Silver Dollar City

Monday morning we said goodbye to the Aveytuas (😢) and then the rest of us headed to the amusement park in Branson, Silver Dollar City.  It was HOT and humid, but we had a fun time anyway.  No one got lost (a feat I don't think we could have pulled off if we'd had the Aveytuas still with us!) and I don't think anyone got sunburned, so that's about as successful as it gets!

Covered in sunscreen and waiting for the ropes to drop!  Adam is wearing Clayton's Pokemon sunglasses that were accidentally left behind! 😂

Before anyone rode the water rides!  Look how nice they all look!

All ready for the stunt man show (I'm not sure if I'm that sweaty or that covered in sunscreen...  Probably both...)

And enjoying some air conditioning before the circus show begins!

Lunchtime!

The beginning of what turned out to be the worst train ride ever!  (Mostly because the seats were terribly uncomfortable (it's like they said, how can we make a wooden bench awful?) and then they stopped for about ten minutes for some little "oh no, we're being robbed" skit that mostly involved these old, overweight men giving all the kids on the train high fives while we baked in the sun!  WHY.)

Very wet Camille-- I think this is right after the Huckleberry Finn ride where everyone got to shoot water cannons at each other

Everyone (understandably) wanted a picture with the giant axe!

Cora was happy to ride anything that she was tall enough for!

Aunt Natalie bought a whole bunch of giant cookies which were quickly devoured

Trying to dry off after the river rafting ride!

This whole train is filled with my family!

They got so wet on this ride!

My gun didn't actually work, so I put it down and just enjoyed the ride.  Colton looks tough, though!

Speaking of tough...

Natalie took pictures of all of us on the log ride so she wouldn't have to ride and get wet herself!

Waiting in line together, we found some shade!

Here's the Huckleberry Finn ride!

Seriously, the guns were such a big hit!  Who knew we were so violent???

Gotta appreciate the kids photobombing us in the back!  

We got pretty wet from the log ride,  too!

It was a fun day, but I wasn't too sad when the park closed and we could head to Chick-fil-A to get some dinner.  Washing my hands in the bathroom there felt so good.  And showering once we were home felt even better!

Sunday in Branson

After Saturday, people began slowly peeling away as they needed to return home.  We ended up splitting between two wards, which may have been for the best-- we don't want to overwhelm the good members of Branson!  (Although they seem to see a lot of reunions so they took all us extras in stride!)

These kids clean up pretty good!

Rachael has perfected the art of dressing her family in matching outfits for church

Camille had braided her own hair!

I loved how Ryder put up with Nolan resting his head on his shoulder!

And then Colton also got a turn!

After church, a bunch of the Las Vegas Hansens came to hang out at our house and Uncle Bruce began showing us all these 8mm films that my Grandpa had taken and Bruce had digitized.  It was so cool!!!  One of the clips featured my Grandma, holding my Mom as a baby, walking down the street with her own mother and grandmother-- my great great grandmother captured on film!!!! 

There they are!!!

There was a ton of other stuff, too: my mom and her brothers splashing in a little kiddie pool in my grandparents' backyard.  A lot of footage from a trip my grandparents had taken with 6 other couples where they all rented an RV and drove to the Worlds Fair in Washington DC.  (Fourteen people traveling for weeks together in a single RV!!!  I...  don't even have that many friends.  And I'm pretty sure if I spent that much time with them, by the end I'd have significantly less friends.  I can't even imagine!). There was footage of my cousins and younger sisters having an Easter egg hunt and then showing off yoyo tricks.  I assume I was in college at that point?  I'm not sure.  At one point the kids were playing their various instruments for my Grandma and she was so locked in on them, just like the wonderful grandmother she was!  It was so cute to see!

It doesn't sound like much when I'm trying to describe it, but honestly, it was one my favorite parts of the whole reunion.  What a gift!

I guess Craig wasn't as excited by it all as I was!  😂

Moonrise over the Ozarks

Sunset Panorama

Saturday Play Day

Our AirBnB was just about perfect, except: they did not have NEARLY enough silverware for so many people.  So here's Ryder eating his cereal with a ladle...

