance for me with her Dixie Stampede flag!!





And then she wanted the camera to take a few pictures! Not bad!!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to everyone!!
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I have quite a few pictures to get loaded on here! Like the new Blog picture? That was a picture I was trying to take of Amie all dressed up - but she was doing her tom-boy thing.
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Today for Christmas I got a new software that allows us to just have a part of the picture colorized with the rest being black and white!! Isn't it cool?!!
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I hope to get some pictures up soon - but want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas!!