Branson or Bust!

Greetings from Branson! Yes, we have finally made it to our long awaited summer vacation. I am writing this from the deck of our condo surrounded by beautiful lush trees and rolling hills and overlooking Table Rock lake. Our condo is above a grouchy old lady that says she hears every footstep we make (her exact words to us were "it sounds like a herd of elephants"). Imagine trying to keep our rambunctious little group from walking (let alone JUMPING) around in the condo. We probably won't be well liked by the end of the week...

We are going to try to keep a vacation journal on here for anyone that is interested. Each day someone new will type. I'll start by telling you a little about Saturday and Sunday. We woke up bright and early Saturday morning and headed to Cottage Hills IL where Faith and Marcus participated in a Bible Bee. They did a fantastic job! Faith finished 2nd out of 4. If you ask them if they enjoyed doing the Bee this summer, I think you would get an excited yes from Faith. Marcus on the other hand, well, he's Marcus!! After the Bee, we traveled down to St. Louis arriving at our motel about 3:00 in the afternoon. We enjoyed having the swimming pool all to ourselves, then had a late supper of pizza and snacks. Soon after, we headed to bed as we were all VERY tired!

Sunday we went to church at St. Louis. They have a visiting minister once a month, and we happened to hit that Sunday. Bro. Dale Banwart was there from Congerville along with several others with him. It was a very nice day. After church we headed to Branson and stopped at Lambert's Cafe on the way. This is a restaurant that throws rolls to you. We had told the kids if they catch a roll, they get to have ice cream every night at the condo. As soon as the man came around offering rolls, Marcus was quick to get his hand up and catch his roll.

--Dave