Branson Day Three

Same routine as yesterday. Silver Dollar City in morning, swimming in the hotel pool in the afternoon, and Celebration City at night. Girls falling asleep quickly.

Things we've learned on this trip:

1. With children, you have to be flexible. So what if they are not getting a nutrious breakfast. At least they are eating something. So what if they stay up hours past their bedtime. At least they are going to sleep. So what if they play in a water fountain and get soaked right before you head for home. At least they were having fun. So what if they want to do things differently than you thought in your head. At least they are having fun!! So what if everything is not like you would do at home--you have to be flexible!

2. People lose all common sense on vacation. As Bobby says, "they dumb down". They stop right in the middle of a crowd to look at their map, causing you to bump into them. They forget all manners. They forget how to drive in traffic. They forget how waiting in line requires patience and and an orderly system.

3. When you have a child with a cast, people stare and ask questions.

4. When I have to wait in line, I chew off my fingernails.

Funny story before I close: we got the girls airbrush tattoos on their ankles. Bobby was in line with Kaylin for a ride, and the lady behind them asked if it was an airbrush tattoo. Bobby said he wanted to reply, "no, we got our 4 year old a real tattoo." See Lessons Learned #2 above.

Branson Day Two

Silver Dollar City began our day. It was disappointing; very crowded and very hot. We rode a few big roller coasters and left. We'll go back tomorrow and try it again, with a different strategy in movement around the park. Kaylin is finally 42" and could ride the big roller coasters. Par for the course with our kids, she loved them! I'd forgotten how fast Powder Keg shoots you out; it's 0-60 in about 5 seconds. On our turn, some kids in the front seat threw up a pen; it just hung in the air for a few seconds as the rest of the train went by. Could have been really dangerous, but luckily it just fell on the track later.

In the afternoon, we went swimming at our hotel. Bobby's sister had called medical supply stores and found a waterproof cast protector for us. We picked it up on Monday, and it worked like a charm!! Macy was swimming underwater (Yes, Macy, our girl who doesn't like to get her face wet!) Of course, her feet were doing all the work because one arm was useless with the cast and protector, and the other hand was holding her nose closed. But it was so great to see her out there swimming, and knowing that part of our vacation wasn't ruined!

Celebration City was our next stop. Once again, Macy turned in a roller coaster snob, not wanting to ride the "baby" rides. We forced her to ride with her sister. We ran into a teacher I work with, and her twin boys were at preschool with Kaylin last year. They rode some "baby" rides with Kaylin so Macy could go ride the big roller coasters.

While Macy was on the kiddie train, there was another little girl in the same car. I saw Macy talking to her, but didn't think anything about it. As soon as the ride was over, she came shooting over to me: "Can we go ride the Wildcat now?" Little girl did the same thing with her dad. We all 4 headed over there. Come to find out, that dad had been trying to get his daughter to ride roller coasters all day, and she was too chicken. But then Macy, who is 6, started talking to this girl, who will be 8 next week, and talked this girl into riding the roller coaster! Talk about peer pressure!!

Fireworks and some custard ended our night, and the girls went to sleep without a word of complaint. Tomorrow we do it all over again.

Branson Day 1

Went miniature golfing ($26 for the 4 of us; we need to open a mini golf course! They make a killing!) I think it's pretty safe to say Bobby and I shouldn't count on the girls making the LPGA to pay for our retirement. Granted, Macy's arm was in cast, but let's just say we didn't keep score. Many times Kaylin had the putter turned the complete wrong direction. Or she just picked up her ball and moved it.

Tonight we went to the Dixie Stampede. We had front row seats, and it was worth every bit of the extra $15 for priority seating. The girls were absolutely mesmerized from start to finish. The horses were right there in front of us! A meal is served, but it was wasted on the girls because they couldn't take their eyes off the show long enough to eat! Macy did finally eat some chicken, and Kaylin ate part of her roll, but that's it. The older couple from Illinois sitting next to us commented on how well behaved they were. I said thanks, but this behavior wasn't typical. The one other time I've seen Kaylin like that was at the Hannah Montana movie earlier this year.

Speaking of Hannah Montana,for those of you who don't know, her aunt on the show is Dolly Parton. (Grandmother is Carol Burnett.) And Dolly owns the Dixie Stampede. There was a videotaped message from Dolly herself towards the end, and the girls were so excited to see Aunt Dolly!! Dolly definately has a brand new fan base of little girls and tween girls.

