Branson Vacation Home

We decided that for a family vacation, we would really enjoy to have a home that we all stayed in together, rather than rent 3-4 different hotel rooms, have very little room, have to eat with strangers, have to swim with strangers, etc. So about 4 months ago, I went searching for a vacation home for us to all stay in, and found this diamond! 

It was less than the cost for all three of our families to stay in separate hotel rooms, less in food costs because we were able to cook for ourselves, we could stay up as late as we wanted and play games in the common room, while the oldies were in bed, our puppies were allowed, and had all the room in the world to go play outside without it being an inconvenience and without it bugging others. 

We had our own hot tub, fire pit, and our own 57 acres of property, without strangers and all of that Branson noise and craziness! It was incredible, beautiful, and I will NEVER do a family vacation in hotel rooms ever again! 

We've even talked about booking this same house ahead of time for a vacation every summer!

We had plenty of seating for the 9 of us to all eat together at the same table (never happens!)

A beautiful view of the Ozark Mountains, where you could see the stars and watch the fireflies at night.

Spa-like bathrooms, with steaming hot water and jetted tubs. Mmmmm.. 

King sized beds! This is a big one for Devin and I on vacations, sleeping in a king bed for a week is a vacation in itself because we can sprawl out without kicking each other :) 

We had some pretty fierce air hockey and ping pong tournaments. I'll even go as far as to say that I'm a beast at air hockey. 

Oh! And we had a fire pit that we all gathered around one night and I made us all foil dinners! We have family that lives in Branson, so we invited them over, and roasted marshmallows and just enjoyed their company. It was truly the best. :) 

Lake Cruise Photos (Mom's)

Derek and I stole my mother's phone for a little while to overload her phone with gorgeous pictures of her gorgeous, favorite children. I'm the Number One Favorite, of course. But Derek is a close second ;) 

I wonder if mom noticed this, but I'm holding her beautiful, fancy, expensive iPhone 5 over the edge of this cruise ship, and I am very prone to dropping my phone … she's lucky she still has this picture ;) 

She didn't just luck out with adorable children, she got pretty lucky with an adorable son-in-law too!

Back to the photos that my mother actually took. My Granny and I, I love this woman! 

Oops! Back to some of our gorgeous selfies we gifted to our mother.

Seriously, where did this kid get his good looks? Oh wait, I know.. 

ME!

I tried to pull off another one of those "Mooommmm" photos, but Derek and Chance obviously weren't on the same page. They both look super freakin' handsome and I'm over there like "DUUURR.."

Pictures of our Fence

I found some more pictures that my Dad posted to his Facebook of our fence that we worked on about a month ago now. Enjoy!

Silver Dollar City

The Harts and Despains all met in Branson, Missouri to have a week long fun-filled vacation! We rented ourselves a huge house out in the boondocks, grilled out for dinner, stayed up late playing card games, and bought season passes to Silver Dollar City! 

Branson has a special place in my heart. I remember going with my family nearly every single summer, staying in hotels on the strip, going to fun shows, riding the roller coasters with my brothers, having absolutely delicious breakfast (my dad's a huge breakfast lover), and shopping in the many outlet malls. 

Not only is it a special place because of those vacations but because Devin and his family have been on a family vacation in Branson as well. It amazes me to think that it's a slim possibility that one of those consecutive summers where my family went to Branson, that my future husband and in-laws may have been there, or that we had gone to the same stores, restraints, or touched the same gate at a roller coaster in SDC. I'm silly, but it kinda gives me goosebumps :)

Devin and I arrived around 2 o'clock on Saturday, my grandparents were a couple hours behind us, and then my parents and brothers came the next day because Derek was just getting home from a church camp that same Saturday and they couldn't make it in one day. 

So on Sunday, my grandparents, Devin & I went to SDC and rode all the rides to test them out for Derek and Chance :) On Sunday, while we were eating lunch in the park, Mom called me and they were in the park looking for us, so I went on a family hunt, and found them. What's the first thing mom wants to do when she sees me? Well of course after a hug, she wants to take pictures of my brothers and me :) She must like us. But we decided to be funny and take our "Moooommmmm" picture of the day. Enjoy.

My brothers have a very special place in my heart. With both of my parents working far away from home growing up, I did a lot of the shuttling to their sports practices, and attempting to get dinner started for my mom and helping her around the house. I like to think I have a small glimpse of my mom's love for us, and an even smaller glimpse of Heavenly Father's love for us. I truly have the greatest brothers in the world. And the handsomest brothers in the world, that's for sure!

My Granny & Pops are cranky old stinkers, but it's nice to see that they actually like each other every now and then. We all like it when they get along and stop griping for 10 seconds. Hahah. They're pretty great grandparents, I couldn't ask for better ones. 

All the kids are here. From left to right, Derek, John (My Granny & Papa's Foster Child that they are thinking about adopting), Devin, Me, & Chance.

Here's another one of those "Welcome" pictures that is a bit out of place in the scheme of this post. Oh well. We're funny. :)

Joes Crab Shack Adventure

For dinner on Thursday, we decided to try something none of us had ever had before and we went to Joe's Crab Shack. I was not really excited, because I've never really heard anything good about it, but I was pleasantly surprised!! Devin and I are seafood lovers, and we got a steam pot of king and queen crab legs, and chores them down. 

We got special bibs that were pretty punny. 

My dad got New Orleans style crawfish, it was suuuuper spicy, but absolutely delicious! I'm a fan of crawfish now :)

My parents are such cuties, they love each other so much. I mean, just look at em! 

Derek was in a pretty dang awesome mood all week, and posed for lots of fun pictures. 

I can't believe how big he's gotten. If you haven't seen my brother in a whole, he's about 6 foot 2 inches now. He basically shot up overnight. He's skinny, but pretty tough, and he's, well, a moody teenage boy most of the time. However, this week he was in the greatest mood ever! We had such an awesome time with him all week long  -- 

I've always loved my granny so much, she's been a pretty darn grandma to me for the past 21-1/2 years :)

And my grandpa, he's just funny. 

He fell asleep in his chair at dinner. 

Gotta love him! 

Fatties for Dinner

My dad has a talent for grilling/smoking. This week he grilled twice for us, fatties once and ribs the other. These are the fatties. It's a 1 pound layer of ground beef(or pork), layered with ham or turkey deli meat, and then stuffed with jalapeño flavored cream cheese, bell peppers, onions, zucchini, yellow squash, and some other yummy things, and wrapped I'm bacon. I was definitely pretty doubtful that it would be good ... But YUMMM!!! It was a little spicy for my taste, but it was like a meatloaf stuffed with my favorite veggies :) 

Seriously, you'll probably never see another one of these interesting concoctions. And that's too bad :)

Branson Belle Lake Cruise

On Wednesday, we did a lake cruise on the Missouri Table Rock lake with the Branson Belle. It had a show with a magician and a couple of bands, and some yummy lunch. We had a lot of fun on this, Devin and Derek are such goofballs, they make everything a blast!

Handsome felllllaaa !! 

In between lunch and shows, we took a tour of the boat and checked out the nice weather and pretty lake. I love my mommy .. Isn't she so pretty? :)

I love pictures like these with my momma, I can see how much I really look like her. I mean, look at that hair color -- exactly the same. Our nose, our smiles, our cheeks, everything. I'm her twin. 😊. 

Derek and I had a small photo shoot while waiting for the second half of the show to start and for our fam to get back to the table. Who needs entertainment when you have a goofy personality and a camera? We didn't :)   Enjoy ---->

When Devin got back to the table, he posed for one photo, but missed the point of the "goofy photos" 😝