Bigtime Branson 4th Anniversary and Davis' first night away

We decided it was time to push our baby bird out of the nest and spend a couple of nights away from him. We shipped him of to Mimi and Paw Paw and headed to Branson for our fourth wedding anniversary. I was a little nervous...only because I'm the kind of person who would have been mad at myself if I couldn't
hack it away from my kid for a night or two. I really didn't want to be that girl who is somewhere doing something fun and can't stop thinking about her baby.

As it turns out, I don't mind being away from Davis at all.  In fact, a little sunshine, a wild blue beer and a couple of days of uninterrupted conversation with my husband is really nice. Thursday (our anniversary) we went up to Lambert's cafe "home of the throwed rolls" in Ozark Missouri.  Just so you have a frame of reference....one of Aubrey's main criteria for ranking restaurants is portion size so the fact that this place hurls all you can eat rolls at your head and parades servers by your table with an endless supply of macaroni and tomatoes, black eyed peas, sorghum, potatoes and onions, and the best fried okra Aubrey has ever tasted is a major draw for my husband.  Just check out the size of my skillet plate.

My 16oz chicken fried steak was bigger than my head! Needless to say we were absolutely stuffed when we left. We had planned to go down to the landing for some drinks but instead we headed to the condo to do something we haven't done in a long time....watch the scripts spelling bee!  Seriously. And it was awesome. So we're officially old and boring. By the way, the words those kids spell are ridiculous.


After we recovered from our soul food hangover and wild night of spelling we went to The Great American Chicken Palace for lunch. Yes folks, they have the largest carved chicken in the world.

Branson 76 strip

King Kong is new at the wax museum. Aubrey and I were impressed.  Easily amazed?  Maybe, but where else can you see the largest wooden chicken in the world, a wax King Kong and still be in bed by nine to watch the spelling bee championships.

That night we went on a romantic date to Rocky's Italian restaurant where they kicked us out promptly at 9:05. Gotta love Branson. Good news is that now there is actually nightlife in Branson, which we avoided and opted to sit on a bench by the river staring at fountains and eating ice cream.  The fountains weren't running because of recent flood damage, but if you squinted, the sea of empty metal fountain fixtures looked a little like art.  We sat there for hours and talked. Who says you can't find romance in Branson? It ended up being one of my favorite trips to Branson.  Its like my favorite mommy friend Jenny says- I got a little piece of myself back.   In this case, the piece that can just sit on a bench talking with my husband for three hours and call it a date.

We went to pick Davis up and realized he didn't appear to miss us much either because he slept all night, both nights and was his usual smiling self for MiMi and Paw Paw.  Clearly the full page, single space typed, detailed schedule we sent with him kept him right on track.  He did manage to poo out of his pj's the first night. Well, no one is perfect.