November 9, 2013-Branson

(click here for pictures)

He's just a little excited...

• So here are a few things from yesterday that I forgot to mention: As we were leaving the restaurant last night, Campbell gathered up every single crayons that they were given with the kids menus and carried them out.  Keaton also gathered every single one of the wet wipes that were given after the meal.  My two little girls carrying stuff out of the restaurant reminded me of their Nonna.
• And yesterday on one of the roller coasters, we found a family that had moved away from Little Rock.  Their little boy was in Anderson's class and when Anderson was behind him in the roller coaster, Anderson said "I could go to sleep on this roller coaster."
• So this morning, we all slept well.  And if you were wondering from yesterday how long Reagan and Graham lasted in bed together...they lasted until 2:38.  That is when Reagan came to my bed saying that Graham was pushing her.  And as I said about Campbell, I have slept in the same bed with Graham and he moves often while sleeping.
• Reagan joined my bed and we all slept until I heard Campbell in the bathroom again right at 7.  So Campbell climbed in my bed and I took Reagan's spot on the other bed.  Then Anderson left his spot and joined me on the pull out bed.  This caused Graham to get in bed with Robby and Keaton which caused Keaton to climb down and get in bed with the girls.  Sometimes it is hard to keep up where everyone is.
• Pretty early this morning Robby decided that we would scrap our plans for the day (um, yep, we didn't have any real plans at all) and head near Ozark to have Thanksgiving lunch with all of Grannymom's family. 
• As we were driving there via the pig tail, Campbell looked up and said "are we almost to somewhere?"  Of course the answer to that question was yes.  The kids did great on the drive and soon we arrived.
• It was a house full of people-so many that Grannymom didn't even know them all.  That didn't matter to the kids because there was a big yard, other kids, a ball and some sticks.  We had felt a bit bad about crashing the party without a dish in hand but when I saw a table full of food and a counter full of desserts, I didn't feel bad any more.  Seriously, I don't think I had ever seen so much food and it fed all 50+ folks there.
• The grownups did have a lesson about a persimmon.  Apparently you can predict the winter weather by the seed of a persimmon.  If the opened seed reveals a knife expect to be cut by icy, cutting winds.  If it is a fork then expect a mild winter and if it is a spoon expect to be shoveling lots of snow.  Inside that persimmon seed today was a perfectly shaped spoon.  This was so interesting to me (here is an article about it if you would like to know more) and Reagan was excited to see the spoon because she wants another winter (week without power) like last year. 
• Soon we were on our way home and by then, poor Whitman was feeling pretty puny.  Thursday I had wondered if he was a bit warm and Friday we thought he might be again.  Neither day was he very feverish nor did he act puny.  But today was different-on the way home we stopped at a store and bought some tylenol for him and ripped it open in the parking lot to give him some.  It quickly helped and he perked up this evening.  
• After stopping by Grannymom's house to drop off some bread, we stopped again at the Dollar General.  Since the kids had been really good today and all weekend, Robby decided to reward them with a toy.  They were thrilled and so happy with their junk-I mean toys that they bought.  My Reagan is getting old-she just bought a notebook and a pencil. 
• Once home, the kids had showers and then Robby made supper while I unpacked our stuff.  We were able to get everyone cleaned, fed and almost everything put up (except those awful loads of laundry that are multiplying in the laundry basket right now) 
• We put Keaton to bed and the rest of us stayed up to watch the Billy Graham message from the other day.  When we were finished with the show, we could hear that Keaton was still wide awake and not happy.  
• Everyone else got ready for bed and we still couldn't calm poor Keaton down so Robby moved her to the bonus room.  She did calm down and finally went to sleep.  Whitman stayed up for a bit longer than everyone else but then he was given some more medicine and put to bed.  I will try to sneak him some more tylenol when I go to bed as well.