Weekend in Branson

We spent the weekend in Branson. We drove up on Friday and came back Sunday. A couple of months ago we were suckered into buying a two night stay at a discounted price and a $25 gift card to Bass Pro Shop in exchange for our time to attend a sales presentation for a time-share. (A few years ago Bill and I did this and I swore up and down that I would never do this again..but Bill talked me into it.) We stayed at the Grand Plaza hotel. (http://www.bransongrandplaza.com/) It was a nice clean place. Nothing too fancy but definitely not a dump! This is our view from our hotel room. We were down a hill from "the strip" on hwy 76.

Here is Addie checking out the view!

We ate an early dinner at Fuddruckers. The burgers were delicious!

This is us being silly!

Addie took this picture of me!

After we ate we went to one of the outlet malls. Addie insisted that she ride the tractor with Bob the Builder. I bought Addie some clothes..several t-shirts and a couple of pair of shops. We shopped at Old Navy, Oshkosh and The Children's Place. We looked around several other stores but didn't buy anything.

Later we found a Miniature golf place. When we got there, we were the only golfers. This turned out to be a good thing because Addie could do what she wanted. She played a couple of the holes but she was more interested in the rocks. Bill was surprised about how well I did. I told him I guess those golf lessons I had when I was younger paid off. And I really wasn't trying that hard. I still need to add up the numbers to see who actually won. Hehehehe...I did win!!! 58 to 63.

That night we went to Branson's Landing. (http://www.bransonlanding.com/)I didn't get any pictures there. Bill told me to leave my purse in the car..we just walked around.

The next day our appt for the time share presentation was at 8:45am. I scheduled it early so we could get it over with. Our sales guy was a young guy..probably fresh out of college. But he did pitch a pretty good sale. It took a lot longer because I had to stop and take Addie to the bathroom too many times. But she did have to go and was not a ploy to do something different. We seriously considered buying into the time share which be a total impulse buy for us...but when it came down to the numbers it become a total turn off...the first thing I said after I saw the "contract" was "THERE WAS NO ONE IN HELL THAT I WOULD AGREE TO 15.9% INTEREST RATE." Subprime financing........NO WAY. Do you think I am idiot??? (okay I didn't say the part about idiot) Bill said, "man, that is a slap in the face for us..we have excellent credit." The guy said they didn't run credit checks and they provided guarantee financing. Well, I would rather it be based on credit and not a generic finance charge...so they pretty much was the deal breaker..but Bill and I are happy we didn't buy into it. We would have wanted to research it a little more and maybe later down the road we will look into one. (but doubtful) And again I will say I do not want to do this ever again!!!

We had lunch at a little Mexican place. It was okay..nothing spectacular.

After lunch we headed back to the hotel. Addie wanted to go swimming at the pool. I took her swimming. I didn't get any pictures of her at the pool but she has absolutely no fear of the water. She swam all over and had fun jumping into the pool. We went back up to the room. Bill was napping. I made Addie take a nap because she didn't sleep much the night before.

That evening we went back to Branson's Landing. We shopped at Bass Pro Shop. Here is Addie and Bill checking out the fish.

We had dinner at Famous Dave's. The food was great. Okay, Dianna( http://www.learningtotaketime.blogspot.com/) talked in her blog recently about her cruise and her experience of her daughter getting sick..well I got to have that wonderful experience. We were eating when Addie said her belly hurt and she needed to go poop. I took her the bathroom and she peed. She said she was done. While I was helping her snap her skirt, she barfed. Luckily, the food had not digested so there wasn't much of an order. But she got it on her skirt and her shoes..and on a part of my pants. The next person that come in was someone that worked there so I told her we needed someone to clean it up. I got Addie and myself cleaned up. Thank goodness Addie had on her crocs so it was a pretty easy clean up. I think she got overheated. We had done quite a bit of walking beforehand. She went back to table and finished eating her food like nothing had happened.

Branson's Landing has a neat fountain and fire show. We were walking by before the last show of the evening. It last for just a few minutes..usually one song..but Addie was fascinated by it.

We left early this morning to head back home. It had stormed during the night and the weather called for my stormy weather..so we decided to come back home. here is Addie in the car. She is a great car rider.

Sorry to bore you with the details of the trip! But we had fun. We had a hard time explaining to Addie what Branson was. While we were there she kept saying she wanted to go the Branson. We kept telling her she was in Branson but I think she thought it was a place like the hotel. I kept saying the city of Branson so maybe it would help her. Later she was saying something that came out "ho tittie". I finally figured out she was saying "whole city." Bill and I cracked up!