Middle School Retreat and Branson Thanksgiving

Colleen visited right after Halloween. We had nice weather and she got nice quality time with all of the kids. And with Callie, who was a big fan.

Eleanor had a birthday party at Skate City, which was a lot of fun although we're reasonably sure she got a cold from the cruddy germs at the place.

Fun craft project with Grandma Colleen!

I took Eleanor in for a bang trim. We couldn't remember the last time she had had one. Oops!

Then we went shoe shopping and we had great success although we did not pick the amazing ones featured here.

Cozy reading time with a sweet kitty and a rather pathetic doggy.

Picking up Juliet from school on a rainy afternoon - I'm not sure how much the umbrella helped her but she certainly enjoyed carrying it around.

Bradley is in swim and it's going so well. His swim instructor really understands how to get him motivated and going while being really nice to him.

Eleanor is still doing swim and her friend Evie has joined her class, which is just the best. It means she has a buddy and it means she has a ride and doesn't have to stay for two hours through Bradley's class and then her own.

A beautiful sunset from our master bedroom! I think one of the kids took this picture on the house phone. We didn't close the pool until a week or two into November, must to Nathan's distress. He got to clean a fair amount of leaves out of it. In my defense, we swam a few times in October when it was warm and I don't like looking at the pool when it has its cover on.

Bradley likes walking home from school when we're out playing with the neighbors and their dog and he gets Stella cuddles. I wasn't aware Stella liked him so much but it's pretty sweet!

Callie and Remy play time in action!

We had a really nice October. It was so warm. Juliet likes climbing the tree in the parking lot by the neighborhood pool, where I pick her up from school.

Juliet wanted me to take a video of her fancy tricks

Sometimes I get to read on the couch and sometimes I actually get some Callie cuddles while doing so! It's so funny that she's not a particularly cuddly dog. It's probably for the best though. She just likes to be near people and that's really nice.

Meg, on the other hand, will come downstairs and yowl at me in hopes that something like this will happen. I love that she looks so angry and this is her at her happiest.

We had a couple Girl Scout meetings in October and Eleanor was invaluable. 

Patrick and one of the other older boys ended up helping as well - they both had a blast and I think are more than happy to assist with future meetings.

We had Girl Scout Day Camp with a small number of girls from our troop but we had such a good time.

It was very exciting to run into Eleanor, who enjoys her celebrity status with the kindergarteners.

With my girls! I really just ran around with Juliet's troop and Eleanor's troop did its own thing so it was fun to run into her.

A picture of Eleanor and her buddies, who got to spend the night! Juliet and I left when it got dark. 

This is a Bradley picture of the cats on his lap.

I came and took another photo of him for full credit.

Bradley really likes reading in our room, which is nice because his room is pretty dark and secluded and doesn't have as many cats!

Eleanor had a scuba training event through Girl Scouts. Quite frankly it was underwhelming, they never let the girls leave the shallow side of the pool.

But Eleanor was a good sport about it and looked cute doing it!

Patrick continues to play bunches and bunches of basketball. He has three hours of practice every Wednesday between his two teams and I often have to stop him from shooting around in the driveway before it's time to go. The boy is a basketball machine.

Nathan has a fancy chair for going to his games and Patrick was rather pleased to get to use it between games one weekend.

Nathan takes better pictures than me at these games. Pretty great tipoff skills by Patrick!

Bradley isn't the only child who has discovered the perks of hanging out in our room. I don't know if Sookie or Eleanor is happiest in this picture!

We went to see the high school play Hadestown teen edition. It was me and Nathan and Patrick and Eleanor. We were grateful to my parents for hanging out with the other two so both Nathan and I got to go.

Patrick has gone to some Show Choir camps and his favorite person from those camps was Charlie Linn, who is now a senior at the high school and was the star of Hadestown. Patrick had saved a Newsies program and from that cut out a picture of Charlie and glued it to cardboard so Charlie could autograph it. It was beyond adorable, even though the picture ended up with a greenish tint to it because Patrick decided to use green glue. This was Charlie's reaction when Patrick approached him for the autograph. 

And everyone had told Charlie that Patrick was there, we met his mom before the play and everything. And we talked to the show choir director. I had been saying no more show choir camps for Patrick anymore after he was such a goofball during the October performance but I guess he's got to go back now. Pretty adorable!

Me and Meg in the bathroom one night. I love her so.

We had the most amazing rainbow after a storm one day and Juliet about lost her mind with joy.

