First Some Fun and then Goodbyes

Friday, July 8, 2016
Very early this morning two of our children and their families were back on the road and heading for home.  Sue, Tim and the boys left around 4:00 this morning and Dan, Jen and the girls left around 8:00.  Both have to be home for other commitments this weekend.  Rachel and Abbi are heading to camp on Saturday so need time to go home, wash clothes and repack for that adventure.  But on the way they had made arrangements to meet a school friend in the St. Louis area.  She had been in online classes with both Abbi and Rachel.  Below is a picture with Abigail Goosen.  They finally got home around 10:00 pm while Sue and Tim came home in a horrible storm arriving around 6:00 pm.

Meanwhile Beth and her family and Janet with hers set off for the Titantic Museum this morning and enjoyed their tour for a couple of hours.  Dean was given the passenger name of Bill Thayer (his last name) so had extra fun seeing what happened to him.  His son survived.

Then the two families went to Pasghetti's for lunch. The kids had fun with the outdoor meat ball and noodles as seen below

Meanwhile we began the process of getting ready for the road - not to drive a long distance but to change campgrounds as we couldn't stay at the Table Rock campground any longer (no space).  So we moved to the Turkey Creek Escapee's park in Hollister which was just on the other side of Lake Taneycomo from where we were.  In fact, it was less than a couple of miles from the Lake of the Ozarks College we visited earlier in the week and that is only a mile or so from Branson Landing where we watched the fountains last night.

Once we were set up and had a bite of lunch, we set off for the Dick Clark American Bandstand theater where we met Beth, Dean and the boys for the 3:00 show.  We got there just minutes before it started as it took us 50 minutes to travel the 4 miles from our campground.  The traffic was horrible!!!!  Our seats were in the first row of the balcony in the center - actually comfortable chairs at a small table as food is served up there during the show.  We enjoyed drinks as we watched the wonderful Legends show with performers in the rolls of Elvis, Kenny Chesnie, Taylor Swift, the Blues Brothers, Johnny Cash, and Michael Jackson.  The lighting and sets were wonderful as were the supporting dancers who must have had 30 costume changes during the 2 plus hours of the performance.  Afterwards they made themselves available for pictures.  Below are Beth and I with "
Taylor Swift".

and here I am with "Johnny Cash"

Meanwhile, Janet, Jack and their three children enjoyed driving go carts until the rains came.  You'll note in these pictures how dark it was getting because of the coming storm.

Once the storm ended, Jack took Anders and Dagny to this zipline ride across Lake Taneycomo.

Meanwhile we enjoyed some time with Janet and Karsten.  But he soon needed to go to bed and then Beth and the boys left to start their packing as they were hoping to leave by 5:00 in the morning. Dean had already gone to bed.

Once Jack and the kids returned we had a quick little birthday party for Janet and Anders (her birthday is tomorrow and Anders celebrates on July 13) before leaving and letting them get packed up and off to bed as they too were leaving in the morning.