Thursday, January 8, 2009

"An optimist stays up until midnight to see the new year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves." --Bill Vaughn--

Continuing on with Christmas break now...the second part, after Christmas, we spent with Mark's family. His parents have a timeshare in Branson, MO so my parents drove us down there to meet up with Mark's parents. My parents stayed one night there with us and we all went out to dinner and then to a show, The New Shanghai Circus, which was pretty good. The things those people do though are just crazy and absolutely mind-boggling sometimes. They are so ridiculously flexible. They had some Chinese drums there too though which were really cool.

The second day there my parents left and we hung out with Mark's parents and sister Amy. Unfortunately Mark and I were both starting to get sick so I spent half the morning sleeping before we went out and about. We went to the outlet mall in Branson and did some shopping and then headed over to the Dixie Stampede, which is the show we saw that night. They had a pre-show thing where they had this juggler perform and he was really good. He did some way cool stuff, even juggling ping-pong balls with his mouth which was amazing. After that we went into the real show, which is a lot of horse stuff and some other animals too. You sit there on these long rows and they serve you're dinner while the show is going on. It was really good food too but they don't allow you to eat with utensils, you have to eat with your hands. So overall it was an interesting experience.

So along with horse tricks and racing they had pig races, ostrich races (very funny) and a live nativity, which was my favorite part. They had real sheep, goats, donkeys, and even three real camels that carried in the wise men. This was Amy's favorite part cuz she's loves camels and Egypt and anything like that. I took a picture of them for her so here it is.


The next day we left Branson and traveled along a very, very windy and hilly road (not cool when you're sick) and went to see Mark's grandma who lives in southern Missouri. We had lunch and chatted for awhile before we had to leave again. We drove all the way down to Huntsville, Alabama to see Mark's brother Michael and his family. It was a long drive too and we didn't get in til late. It was New Years Eve though so we would have stayed up anyway. Although we didn't really do anything special to celebrate it. Anyway, we stayed there for two nights and had a good time spending time with them. Isabella and Jacob are getting so big and are so cute and loved having us all there. Unfortunately though I was still sick and probably wasn't the best guest cuz I just sat there most of the time but I got to talk to everybody and just relax so that was nice. Most of the day we were there was spent watching football, eating, playing the Wii and talking, which was great.

We left on Friday and luckily Amy and Mark and I all had the same flight so that was fun to have more time with her. We didn't get in til late though so we didn't get home til late and then we both had to work the next day so that kinda sucked. But now we're back in school and working and doing homework and it's just not fun at all. This is going to be a hard semester and a long one! It is so cold here too and there is SO MUCH snow on the ground, it's absolutely ridiculous. It started snowing Monday morning and didn't stop until late Tuesday night. I absolutely hate it, I hate driving in it, I hate walking to school in it, and yeah...it's awful. The only thing I like about it is that, well one, it covers Utah's ugly brownness in the winter, two, it makes everything really quiet which is cool, and then sometimes it's kinda pretty (when you don't have to be out in it anyway).

So that's pretty much all that's happened in the past couple weeks. Sorry it's been so long since I posted last. I know my darling little nieces are getting impatient with me. :) Happy New Year to all though! Hope it's going well so far. Good luck with all your resolutions too. I can't say that I really thought about any for me. I guess that one main one would be to try and make it through this semester without crashing...that would be a good thing. :) Another would be that I need to be more patient, I think a long time ago I might have had patience but it's all gone now and I'm not sure why. I would also say I need to work on not procrastinating anymore but we all know that's going to happen so I just don't won't do that one. :) I think the first two are enough to work on for now. Anyway, once again Happy New Year!




(This horses name was Amy, how fitting!).

1 comment:

Whitney said...

Woot! Dixie Stampede! My brother-in-law is Skeeter. ;) Fun, fun show, isn't it?