There were no real plans for Saturday morning, so we decided to explore Beautiful Downtown Branson (not to be confused with Bronson!!!  😂).  Craig took Ryder, Colton, Camille and Nicole to hit the go-kart tracks and an arcade!

And Kendra and I went to the Butterfly Palace!  I took approximately 100 pictures, so consider yourself lucky that I am NOT posting them all here.  But you just feel so chosen when a butterfly decides to hang out with you for a bit!!!  How can you not want to document that???

Before we even got to the butterflies, we spent a few minutes in the aquarium area with various amphibians, reptiles, and skinks.  My favorite were the poison-arrow frogs-- don't these just look made up???

I want them!

Then we went to the butterfly and spent at least an hour there, maybe longer?

This lime-yellow guy!

For most of the time we were there, a man was sitting against the wall aggressively playing a harpsichord.  Then he went on a break and we were like-- We need that music!  It really added to the whole atmosphere in such a lovely way!  Thanks for making it even more magical, harpsichord guy!

Not the prettiest butterfly, but I loved those purple spots

This glasswing with his see-through wings was one of my favorites

Kendra's comment, "Aw, he's so ugly!  I love him!" 

Someone else "caught" this one, but she was very nice about letting me take a picture of it!

There were these huge blue butterflies that no one could catch.  You'd only see the blue when they opened their wings but butterflies usually rest with their wings closed, so you really needed to see them in flight to see how gorgeous they were.  The best I managed to get was this:

See it flying away from me???

And I also liked these two, perusing the rotten fruit:

So, yes, we thoroughly enjoyed our time with the butterflies!  Once we'd finally gotten our fill, we went to their mirror maze and I was surprised at how totally disorienting the experience was, but it was kind of awesome!  I'm pretty sure if you could see the entire maze, it was actually really simple, but those mirrors do make it confusing!

There are two of each of us in this shot

While we'd been doing this stuff, Natalie and Cameron had driven back to St. Louis.  They managed to time it just right so that Natalie could drop Cameron off at the airport (he had to get back to work) AND pick up Caleb (who had been in Annapolis attending a water polo camp run by Navy Seals).  Let me tell you-- my boys were SO EXCITED for Caleb to arrive!  And Rachael & Ian and Tracy & Adam had decided to buzz over the state border so they could check Arkansas off their list of states they'd visited.  Apparently they managed to eat at a diner with a very friendly, toothless man sitting on the porch encouraging them to watch out for the "squirrelly" waitress (who turned out to be married to his nephew)!  They said it felt exactly like how they thought Arkansas would be.

Nolan, Harrison, and Cora in Arkansas!

Tracy, Adam, Cora, London, Ian, Harrison, Rachael, Claire, Clayton, Nolan
(Squirrelly waitress not pictured)

Most of us then met back up together to see Dolly Parton's "Stampede" Show!  

We got there plenty early so we could see all the horses-- they were so pretty!

Happy Camille!  (This may be the horse who patiently untied all his ropes while he was getting saddled up?  It was very impressive!)

Don't let this fool you, London loves me best.

And Clayton loves guns best!

Most of the people you can see here (except the bottom row) are my family!

Pre-Show entertainment (and if you look closely, you can see Kendra creepily photobombing us!!!! 😬)

And then we were finally seated in this huge arena, just like Medieval Times, for the actual show!

It was a fun show!  I could have used more horses and less corny jokes, but it was still a fun experience, and mostly I loved how excited Camille was about ALL the horses!

We'd gone to the matinee show, so when we were finished around 5pm, it was like no one knew what to do.  The show included a full meal, but somehow you still kind of wanted dinner?  It was weird.  Rather than eating, we all headed to the neighborhood pools where we were staying and hung out (and occasionally snacked on string cheese and pirate booty) and had a grand time!

Tracy and Nicole

Ryder and Camille on the sides, Caleb, Nolan, and Harrison making the pyramid

Harper, Cora, and Claire

Rachael, Jenna, and yours truly!

Everyone stayed until the pool closed.  Nothing beats sitting around talking with such great people!  All the kids were starving by this time, so Tracy whipped up a huge pan of scrambled eggs and all was right in the universe again.