Leah and I at Silver Dollar City
Hello again! Things are still going well here in Springfield. I am loving my clinical at Coxhealth, and especially enjoying my CI. She is very good at directing me in my thinking without making me feel...dumb. Things are progressing very quickly, and I am already taking over many of the tasks. I am able to read the patient's chart, gather history, and perform an eval, followed up by the paperwork and entering the info into the computer. I know it doesn't sound too exciting, but I am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel! That's a first for me! As much as I dreaded this acute care rotation, I am really enjoying it!
This weekend my family came of for a visit over the long Labor Day weekend. On friday night they arrived around 7. I had to be at work at 7 that morning, so I was pretty exhausted on Friday night! Needless to say, I wasn't the most social butterfly. Aunt Julie made burritos for dinner and later on everyone learned how to play the domino-game, "chicken-foot".
On Saturday morning my family loaded up for a trip to Branson. We started off our journey with a stop at Branson Zipline. A friend had done the zipline in branson and highly recommended it. So, we decided to try it out. Once we signed in, they took us downstairs to get suited up in our gear. There were 5 others in our group, along with my family. Then, they took us up the mountain in a military vehicle that could climb the steep, curvy road. Once at the top, we had a lesson on how to do everything, along with some history stories to stall time. ;-) When we were ready to take off, we headed across the rope bridge to the first tower. Since we were connected, it was fun to jump and make the bridge bounce. It made it very hard for the person in front of you to walk this way! (sorry mom) Once we reached the tower, we got our first glance, and it was a LONG way down! One-by-one they connected us and told us how to steer ourselves through the air. When it was our turn, we climbed up on the box, they hooked us up, and off we went! It was sooo much fun! The most entertaining part was the landing. If you were going to fast, you had to dynamite (spread out your arms/legs) to make yourself slow down. If you were going too slow, you had to cannonball to speed yourself up. Needless to say, not everyone had the dynamite concept down for the first landing, and we got to witness several crash landings. By far the best part! The first zipline was the steepest/fasted and from there we made our way down the mountain, taking 3 other ziplines. We had a blast and I would definitely love to go again!
Family Pic while waiting on one of the towers
After leaving the zipline, we headed into Branson to find a show for that night and our hotel. We had wanted to see "SIX", a highly-recommended new show, but they didn't have a show that night. So, we finally decided to stick with a classic, "The Presley's". After getting tickets and making our way through the hectic traffic, we finally made it to our hotel. It wasn't the nicest on the block, but it was very clean and did the job! After a brief nap, we headed out to dinner at T.Bones Steakhouse. We ate fairly quickly and headed to the show. We were very early (VERY unusual for my family) so we walked up and down the strip a little. The show started at 8 and it was a very good performance. A perfect combination of country and gospel singing, very talented musicians, and of course some great comedy! We all really enjoyed it!
Family Pic before entering Silver Dollar City
Sunday morning we were up early to head to Silver Dollar City! After a breakfast buffet, we headed that way, but quickly were in stand-still traffic! It took an hour and a half to get there, but we finally made it! We toured the whole park and enjoyed a gorgeous fall day. The weather was perfect and the flowers were beautiful. We looked through all the shops and watched all the homemade items being formed. We always enjoy watching the ladies make ceramic pottery, and this time we purchased a very pretty pie plate for me, but have to wait until Christmas! We also purchase a large amount of salt water taffy! YUM! We also enjoyed riding many of the rides. The barn yard swing was very fun, but the 2 roller coasters were a little extreme, especially wildfire. It was very fast and went upside down 4 different times! Oh my! Overall we had a very great day.
We had SO much fun!
Once we were back in Springfield we made a quick stop by Bass Pro Shops, but the store was closing, so Dad and Leah went back on Monday morning. Sunday night we enjoyed Chicken and Dumplings and another game of chicken-foot. We were all exhausted and called it a night rather early.
Monday morning dad and leah headed back to Bass Pro Shops, while mom visited with Aunt Julie and I. When they returned it was time to hit the road. After saying goodbye and waving them off, the weekend just seemed to pass all too quickly. It was very good to have some family time, and I will see them again in a couple weeks.
Until then, Aunt Julie and I are headed out to Ozark to the Overstock Merchandise store to scope out some good deals. That's all for now. Life is good.
