Trip to Missouri

Plans for the big, much anticipated Thornhill Reunion were compromised at the last minute due to some unforeseen & unavoidable circumstances, but we headed out to Missouri nonetheless & still had a great time. We drove up on Friday, June 25, with our books on tape: The Hobbit (although it was so painful to listen to, we couldn't finish it) & Adventures in Odyssey (thanks Bekah!). We met David's mom & Brett upon arrival for dinner (they took a road trip out from California for the weekend) & stayed at David's Aunt & Uncle's house. We were still able to have a mini family reunion on Saturday, which of course included games, food & catching up.

On Sunday, we spent some time with David's Aunt & Uncle on his Mom's side of the family & of course played some more games =) I found out that I am not the weakest link - good to know. We headed out that evening in a fantastic thunderstorm for Branson, where we stayed the next two nights with David's mom & sister. We decided that Branson is kind of the Hillbilly version of Las Vegas & it was an interesting drive down the "strip" to our hotel on the way in (which was thankfully off the main road). We did not take part in any of Branson's popular shows, but instead spent the following day at Silver Dollar City - a Knott's Berry Farm type theme park. The weather was perfect & it wasn't too crowded. I think the highlight for me was the folk singers that we sat & listened to - they did a Beatles medley as if the Beatles had been from the Ozarks. It was pretty entertaining & they definitely had me tapping my foot & singing along (even though I think I was embarrassing my family ;) Also, it is pretty safe to say I will avoid the tea cups next time.

Oh yea, and we had an awesome screened in porch at our hotel, so we sat out in the evenings & played games. The weekend came to a close too soon though & we headed for home on Tuesday morning.

While we said goodbye to Missouri on Tuesday, we didn't have to say bye to Mom & Brett until the following Saturday morning! They headed down to Dallas on Wednesday & stayed with us for three nights. I think we mostly served to allow them to rest up before the long trek back to California (before Brett's next trip to Europe!), but we had a great time with them while they were here. We got to visit with David's Aunt & Uncle who live here in Plano, we played some games (thanks again for Pictionary!!) & they visited me at work and took me to lunch at Chick-fil-a (I can't lie..it's becoming a new favorite of mine)!

It was so good to see you guys!