A Weekend in Branson

About a month ago, Asa signed us up for a weekend marriage retreat in Branson that was being putting by his unit. No one knew for sure if it was happening until a couple of days before we left, so I was nervous about how it would all come together. The only people who Asa knew were coming were his superiors, so I was also nervous we would be the only young people there! But I was excited to go anyway, at least it was an expenses-paid weekend in Branson!

The first thing we did was check in. We stayed at the Thousand Hills Golf Resort, right off the main tourist area in Branson. This place was enormous and SO nice! We did not stay in a hotel, we stayed in a condo... just the three of us!Marley's first order of business was breaking in the condo.
There were two bedrooms with king size beds, a huge kitchen, and a spacious balcony. We felt like we were living the high life! We relaxed on the patio, drinking and lounging, soaking up the sun.
Later that night we had dinner with all of the couples and their kids and had a brief introduction to the marriage sessions. Asa's Sargent, Tony, and his wife Ami were there with their three girls. We spent most of the evening with them. The adults listened to the Chaplin talk about marriage and the girls hid under our table hugging each other, singing songs, and crawling all over each other. They had a blast and I couldn't stop smiling about how happy Marley was.

Another Sargent, Matt, in Asa's platoon arrived after the introduction was already over with his wife Markiea. They have two little girls, but decided to leave them with their grandparents and come alone. So, all three families (along with the Reinhardts who were SOOO annoying) wen to play putt-putt golf! Branson is awesome! They have so many things to do and so much going on all the time! We found a really nice indoor course and had a blast playing. I was much better than I thought I would be, and Marley was great too! We played boys against girls, and unfortunately the boys won. But we all still had a good time. I can't even explain how fun it was to hang out with other adults who had kids... I had almost forgotten how to do it! After putt-putt we went to Dairy Queen for a late night dessert, and then finally got home around 11:30! It was really late to have all the girls up, but they all had such a blast together!

The next morning, we had breakfast early and then had to be at the day care place at 8:45 to drop the kids off. Marley has never stayed with anyone besides her family, so I was really nervous about how it would go. We made sure to drop her off at the same time as the Bollin girls so that she would feel comfortable. But she definitely cried. She screamed. From what I can understand from the people there, she cried for a long time before finally attaching herself to Chloe, the oldest Bollin daughter, and spent most of the rest of the day happy. She was able to get Chloe to understand her signs and even curled up on Chloe's lap for a while and laid on her shoulder. Thank goodness Chloe was there to help her get comfortable and keep her company because I don't know how it would have gone without her.

We had the marriage sessions from about 9 in the morning until 2 in the afternoon. We talked about all kinds of things, a lot of which I found interesting. We had a good time with our table, joking around most of the time. Everyone kept each other really entertained. I was not nearly as worried about Marley as I thought I would be. I knew she would live and I figured it was probably good for her.

After the classes were over for the day, we picked up the kids. It was so good to see her happy face when I got there! We had to be at our dinner cruise at 3, so I tried to rush back to the condo and get Marley to take a nap but she was too wired from playing all day. It was about a 20 minutes drive to the showboat, so she did manage to fall asleep there. And then slept on my shoulder while we waited to board the boat.
Asa and I felt like so lucky to be able to do such nice things all weekend that we probably wouldn't have spent the money on ourselves. We had dinner and watched a show on the Showboat Branson Belle, and it was fantastic! Well, the food wasn't great... but the experience was!
After the dinner, we had a few minutes to go to the top of the boat and take pictures! Here are Abbi and Ainsley, the two younger Bollin girls that Marley loves!
And a family picture in front of the flag!
The show was full of singing, dancing, and quick costume changes. Marley really wanted the lights to stay blue, and would scream "BLUE!" when they changed. But other than that she loved it and danced along to the fast songs.
She had had enough of us by the end of the show and Chloe carried her out!
The sun was still shining when we got back to the cars, and Tony was really wanting to hit some golf balls. So we found a driving range and headed there. I hit one golf ball, but Tony, Asa, and Ami were the main ones playing. I sat behind them in the grass with the girls while they read books, ate Cheerios, did flips in the grass, and played with golf balls. It was so fun to see Marley having such a great time and feeling like she could do everything they could do. Marley definitely needs to start hanging out with kids more often!

