Here We Grow Again

Ride Em Cowgirls!
Swimming at the condo, inside pool was much warmer!

Milking a cow at Silver Dollar City

Lainey on the Ladybug

Sage & Klaire Sweet Friends
Karlee, Kassidy, Klaire with our gang

All the kids on stage, isn't that a site!
See our girls in the matching pants?

Sage had fun feeding the animals!
Worn out at Silver Dollar City
Malaine, Kelsey, Alyssa & Makenna

Mark being slimed
Can we join you in there?
The Scary Emu!

We just returned from a weeks vacation, and now we need a vacation from vacation! We started on Memorial Day weekend with a trip to the Lake of the Ozarks. My parents just purchased a new vacation condo there, so we got to go and let the kids break it in for them! It was so nice and relaxing there with nothing to do but stare at the lake and swim, which is the kids very favorite activity. From the lake we traveled to Branson, Missouri. We were going to attend an event put on by the Shanghai Theatre and were able to do more branson fun while there. Some of the highlights.

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  Lamberts Cafe How can you not love a place where it is actually OK to watch food being thrown around, or watching people diving off their seats to catch those rolls?


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  Silver Dollar City-We spent 2 days there. Big Coasters for the big kids, and lots of fun for little ones. We met up with our good friends on one of the days which made it even more fun for all of us. We are quite a site though with 7 children between us, one being a set of twins, and a chinese baby showing off in her squeaky shoes and one pregnant mommy!


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  Got to meet up with a fellow adoptive family, who I had been emailing online for the last 2 years while we waited for our daughters together! It was such a joy to watch the girls play together. Klaire is just 1 month older than Sage and they were just to cute!


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  Did the drive through Exotic Animal Paradise on our way home. FUN! We did this a few years back and decided to go again. You drive through w/ a bag of food, and the animals come right up to your car, stick their heads in and eat out of your hands. We laughed so hard! Except at the emu, which is like an ostrich. You can see in the picture those beady eyes, none of liked those! Even Sage who was not scared of any of it, was not so sure of that! They also have llamas, deer, buffalo, along w/ a variety of other things. Very unique!

The event we went for was put on by the theatre for Families with Children from China. It was SO so nice! We first met at a park and they had traditional chinese games, snacks and playtime on the playground. Then we moved the Theatre where they served a chinese buffet. They had some kids perform chinese songs, played some chinese instruments, traditional dances, showed some films of chinese locations and then they had the acrobat show. I think they said there were 500 tickets sold for the show so that gives you an idea of how many families were there. You can see in the picture of the stage all the kids. We really loved it. It was a very long day, and of course Spicy Girl does not sit much, so it was lots of chasing Sage around, but it was just such a nice thing for them to do for us. The cost was very minimal and the owner of the theatre made a speech thanking us for loving their children from China. They plan to do it every year and we would definitely not miss it. If you live anywhere close to Branson, I hope that you will think about joining in the fun! It really is a wonderful vacation spot, very family friendly. (besides the man at SDC who asked us to find another table at lunch because one of the kids was being to loud for him, can you believe that?)

The kids said today, can't we just stay on vacation forever? Don't I wish!