Mama, what's vacation mean??

Well, we all survived the big family vacation!  The drive was pretty uneventful, we stopped several times more than I would have liked, once Kelsey figured out that saying she had to go potty meant that she could get out of her carseat (and probably score a treat or two from Grandma or Aunt Connie) she suddenly had to go potty every half hour!  Luckily we were able to ignore her convince her that she could wait.  Brady was pretty good on the trip...he didn't sleep much in his carseat, but didn't really complain much.  We arrived in Branson around 4 or so, got settled into our condo, which was nice and open and very clean, and ran to the grocery store to stock up on booze food for the week.  After a nice dinner we shared some drinks, played some games, and headed to bed. 

The next morning I woke to hear Kelsey crying saying her eyes were yucky.  I turned the light on and saw that both her eyes were bright red, swollen and her eyelashes were all gunky and stuck together...UGH!!!!  So I placed a call to my friend Jenny who was nice enough to call in an Rx for some eyedrops, thank goodness!  So our plans were pretty much done for the day, not only did I not want Kelsey to spread her eye crud, she was also pretty gross looking!  After picking up her drops ($40 for the smallest bottle of drops I've ever seen, but whatever, at least they worked!) I felt guilty that she was stuck in the condo all day so I ran to the toy store and grabbed her some toys.



Lookin good Kelsey!



Enjoying her new loot!

 Poor Brady was stuck inside too!



Looks pretty nice outside!



What do you mean Kelsey can't play with me??

Luckily by Tuesday Kelsey's eyes looked much better and we were able to get out and do something.  We went to the outlet mall and then came back and Kelsey got to go swimming with her cousins.  It was nice for me because my 15 year old cousin Bailey was able to take Kelsey swimming so I didn't need to worry about it!  At night we played Apples to Apples and Sequence.  I think Apples to Apples is a fun game, however it's very frustrating for someone who's looking to play with a strategy because it's really dumb luck on who will pick your card.  Case in point, my mom seemed to always win...what's that all about??  Here she is gloating celebrating.


They say your cards describe you...her's are Aged, Offensive,
Comical, Misunderstood and Dysfunctional.  Sounds about right!

 The next day we went to Eureka Springs, Arkansas.  The drive there was about an hour of really windy hilly roads...Kelsey was almost sick on the drive there!  Unfortunately on the day we went it was very cold and rainy and most of the stores weren't really equipped for my huge double stroller!  So we ate lunch, shopped for about a half hour and left.  We discussed that it would have been the perfect trip if it was nicer weather and we didn't have the stroller!  We stopped for ice cream on the way home so everyone was happy!  That night it was more swimming and more games!

Thursday Bailey was nice enough to watch the kids so the ladies could do some serious shopping (aka shopping for ourselves!)  I got an awesome deal on a sweater from Ann Taylor...an $89 sweater for $14.99, SCORE!  That night we celebrated my grandpa's 80th birthday by going out to dinner and having cake and ice cream and presents.  We crammed everything we could into the van on Thursday night so when we woke up on Friday we would be ready to go.  We left Branson around 7 Friday morning and surprisingly enough only made 2 stops on the way back up...WOW!  I think we were just all excited to be coming home...I know I was!  Brian had been doing work on the house and wouldn't tell me what he was doing so I was in for a big surprise when I got home!  More to come on all the hard work he did...