Branson with (only) the hubs!

Poor Haven... gone from Mommy two weekends in a row!  It just happened to work out that way with our schedules.  Russell had a free weekend and my in-laws had some points at a resort, so we made our way to Branson!  Haven stayed with Grandma and Poppy which meant traveling to Stillwater for the OU/OSU basketball game!  She had quite a weekend too! 

This was our first weekend away, just the two of us, since our babymoon before Haven was born.  It was much needed and much appreciated!  We stayed up late, slept in, watched TV in bed, ate low-stress meals at restaurants, went shopping without a stroller... just to name a few of the exciting things you can do without a child!  Ha!  We also went ziplining!  And oh yeah, Russell got a tattoo!  We are crazy!

So our first meal in Branson was breakfast on Saturday morning.  Apparently in Branson's off-season, no one likes to serve breakfast.  Except for Sadie's... where you get some crappy buffet breakfast and crappy live music at 10am.  (Sorry Sadie's!).  However, we were happy to be together and had a great time laughing at this guy (the silly one in front of me and the guy at the microphone)...

My favorite was when he changed the words to Alan Jackson's "Chattahoochee" from "we fogged up the windows in my old chevy, I was willin' but she wasn't ready" to the fabulous "we fogged up the windows in my old pick-up, I was willin' but she had the hiccups."  I almost died.

Next, it was time to zipline!  I surprised Russell with a groupon for it for Valentine's Day.  He was skeptical that I could even go through with it, but geez I'm not that big of a scaredy-cat!  It was cold, but oh so worth it.  We went from tower to tower to tower, totaling over 2.5 miles of zipline.  Sometimes we got up to 40mph!  We had another OK couple in our group as well as grandparents with 2 grandkids that were pretty awesome.  Grandma bailed after the first couple times when she was spinning in circles when you're supposed to stay straight.  I am terrible and couldn't help but laugh at her.  She was laughing too though!  A great sport!  On the last line, they take lots of pics of you!  They also instructed us on how to go upside down if you want to (heck no!).  Well of course my husband was all about that!

  I, on the other hand, was not about to dangle upside down... I opted for some poses instead!  (This is when you say, "she would do that.")

 

It was such a blast!  Definitely something different and a highlight of our trip!

At dinner afterwards, Russell informed me that he lost his 4th (count 'em...1, 2, 3, 4) wedding band recently.  Are you kidding me?!  I thought we were on the 3rd!  There was a 4th and now it's gone too?!  The last two were cheap Walmart rings, but still that's a pretty penny!  So in an effort to make a smart financial decision (ha! and he's been wanting to do it a long time), I agreed to letting him get a wedding band tattooed on.

While I was sitting there, I texted my mom "you will never guess where I am right now?"  Her response: "Dixie Stampede?"  Bwahahahaha "no, the farthest place from it... a tattoo parlor!"  We went in just wanting a black band, but they were very persuasive (with good reasons) that we should get more than just a black band.  So here's his new (and permanent!) wedding band!  May as well make it a traditional wedding shot right?

The next day we had lunch and did some shopping before getting on the road to get back to our sweet girl!  Russell picked out the cutest outfit for her, complete with hat and shoes!  We enjoyed our time away SO much, but we missed our sweet girl SO much too!  We gave her the hat and shoes when we got home and she accepted us back with open arms. :)

HUGE thanks to Grandma and Poppy for the free stay and watching our favorite girl that weekend!  We love you guys!!