Branson

Just a short post.

I'M ALIVE!! I've been being alive on facebook and instagram mainly because the past two weeks have been a little wild.

We went to Branson. Stayed in a really amazing log cabin. Took 3 children with us, my two and my SIL's 2 and a half year old little boy and some how, well, no one told us just how exhausting and stressful it would be to take 3 little ones to a luxurious cabin with stuffed dead things (why, hello dead stuffed turkey hanging above my head. My, how your wattle sways in the breeze when the AC comes on....) hanging on the wall of all THREE floors. For the record, I was the only one who was bothered by the dead things on the wall. I.DON'T.GET.IT. SCARY. Also scary? My little Lucy who decided to really take off walking (finally at 13 months!) in a house with 3 stair wells and lots of sharp edges.

I'd like to remind my readers that for the record, I am not complaining. But it was a really, really hard trip. Henry decided to wake up for the day each day at 4 am and that's after coming in an out of his bed room, oh, every hour from 9pm-4am. Then decided to not nap or eat on top of everything and turns into devil child, tantrum after tantrum. I really honestly felt bad for the guy. I felt bad for ME who was exhausted by day 4 and ready to get the hell out of Dodge and I also felt bad for my in-laws who provided a wonderful opportunity to relax and enjoy, yet none of us got to do those things. Completely unaware of how hard it can be on some kiddos to be away from home. The also both got colds towards the end.

Here are the good things about the trip:

• Spending time with my Mother in Law and my sister in law, Angela, and laughing about how one day we'll laugh about all the chaos of this trip
• Being outdoors in nature. It was good to be out in the middle of no where, which is not no where in all actuality, but a smaller town than what I've been used to
• Realizing I am much more of a suburban or urban type of woman
• Hearing the friendliness of hints of southern accents from the locals. I really, really miss that! It made me home sick for NC.
• Seeing the beautifulness of the lakes and rocks.

Some funny (maybe un-fun) things about the trip:

• It was 70-80 degrees everyday. Yay! Right? Well, not with 85% humidity. I swear we all needed 2-3 showers every day. No wind, either.
• I started my period 2 days in and also sprung 2 giant, cystic zits! Yay for all that sweating and hormones. TMI?
• Mosquito's. Poor Lucy got bit up all over. The first day we were there she was outside for 10 minutes before I realized, OMG, mosquito's love my Lucy! And it was too late. She has a bad reaction to mosquito bites. They swell up to the size of, oh, I don't even know how to describe how big but it's big and like hives. Girl probably had about 10 bites on each leg, a few on her arms and even some on the small of her pretty little back. When they start to deflate a bit she gets an oozing scab on them even if she doesn't scratch and it just looks horrible. Not a big deal to her, but it really made me feel like a bad mom. From then on she had on OFF.
• Sometimes going to Mass goes all wrong. Like the one we attended. I don't want to offend anyone, but I think it was just the wrong day for me to go to Mass because the speaker really went on and on about Women obeying their husbands and that's sort of thing and that's when I decided that Lucy was behaving badly and we walked out and listened to the rest of that crap in the lobby. Then it turned into fundraiser Sunday where a priest from Scotland basically high pressured the congregation for money for a whole 40 minutes! It was horrible. I had never heard that type of thing in Mass, and I've been to a lot. I snuck back in to get my diaper bag and Henry was sprawled out on the pew asleep. Pretty sure that's not kosher....but, whatevs. I tried. That kind of put a major damper on my religious zeal I was feeling last month. I've prayed about it though and I'm still trying to find a church for me and my family.
• I threw what I think was between a temper tantrum or a mini panic attack in Bass Pro Shops when, after 2 hours of walking around at the landing (outdoor shopping mall) in the the humidity we end up in that store walking around for maybe ten minutes. I'll tell you what, I was just done. DONE. All the sudden I look at my MIL and husband and say, "I gotta get out of here! I am leaving! It's dark in here, everything is the same color, there are dead things everywhere AND THEY'RE PLAYING COUNTRY MUSIC!!!!" and I stomped/strolled on out with my little girl vowing to never go back in that blasted store again. **I later apologized to my MIL and husband for my outburst. Seriously, I'm not sure what came over me. It was wrong. But it was kind of funny. ;)**

Hmm, I think that's about all for now. Cutting it short because my little ones will be waking soon. I hope to be back later on this week with some new makeup fun.