Arkansas, December 2, 3, 2010

Hot Springs, Arkansas was beautiful. We stayed right on the lake and in the morning the fog hanging over the lake was gorgeous!! We headed out early today so that we could dig for diamonds! Christopher was so sure that we were going to find a bunch of diamonds. He has been excited for this day for a long time. We had a lot of fun digging in the diamond fields and searching for diamonds but we didn't find any!!
We drove through fields and fields of cotton. They were harvesting and it was fun to see all the huge cotton bales.

Branson, Missouri

From Kansas City we headed over to Branson, Missouri. What a fun town. We stayed at a hotel that had a lot going on such as mini golf, swimming, games, and more. It was very cold there though so we didn't get to take advantage of a lot of the activities. There are so many different theaters in Branson and shows going on all day long. The first night we were there we went and saw the Hamner and Barber show. It was awesome!! It was part magic and part puppets with a ventriloquist. The boys absolutely loved it!! We sat in the front row and Riley got to be a part of the show. The second night we saw the Baldknobber show. That was really funny too. I really enjoyed all the costumes they changed into with each changing scene. The boys are now wanting to learn ventriloquism! They love to do puppet shows with their puppets they got in San Francisco so they are on their way!!! We had a great time in Branson!!

Missouri

We were able to visit Liberty Jail in Liberty, Missouri and see where Joseph Smith and others were held prisoners for 4 months. It was a very insightful to see the jail and hear all that they went through. They were forced to live under horrible conditions. We then went to Independence, Missouri and saw a bronze statue exhibit and the Mormon church visitors center. That was really cool. They had some awesome statues.

The World War I Memorial and Museum was our next stop. It is in Kansas City and has so much to see in it that we weren't able to cover it all. It was very interesting and we all learned a lot.

Across the street from the World War I Memorial was the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank. We had a tour there and really enjoyed it. We saw a gold bar that was worth over $500,000, we stood next to a glass case which held $40 million dollars, and we watch as the workers bundled up the money and stacked it onto carts to be shipped out to the different banks. They even gave each of us a bag with $165 in it!! Too bad it was all shredded!!!

The Christmas lights at the Plaza in Kansas City are awesome. We were able to walk around and see the lights and visit a couple of stores but it was soooo.... cold that we didn't last long!

Kansas - Thanksgiving

We were able to spend some time in New Mexico with Steve's family. We had a great time! We had a pre-Thanksgiving dinner at Aunt Gloria's and got to see a lot of family. What fun!! Then it was off to Kansas for Thanksgiving. We stayed in Dodge City on the way to Centralia. We couldn't believe how many cows we saw around Texas. We stopped in Liberty, Kansas to see the Wizard of Oz museum. Fun!! What a great Thanksgiving! We ate and ate and ate and played cards and played cards and played cards!! FUN!!!

Sanford, Colorado

I'm home!! It's so fun to come home and see everyone here. We are having a lot of fun hanging out with family. The boys love to see their cousins, grandparents and aunts and uncles! I love it too!! It is beautiful here. Sharon (my sister) had a craft show while we were here. We worked hard but had a lot of fun. The boys sold caramel popcorn and sodas. They were successful!! So were we with our crafts!! We also got to spend Halloween here. The boys went with their cousins on Halloween night and had a great time. We had a SPOOKY Halloween dinner that was so much fun with food like bat wings, Monster pizza, witches fingers, vampire dentures and many more monsterous foods!! It was great!!

Denver

The Denver Museum of Science and Nature was a lot of fun!! We saw exhibits from the Amazon and some real mummies. There are a lot of wildlife displays which are awesome!! Denver was so beautiful with the fall leaves and green grass. We really loved it there!

Yellowstone National Park

Wow!! We had a lot of fun in Yellowstone. We drove through Missoula, MT on the way and stopped to ride the carousel. What fun!! The boys kept grabbing the gold coin as the carousel went around so they kept getting a free ride. Finally we had to give the free tokens away so we could hit the road! We stayed the night in Bozeman, MT so we would have a short drive to Yellowstone. We got up bright and early and headed to the park. We saw so many different animals, elk, buffalo, coyote, and deer. We took a hike through the steaming geisers. It was really awesome but it sure did stink!! By late afternoon we had made it to the site of Old Faithful. True to it's name it erupted on time and we were glad because it was getting cold!!! We drove through Teton National Park and it was gorgeous!! The mountains were so rugged and beautiful. We stayed at Teton Village right in the shadow of the towering mountains! Wow!!!