Tomorrow brings Silver Dollar City and Celebration City. Right now, my bed is calling.

Macy's arm Part III

For anyone interested, here's the x-ray on Macy's arm that shows the break. I found a CD with her x-rays in with the actual copies. You can see the displacement and the break in her arm.

We went Friday morning to Children's. Long story short, no waterproof cast, and we go back in July to see if she'll need surgery. Everything is aligned right now, but they need to see if it shifts. It's fairly unstable, so she has a pretty tight cast to keep it stable. The cast goes up to almost her shoulder, as you can see, and she will get a shorter one end of July.




After our appointment Friday morning, we drove to south Missouri for some camping and canoeing with two other couples. We dropped the kids off at Bobby's sister's (thank you Kelly and Carmen for watching the hoodlums for the weekend!) and headed off to the campground.

Nice clean campground. We had a wonderful time camping, and the canoe trip was so much fun! Lots of extremely drunk people, but we avoided them. Met an interesting local character and his dog as he was trying to bum cigs and beer off us; too bad we didn't have any to share!

By our campsite was a bridge with some rapids. The three women decided to jump off the bridge. Well, I started to get a little nervous, and the next thing I knew one of the other women just pushed me off the bridge!! Then the 3rd woman pushed her, and jumped herself. We were laughing so hard that we ended up floating down the rapids, and smacking ourselves on a bunch of rocks. Good times, good times!!

Went back to Kelly and Carmen's Sunday morning, then will head to Branson Monday morning for a couple days. I'm sure I will have good stories from that trip.

Update on Macy's arm

Doctor called this morning, and the break was worse than they thought, according to the radiologist report. So we have an appointment Friday morning with an orthopedic doctor at Children's Mercy to see how it needs to be set. Solved the issue of the waterproof cast, b/c apparently Children's only uses waterproof casts.

We went by the hospital to get the x-rays to take to Children's with us, and it's interesting how the angle makes a difference. In one x-ray, the break doesn't look bad. In another, you can see the definate break and the jagged lines. I'm guessing at first they only looked at the first one, talked with us, then later looked at the second.

Oh, no!

Well, we have our first official broken bone. (In our children, not us.:)We've had our fair share of that. ) Last night at the fire station, a bunch of kids were running down a ramp and climbing on a railing. None of the adults saw her fall, but apparently Macy fell off the railing. She didn't cry much, more whining, but came and sat by me and whined for a while. Her father, the EMT, figured she was faking it. She hit her eye too, and it is swollen and red. She'll end up with a black eye out of the deal. I gave her Motrin and put her to bed. She slept with me, and it was a restless night.

In the morning it was still hurting, so off to the doctor we went. It took a while,and her Papa got to take her to x-rays as a volunteer at the hospital, but we got x-rays and she broke the ulna bone, the one on the pinkie side of her arm. They said it wasn't a bad break, it wasn't dislocated or displaced. It should heal quickly. Right now she's in a splint until the swelling goes down, then Thursday she gets a hard cast.

Right now we have problems. The doctor won't do a waterproof cast. We could go down to Children's to get one, but that might not work. We could also buy a plastic sleeve like the one I had last summer, but I don't know how well that would work. We leave for vacation on Friday, which includes swimming, White Water, etc. And we have season passes to Oceans to Fun, and they have swimming lessons in early July. Not a good time to break a bone.

She doesn't seem to be in much pain. The splint is helping. She's a tough kid.

Here is her in the splint. She says it is heavy. Having had one last summer, I agree.

Here's a close-up.


So we're skipping Jazz class tonight, and she's watching at t-ball.

Anyone know who will put on a waterproof cast??? :)

How many firemen does it take to change a tire?

Tonight the girls and I headed out for a Father's Day dinner up at the fire station. As I pulled out the driveway, I realized something was wrong. The back tire was completely flat! I called Bobby, and he said he'd be there in a minute to fix it. And 5 minutes later here comes the fire truck, with 4 firemen to change my flat tire!! Mostly the other three stood around and watched Bobby, but it was funny regardless. Everyone driving by was just staring at the fire truck and firemen. And who says firemen don't help out damsels in distress?? :)

Maybe I should learn how to change a tire...