We took a little family getaway to Branson this past weekend. It was a good time filled with plenty of family togetherness, but I hesitate to call it a vacation. Trying to keep a 3 year old and 1 year old on a nap and bedtime schedule is difficult when away from home. The temper tantrums and grouchiness due to not having good naps and early bedtimes were surprisingly not as many as I would have thought, however, and we had a fun time. The first night we went to the Noah's Ark musical. It was an awesome production. Jenna loved it, and Kaela loved parts of it. The rest of the time we were thankful for the cry room where you could still watch the whole show behind a window. The next day was unplanned and we decided to grab a couple of brochures on our way out. We decided on the Butterfly Palace and Predator World. We had just gotten a new toy for our car, a GPS device that would tell us how to get anywhere and we thought we'd put it to the test. As we dutifully followed the directions to the Butterfly Palace, we were informed that "the destination is to your right" when actually there was a run down building that most certainly wasn't the butterfly palace. We re-grouped and finally found it. After paying a substantial admission fee, we made our way to the butterfly room. We entered to a tropical green house filled with hundreds of beautiful fluttering butterflies that would even land on you! Apparently, this freaked Jenna out and we had to leave soon after....it wasn't pretty. Next was lunch and a trip to the Branson Zoo (aka Predator World). After another miscue by our GPS, we finally made it there. Predator World was disgustingly filthy and really cool all at the same time. It stunk to high heaven and lacked the presentaion of most zoos and aquariums. I was incredibly nervous while walking down a narrow corridor with venomous snakes on either side of me behind thin sheets of glass. I was even more nervous as we were within feet of tigers and lions that seemed to eye Kaela as a source for their next meal. Although it wasn't the nicest looking zoo, I've never seen animals up close and as active as these! Matt actually got a Cobra to stand up and fan out at him! Jenna was enthralled by the tigers and wanted to pet them (all this after being freaked out by a butterfly landing on her!). The next day was spent at Silver Dollar City and we had tons of fun there. Good food, fun rides, great entertainment, and spectacular lights! We wished we had an extra day to go back.
