The Jensens Take on Branson
Oct 22nd, 2007 by Bethany
We had a great time with Colin's parents and their friends, Lamerle and Sandy, this weekend in Branson, Missouri. Sonja and Dick went on a Church history tour the week before and ended up in Branson for a few days to check out the shows and invited us to come stay with them. It was only about three hours away from Little Rock, so we hopped in the car and headed north on Friday afternoon. Sunshine and a weekend of relaxation ahead of us, we had a very pleasant drive to Branson during which Colin decided northern Arkansas is full of hippies. The homemade "rainbow rock store" sign is an example of one of the clues that gave them away, along with all the VW Bugs we saw. Really, northern Arkansas is a beautiful part of the state with lots of cow pastures and forests and rolling hills that strongly reminded us of northern California.
The grown ups were at a show when we arrived at the lovely Marriott Horizons resort we stayed at, so we checked in, look our luggage up to the room, and then headed out to the nearest restaurant for some dinner. We were so sleepy that all we could eat between us was a roast beef sandwich and a bowl of soup, so we headed back and put ourselves to sleep with the kids.
In the morning the kids woke us all up. At the 12 Irish Tenors show Grandma and Grandpa had been at the night before they dropped tons of inflated balloons from the ceiling, and the wise grandparents had thought to tote some home. Degen just couldn't get over how fun it was to play in a roomful of balloons. Luckily, they were especially hardy balloons that managed to remain mostly unpopped the entire weekend. They played baseball and volleyball and soccer and other incarnations of sports with those balloons all morning.
Sonja and Dick had bought tickets to a show they no longer wanted to go to (Yakov Schmirnoff) that morning, so Colin and I went in their place with Lamerle and Sandy while they played with Degen and Maggie (and the balloons) at home. It'd been a long, long time since I'd been out to see a show with Colin without kids and we had an awesome morning out. Yakov Schmirnoff was about as funny and as clean as you could expect a comedian to be and we got plenty of laughing in during the show. It was patriotic, too, as one might expect from a comedian who focuses his show on the unexpected moments of becoming an American after growing up in Russia.
After the show, we went back to the hotel and Sonja made us all a yummy breakfast of eggs, bacon, melon, bananas, apples, hot cocoa, donuts (Dick picked those), and biscuits. Then Sonja suggested that the girls (including Maggie) go shopping at the outlet mall (which we did) and then surprised me by buying me an entire outfit of clothes that practically doubled my wardrobe. Thank you Sonja! The boys stayed home and took naps and walks around the resort and spent some much deserved TV time.
On our way back from the mall, the girls decided that the guys were sick of making decisions about where to go for food, and we settled on finding a good ribs place for dinner. After talking to the ribs connoisseur at the front desk, we went to the Rib Crib and almost all of us had baby back ribs which also served as our lunch the next day since nearly everyone ordered too much food to eat in one sitting. The ribs were tender and yummy–Dick said they were probably the best he'd ever had. Degen liked the trees (steamed broccoli) and Maggie liked playing with the straws. Sonja practiced coloring with Degen on the kids menu–Degen colored and she told him where and which color to use. She brought a little camera viewmaster thing for him and he enjoyed pretending to take pictures of everyone during dinner.
On Sunday we went to Sacrament Meeting and they were having the children's Primary presentation. My ward is doing our Primary presentation on Nov 11th and I'm responsible for getting it done so it was nice to see someone else's ward do it before I have to run one myself. Then we all hung out at the hotel for a couple of hours and your Dick started teaching me how to play pool and let Degen almost beat him at checkers (Degen doesn't know how to play checkers, of course).
Since our drive home was uneventful and we were happy to be home, the trip was a success. Thanks to grandma and grandpa for sponsoring such a fun vacation!