Branson Trip Part 1

This weekend, we had our first family vacation just the three of us. Yes, Elise is nearly 3 years old, but this is the first time we really thought she'd enjoy it (and the first time we had the nerve to try!)

We started our adventure at Silver Dollar City. This part of the trip turned out way better than we expected. For one, she was tall enough to ride most all of the children rides with an adult, and for two, NO ACCIDENTS ALL DAY!

Elise is a ride dare-devil like her parents. No ride scared her! She loved the roller coaster with Daddy ("Look, Ma, no hands!"), the swings by herself, and the elephants with Mommy. After she'd finish each ride, she'd say "I want to do it again!"

This is our family before the only ride she DIDN'T really enjoy. It was the pirate ship, and she liked it at first, but we think she started to get queasy because she cried the last two swings of it. She was perfectly fine after it stopped.

I took a pic of these two like this a few years ago at the Branson Landing and decided I wanted another one to compare the two. Let me tell you, Elise has GROWN! :)

This is us before the train. Elise really likes trains in general, so we knew she'd enjoy taking a train ride. She was really vocal and said and did everything the conductor told us to do!

Elise has rode quite a few carousels in her day, and she loves each and every one!

This was Elise's form of transportation when she got tired (which wasn't too often, actually). Daddy didn't want us to have to worry about the stroller, so we didn't take it in. That made me pretty nervous--but she did really good. And we packed light!

Our next stop was our hotel: http://www.castlerockbranson.com/. WHAT A GREAT PLACE FOR FAMILIES WITH YOUNG CHILDREN! Check out the website--this is the only pic we got of the place :) But the water park is perfect for youngsters. Word to the wise: the big slides require kids to be 42" tall, but Elise didn't even act like she cared that she couldn't go on those. She had plenty of fun on the little slides and in the "river". We were lucky enough to get a 1/2 price deal right before I booked, so we got our room for CHEAP. And water park tickets for the whole family are included in the room!

More details from the trip to come...