backing up a little

We had a busy Thanksgiving this year.

We started with our own first annual Family Thanks Dinner, which I shared here.

Then Thanksgiving Day was spent just a few blocks away with Dave's family.

Then I woke up at 3am.

Shopped from 3-8:30am

Came home and Dave let me nap from 9-11am. - how thankful I was!

Then we hit the road for Missouri.

So excited to see Mema and Papa!

My dad had to work so much of the holiday weekend, we decided not to do our normal Thanksgiving dinner. So instead we headed to the Dixie Stampede Christmas Show with my parents!

I only had my phone to take pictures.

We LOVED it!  It definitely made the list of most fun things we've ever done.

To see their excitement and complete interest in every detail of the show - was priceless!
Taylor's favorite part- the toys
Mason's favorite part - the horses
My favorite part - the live nativity story, it seemed so real it gave me goosebumps and made me all teary eyed.
Dave's favorite part - probably the food
This is definitely a MUST-SEE show if you're in Branson this time of year.

We also got a short visit with Great Grandma since she lives only a few minutes away from my parents.

My dad works here...

Always a fun place to take the kids.

Guess he's always had a fun job to take the kids too - it used to be firetrucks,

but now it's big huge fish and lots of boy toys.

This little guy was in heaven.

And even managed to find a few things he wanted for Christmas.

So we hear that people show up at Bass Pro in the morning to get a "ticket" and time slot to see Santa,

sometimes not actually getting to see him till the evening.

Others stand in line for a LONG time.

But an advantage of having a grandpa work there is that we got a Bass Pass for the exact time we wanted.

Which means we showed up, and got to skip right to the front of the line.

Sure beats standing in line for hours just for 2 minutes of talk-time with Santa.

They were both a little nervous, Mason asked Taylor to go first.

She was brave.

But he wouldn't get too close.

They snap your picture and send you home with a copy.

2 days later Taylor was holding the picture as she came out of Dillons.

The horrible Kansas wind blew it out of her hands and I was pretty sure it would be long gone.

You would have thought the kids' dog ran away.  They were both hysterical.

So I tried to save the day. The elderly man who helped me take out our bags helped me too

 I drove over to the side of the store and trekked across the grass towards the fence that looked like it was collecting all the flying trash from the area. Thank goodness for the fence - or the picture probably would have made it to the interstate by this point.

Picture found.