Juliet with our friend Jodee Cloud at a church family night. I whined more than the teenagers it was geared for about having to go to this and ending up having a really nice time. 

Juliet went to the dentist. No cavities!

And I got to go see a special project at Patrick's school - he had made an island with a bunch of environments on it and quite frankly, I wasn't expecting to be dazzled but I was. He had a vacuum volcano, hate and happiness hills (they affected your moods and you didn't know which was which until you were standing on one), a creepy cave which was under a mesa which also had a super slide off the side of it leading to the ocean - it was so creative and fun and so Patrick. The teacher had him present to the principal when she came by. This boy casually does things like this all the time and here I am focusing on him leaving dirty socks all over the house.

The next day they had a Thanksgiving parade - I don't know what working parents do around all these school activities.

The kids walked around with their buddies and showed off a balloon creation they made.

That night I left on a middle school retreat for our church. You can't tell it but my children are really happy about their Braum's dinner here.

I was the only female chaperone and the youth pastor was the only other chaperone. I ended up having a very nice time and it was very good I was there, both of my kids needed some mom support upon occasion. They throw nonstop activities at them which is fun but can be a bit much!

The camp was very neat. This was like four square but it was with nine spots and you threw the ball in the air.

Low ropes course

Horseback riding! The camp was in Oklahoma and it was 60 degrees in November for our afternoon horseback riding session. It was so incredibly nice.

I went with the 6th graders while the 7th and 8th graders got to do work for confirmation. Bradley was not sad to miss the horses but some of the older girls were ready to stage a mutiny after this.

The 6th graders had a lot of time to hang out and play while the older kids studied again later in the day.

Then we all did a challenge course that ended in a huge zipline. I got to go first because then I could take pictures of kids as they came down. I was trying to encourage everyone and tell them how fun it would be but it quickly became apparent that I was all talk, I probably wouldn't have done any of this if it hadn't been hugely shameful to back out as one of the responsible adults.

Shaky bridge was terrible. I clung to the sides. Some annoying children ran across and just laughed when talking about how they felt like they were going to fall a few times.

This is what we got to climb to do the zipline. I've done a zipline before but it's been a while and I've never done one this big.

There was a very nice guy up there who got us ready to go. Bradley and I got to go together. I tried to be cheerful for the kids.

It was such a big drop.

My feelings about the situation at this point.

But I did it! I just didn't look for initial push-off and once I was in the air I was fine. It was really nice that they had two ziplines so Bradley and I got to go together. He had no problems with any of it.

Eleanor loved it so much.

Then we went to a shooting range with little water pellets that the kids got to shoot at each other. The boys loved that but it wasn't as popular with the girls. I prefer laser tag.

Eleanor didn't play for the longest time but finally got in on the action at the end.

She mostly hung out with her buddy Annabeth for the trip.

Bradley and I got in a sunset golf cart ride. They didn't really have a reason to rent the golf cart but it was already done so I got in a lot of good use with it going around in a big loop at the main camp area.

A stacking cups challenge with tiny hands. It was nice to see Bradley excited and engaged in activities.

Classic foosball

We actually really love Wyatt so it was fantastic when Eleanor made a face at him while eating 'smores

Capture the flag. Love that they played this a bunch even though this is what did in both of my children. It was 9PM and they were running around hard for three long games. Eleanor doesn't even particularly like tag, which is a big aspect of the game. And Bradley cared so much about winning and then the 7th grade girls cheated so they won so he was beyond upset. Perhaps rightfully so, poor kid.

I took the goodbye picture on our way home in the morning. I love taking lots of pictures, the youth pastor should be so happy that I have to go on all of these trips for the foreseeable future.

Quiet car on the way home. Poor Bradley got a much needed nap.

Meanwhile, Juliet had a weekend of birthday party fun.

And she got to watch Patrick's rec basketball game with doting grandparents. The team is currently undefeated.

And Nathan is always happy for an excuse to take children to Costa Vida.

The next morning Patrick had a club game that was all the way up in Liberty, Missouri. They won the first game so they got to play another a couple hours after that. It didn't make sense to go home so the team hung out and got brunch together. Juliet was a fan.

They ended up getting second place in the tournament! Patrick wore this medal around nonstop for the rest of the week.

I got back from the trip and was absolutely exhausted - so I took the dog on a three mile walk and then went to the Christmas mart with Eleanor and my Mom. Eleanor and I thought these shoes were high fashion but we opted against them in the end.