The next day at breakfast, we found out that some people had gotten sick on the showboat, including Chloe. So, the Bollins left early to go home and Marley had to go to day care by herself. Luckily the kids only had to be there for an hour and one of the ladies working there brought jewelry making equipment. So, Marley was happy! We only had an hour-long class that day on forgiveness, and then we picked up Marley, check-out of our fancy condo, and headed to the Branson Landing.

We shopped for a while and then got extremely hot and headed to lunch. We sat outside (but in the shade with fans!) and watched boats go by on the river before heading home.
The whole way home we talked about how much fun we had. We got to laugh until our abs hurt and watch Marley make friends and be a big kid. We made new friends, and so did Marley! And we also learned a lot about how other couples make the Army life work! I told Asa to definitely sign up for the next one!

Pool Time!

On Sunday, we took another trip to the on-post pool! Marley had a blast swimming with Mama and Daddy, jumping off the side, and going under water!

Doctor Visit

On Tuesday I took Marley to her first doctor's appointment in a looooong time. She is behind on her vaccinations, so I knew I needed to make her an appointment as soon as I could get it together. We had not been to the doctor in Missouri yet, and it took me a long time to figure out where to go, fill out the right forms, call the right people, and also get out records transferred from my old doctor in Nacogdoches. But I finally got it all together and we went to the doctor on Tuesday.

As I said, Marley has never been to the doctor in Missouri, but she evidently knew where we were and what it meant and the second we walked into the examination room she screamed. I'm sure people were outside wondering what was going on. She cried while she got weighed, measured, and even while I was just holding her in the seat trying to talk to the nurse. She weighs about 26 pounds and is 36 inches tall! That puts her in the 50th percentile for weight and above the 97th percentile for height! Everyone kept telling me she was tall!

The doctor finally came in and explained that my doctor in Nacogdoches had still not sent her records, so there would be no shots. I somehow lost my copy of her shot record, so my old doctor is the only person who knows what she has gotten for sure. But the doctor was nice about it and as soon as they get the records they will call me to come back. It turns out that they pretty much just write me a prescription for the shots she needs and then we go to an immunization clinic on post and get them done whenever we want. So, at least I will be able to do that with Asa and not have to deal with Marley screaming through it by myself again.

The doctor said that Marley looked great! She needs to eat more vegetables, but everything else was right on target. Marley has been eating so much more now that she doesn't nurse at night. I feel like she is eating all day long. As soon as she finishes something, she wants something else. That makes me so happy and proud, but she still won't eat any vegetables! I'll keep trying though. She takes a nap for about and hour and a half in the afternoon, and then sleeps completely through the night most of the time. I'm so proud of her for that. She is much more happy when she wakes up the morning, and so am I!

So, my baby is almost two and will hopefully grow up to be a tall and slender supermodel. Well, I don't want her to actually be a model... just lucky enough to be tall and thin like her Daddy!

All Lined Up

Marley is getting a little more independent lately and likes to spend time in her bedroom playing by herself. She doesn't roll cars around or play with animals in her farm... she lines everything up.

She puts all the books in a row and face-down. She will re-arrange them and get them in just the perfect order that she wants and then stand back proudly.
She also lines up her little people. She gets them just the way the wants them and squeals at her accomplishment. She taps every littler person on the head with her finger and says a "Hello" for each one. They have moved from her bedroom to the kitchen now, all lined up watching Marley eat. If someone knocks one over, she yells "UH OH! UH OH!" until we can put it back just right.
She also likes her blocks just right. Sometimes I will come in and they are perfectly in a line like the books and dolls, and sometimes they are built into towers all over the room.
They also make great stands for lining up the little people!

