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!
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