Don't worry, we got a lot of other stuff. We basically ate our way through the shops and got a lot of goodies. Eleanor was thrilled and I think my mother was slightly appalled at my willingness to spend money on anything that seemed somewhat yummy. I have zero regrets!

The shopping team!

We had a brief recovery day and then on Tuesday we headed out to Branson for our family Thanksgiving trip. There was a lot of joy and love at Buc-ees. 

We also bought a ton of goodies here - Patrick even got Buc-ees slide sandals! High fashion.

We had a nice cabin to stay at in Branson that we shared with my folks. It was rather fabulous, perfect for our needs.

Silver Dollar City was cold but very pretty! I made sure we took our family pictures before people started getting grumpy.

We got to do a few rides. Many things were shut due to the temperature. We did this trip because my parents got the ridiculously expensive ride skipping tickets to the park for our family reunion this past summer so this was our best chance to come during a busy season and not have it mean long waits.

In any picture where Juliet is smiling like this it is because she is being naughty. Here she is punching a gingerbread woman.

Now they are eating her. Oh the naughty joy.

The boys also enjoyed some gingerbread men.

The boys were not supposed to be in this photo. Hence the genuine smiles.

My folks are so cute!

One last ride for Juliet. Eleanor bravely joined her.

Happy boys about to ride a roller coaster

Eleanor liked the decor. I don't think the rest of us noticed ...

We did finally do the marvel cave tour in order to escape the cold. It was pretty neat!

Then I took the younger two home with me and grandparents while the older two stayed with Nathan to hit up a few more coasters. I like the unhinged look in Juliet's eyes here.

Patrick was insisting on trying to give poor Grandma a piggy back ride and Juliet was doing whatever nonsense she does whenever someone tries to give her a piggy back ride.

Meanwhile, the coaster gang. Okay, I see how the lights were pretty cool at night.

The best part of the night as far as Eleanor was concerned!

Our Thanksgiving outing and really our trip in general was saved because a friend of mine told me I should check out Wonder Works when we visited. It's an upside down house that blew in on a storm from the Bermuda Triangle and it's basically like a kid museum/STEM theme park. We loved it!

Upside down bicycles

Light game

Gyroscope. Patrick looked happy the whole time. I would have thrown up.

Juliet played with hot lava! In virtual sand form.

Snowboarding game

Virtual roller coaster. Eleanor talked Juliet into doing a ride which included upside down loops!

We all tried out a bed of nails. Well, except for Juliet. It was still a little pokey and we didn't think she would like it.

We were very excited to play some laser tag

The most terrifying picture of Juliet ever taken

And then the kids did climbing walls. Truly, this place was amazing. Although some of the reason we loved it so much was because traffic was light on Thanksgiving day and there was basically no wait for anything. It might have been a different experience on a busy day.

Space shuttle

Bradley spent about 45 minutes playing this flight simulator game. Nathan and Juliet had a nice time playing it as well.

Shocking!

Bradley got in on the snowboarding game at the end

Bubbles!

Music

It was a great time and then we got to go back to our cabin for the easiest Thanksgiving meal ever. No stress, so nice.

Fun story, I told my mom she could skip the pie for Branson or maybe just bring one or two pies because surely that would be enough. But then she made a bunch of pies for something else and this was my children's reaction when they got to have some of the pie. So I think she brought at least four different pies for Thanksgiving.

My parents went back to Silver Dollar City while we were watching National Treasure. Our kids weren't particularly interested in going back, it was even colder than it was the day before so we thought most of the rides would be closed. We stayed in and played some family games instead!

My matching buddy!!

It was hilarious when Juliet started helping Eleanor when she was playing Take 5. You can kind of play random cards and have it be okay sometimes. Juliet was very decisive!

Friday was our final morning there and we went by Fritz's!

Eleanor, Patrick, and Nathan spent a bunch of time doing the biplane course while Bradley and Juliet ran around.

And then everyone was kind of done. We've done Branson pretty well this year, we could probably take a break for a couple years. I did find a place called Beef a Roo on the way home and it had the best salted caramel shake I've ever had. But we found out there's a local store so hurray, I can have yummy milkshakes here too!

The animals were very happy about our return.

And we had a tiny dusting of snow on Saturday! We'll take what we can get for a first snow, all the kids but Bradley were thrilled to run outside and play in it.

And of course Juliet had a birthday party, she attends them semi-professionally these days.

And a cheery Vegetarian Day from Juliet!