She is so meticulous and works so hard to get all these things the way she wants them. For months I have been meaning to write a post about her unofficial OCD. She matches things, lines them up, organizes, sorts... she may be even more of a perfectionist than I was when I was younger!

Fashionista

Marley is in the constantly-changing-clothes phase. I literally have to hide clothes from her, because the second she sees a new shirt or a random sock she wants to completely re-do her outfit around that item. She disappears into her room for ten minutes, pulls open all her drawers, takes her favorite clothes out of the closet, and then re-appears with a whole new look.I have given up on fighting with her about getting matching outfits on, and now we just leave the house like this! I think it's cute and she gets to be creative about what she wears! I'm sure all the other moms at the store understand why she is wearing whatever she's wearing. Asa came home yesterday and said, "You must have gotten yourself dressed today!"

Let's just hope her vision changes a little if she becomes a fashion designer in the future! I don't know how popular her looks would be!

Wordless Wednesday

Wonder Woman!

Asa went to Six Flags on Saturday with some of his friends, and brought Marley home this awesome onesie!As I was putting it on her, I told her that she would have to wear this without pants and she was not happy! If I try to leave her shorts off after I change her diaper, she has a fit! Thinking about leaving the house like this caused a lot of stress for her! So, we gave in and put some black legging under it... she was a total hit at the stores!

Picnics with Daddy

All last week and this week, Asa is taking a driving class. He has to be to work super early and doesn't get to come home for lunch like usual. So, every day Marley and I pack a big bag full of lunch items and meet him at the park for a picnic! We all unpack our lunch at a picnic table and catch up on what we have been doing all morning. Marley has so much fun helping me pack up the lunches! She assigns all the food to people and sometimes eat half of her lunch before we get to the park.
She loves the surprise of seeing Daddy walk up to her; her squeals have everyone at the park staring. She hates when it's time to go, but when she wakes up from her nap we only have a couple of hours until Daddy is home!

The City Museum in St. Louis

Last weekend we spent a night in St. Louis and went to one of the coolest museums! If Marley had been a few years older she probably would have had much more fun, since one of the coolest parts of the museum is all the tunnels kids can crawl and climb through. But we all still had a blast!They have a HUGE area outside that you can crawl/climb/walk through. Can you see the people on the wing of the airplane? We did not do this part of the museum since we had Marley, but it will be fun when she is a little older.
Marley did get to crawl through a few spots in the museum that we could fit through with her!
The museum had so many beautiful areas, perfect for picture taking.
Marley got a little upset when we tried to get her to do a little exploring on her own!
They had a room called The Skate-less Skatepark, which is pretty much a bunch of ramps and rails like a skate park. She had fun running and sliding through and encountering other kids her size!
She also got to walk on the longest pencil in the world!
We went to the toddler area and tried to convince her to climb up the bars there, but she was not having it. They literally have little climbing areas like this all over the museum! Kids were crawling up to the ceiling in some rooms, which made me so nervous!
She did like the slide in the toddler area though.
Marley is such an observer. I think that's one of the reasons she is so happy to go walking with me in the mornings. She loves to people-watch and see what other kids are doing. She will sit anywhere with other people and just watch. People always tell me how well-behaved she is in public, and I just want to say, "It's because she enjoys watching those kids wreck the place!"
Hall of mirrors...
We also bought tickets to the rooftop area, where they have more slides, more climbing, a water path, and a ferris wheel!
One tight space we climb into:
I have been on ferris wheels before and not had a problem, but for some reason this one had me so scared! Maybe it was the fact that it was a ferris wheel on top of an eleven story building!
Asa and Marley went down this big ramp... it was huge! I didn't even want to go!
We also got in the bus that is suspended over the side of the building!
One of the best parts of the museum was the aquarium floor. We got to see all kinds of exciting things!
Asa and I even got to pet a sting-ray! No surprise, Marley didn't want to!
She was so so tired by the time we were done with the museum. It was a few hours past nap time and she had worn herself out.
It was a blast though! We will definitely be going back when Marley is a little older, because I know she will love it one day!