Silver Dollar City 2009

We headed for Missouri Friday after Matthew got home from school. We had never taken the girls to Silver Dollar City and figured this was the best time considering all the commercials we have been seeing with the big light parade.

We got into Branson around suppertime and ate at the BEST place Friday night. I mean EVERYTHING was fantastic! The chef walked around to each table and asked how we enjoyed the meal. We will definitely eat there when we go back.

We went to our hotel and took the girls to the pool to swim. That's ALL that Nora wanted to do (are we going to swim at the show-and-tell soon?).

Sadly, I have no pictures of that.

We got to SDC around noon the next day and the girls were PUMPED (Nora kept referring to SDC as the North Pole).

The first thing we saw was a dancing group. Nora and Elyn loved watching them.

Then we headed to the back where the rides for the little kids are located. Nora did not want to ride but Elyn was ready!

When we got to SDC, there were no lines and we walked right up and got on the frog ride. I had not seen the ride in motion and didn't know what to expect when it started. I got the biggest kick out of the ride and laughed pretty much the entire time.

Elyn didn't enjoy it quite as much as I did.

And here is Nora during the ride...hahahaha!

We forced Nora on the next ride...you can see from the picture how excited she was to be on the butterfly ride.

Eventually she started liking it.

And she even rode the next ride all alone.

Then it was Matthew's turn on the frog ride with both girls.

They both LOVED it the 2nd time (well, the 1st time for Nora).

And we're about to ride the elephants.

After a few rides, we headed over to a show...FROSTY!

Both girls were looking forward to seeing the show. One little girl got chosen from the audience to help the two singers put Frosty together...she wasn't one of our little girls though.

BUT, they did ask all the kids in the audience to come up on stage and sing some songs with Frosty. See the back of sweet Elyn's head?

Where was Nora on stage? She was still in the audience. Our bashful girl didn't want to join all the other kids.

Notice anything missing on Frosty? That's right! His hat. At this point in the show, they are looking for Frosty's hat to put on him and help him come to life.

Well, they found the hat, put it on Frosty and he came to life. Once that happened, Elyn stood up on stage, turned around to face the audience, and started screaming.

Matthew went up to get her and brought her back to our seat. (All the while, the audience is dying laughing).

Scary Frosty.

See the snow. Yep, it snowed at Frosty.

And Elyn was DYING to get back up on stage and experience the snow too. But, Frosty had scarred her. So she stood in the aisle...that was a close as she would get to the snow. And Frosty.

Yep, still sitting in the seat.

Then we got on the train and LOVED it! I was hoping it would be soothing enough to lull Elyn to sleep...it wasn't.

About 1/2 way through the train ride, we stopped and "Grandpa" told us the birth story of Christ. It was so nice.

Then, we went back to the caterpillar/butterfly ride.

So much fun!

And that is where the pictures end. My battery died. Awesome.

We did stay for the light parade and the girls were miserable. They were begging to go home because they were so tired and cold. Making memories! About 2 minutes before the parade started Elyn fell sound asleep. Like coma-induced sleep.

Nora was mesmerized though. It was sweet.

The best moment of the day was when we finally were back in the car, the girls were buckled in and Nora said, "I had a really fun day."

Totally worth it all!