Springfield by the numbers

1,571 - total miles traveled

1:32 a.m. - arrival time in Tulsa Thursday night/Friday morning

35 - my Sleep Number on the bed at the hotel

1 - pillow (MY pillow) left at the hotel in Tulsa.  Boo.

4 - hotel nights

2 - days of school missed by my kids

180 - miles driven back and forth (and back and forth) between Springfield and Branson during the weekend

14 - flying hot rolls caught by my family at Lambert's Cafe, Home of the Throwed Rolls

 17 - of our original 23 team members who were at the movie premiere!  Woohoo! {Yep, I can count. This was the pre-party, and some people had already left for the theater. ;)}



I hate that the flash on this picture made us all look like evil-eyed zombies! 
We were all so happy to see each other all dressed up, with our hair and
make-up done! ;)

 47 - cool-guy handshakes between Jacob and his new idol best friend, Cory Cotton from Dude Perfect

Kloe was hor.ri.fied. at my "inappropriate" choice of....um....undergarments on this day.  Ha!  Sorry babe, you probably should get used to your mom embarrassing you!

0 - movies watched in the car during the drive (can you believe this?)

10,000 - tears shed by movie watchers during the premiere of Man Up and Go

We had such an awesome weekend in Springfield.  Because of time, we didn't do a lot of vacation-y type things while we were there.  We did spend a few hours at the Bass Pro Shop Man-Mall and had a delicious lunch there.  (Where are those pictures??  Ahh, on The Mister's phone.)

We also got to Ride the Ducks in Branson.  That was a lot of fun, and the kids both got a turn driving the boat, which they loved.

It was so good to see so many of my teammates again.  The last time we were all together, we were exhausted, had no makeup on, and were covered in the red dirt of Uganda.  We clean up pretty well, I must say!

And the movie was beyond incredible.  It was amazing to sit in a theater in Springfield, Missouri, while looking at the beautiful faces - and hearing the beautiful voices - of so many people I love from the other side of the world.  And what a precious surprise it was to see my sweet Christopher in the film! 

It made my heart ache for Uganda even more.

Hey, wait. Didn't we have spring break?

Why, yes. Yes we did.

And we went somewhere. And mama didn't blog about it. Well, let's rectify that, shall we?

Since the Mister had gone out of town the weekend before to meet up with some old high school friends and couldn't get off work, and since I'm trying to save my vacation time for my mission trip (in less than two months!), the kids and I took a short, 3-day road trip to Abilene by ourselves.

It was a fun, relaxing get-away, with none of the week-long-big-amusement-park-trip stress and exhaustion. We left on Thursday, and that night we went to a fun little place called Prime Time, which is similar to Main Event but on a much smaller (and more affordable) scale. In addition to the usual bowling, laser tag, and arcade, they also have go-karts, outdoor mini golf, and a Nascar simulator, which was a BIG hit with Jacob. :) Unfortunately, Mama didn't bring the camera. I know, I know....what was I thinking? But it's kinda hard to take pictures while you're barreling around the go-kart track or dueling it out in the laser tag fight of your life. ;)

The next day, we met up with one of Kloe's school friends who moved to Florida 3 years ago, but now is living in Abilene. We all spent the morning at the zoo, then had lunch together and took in a movie that afternoon. You know I love me some zoo pics. :)

These fish were seriously creeping me out.  There were hundreds of them, and they were HUGE.  In fact, they were so thick, the ducks were actually walking on them.

Eww.  Moving on.

The thing I love most about the Abilene zoo is that you can feed the giraffes.  It's so fun! You walk up this taaalll bridge....

...and at the top you can buy giraffe treats (who knew?) - crackers that the giraffes just love. They look like giant, bumpy graham crackers.

Have you ever seen a giraffe's tongue? Let me just say....eeewwwwww. Their tongues are like long, skinny, purple snakes. Guess you have to have a really long tongue when you eat out of trees, yes?  And look at this sweet face - doesn't she look like she's in heaven?  :)

On our last day we visited Buffalo Gap Historical Village.  Such a fun piece of history with houses from the 1800s, an old printing press, school house, chapel, jail, doctor's office, bank, and train station.  I LOVE this sort of thing - imagining the people who used to live and work there is so cool.

We also had fun feeding the goats and chickens at Buffalo Gap.

This ol' meany was a bully and wouldn't let anybody else get any food. I had to distract her while my kids fed the other kids (hahahaha - I crack myself up).

And just before heading home, we stopped at the Frontier Texas museum.

Stampede!

Stagecoach used in Little House on the Prairie.  So fun!

There seemed to be a lot of ewww factor on our trip.

We had a lot of fun.  Despite the fact that the hotel pool was closed (the nerve!).  :)

The end.

For your post-cruising enjoyment

(yep, I took that picture. isn't it the coolest?)

Since I know you've just been chomping at the bit, anxiously waiting to see more pictures from my cruise (you have been, haven't you?), without further ado (further adieu? no - that means goodbye), here ya go.

Key West....



Look! Just like Gilligan's Island! :)





I loved the architecture in Key West. Many, many of the houses and other buildings had this sort of design. I'm not a real architecture person....anyone know what this style of building is called? I love it. Would love to live in a house that looks like this. :)



This cute mama hen and her babies were just strolling on the street, hiding from the sun under this little step. Roosters and hens were everywhere, just walking around the streets of downtown Key West. So fun! (maybe not if you live there)






Cozumel.


Our neighbors in port....




Ooooo....niiiice hair. I loved this cool iguana! Her name was Maria. I'm sad that the pictures of ME holding her were on my mom's camera.


This is the hotel where The Mister and I stayed on our honeymoon. Isn't that fun? :)


On the ship...

Life boat drill. Whew! So glad we didn't have to use those!


My mom and I, ready for dinner the first night....


....and for the formal dinner.


Watermelons! How cool are these?


The parade of nations. There were over 50 countries represented by the crew. So cool!


And...I forgot in the star parade in my last post....Rebecca St. James was there too.



AND Mark Harris. For some weird reason I don't have any pictures of him at all. But he was amazing, and if you don't know who he is you can see one of his videos on this post of mine from last June.

And our host was none other than Karen Kingsbury! I'm a little embarrassed to admit I've never read a single one of her books, but I will be now. She gave everyone in the Premier Christian Cruises group a free copy of her new book Take Four...which of course is the 4th in a series. Good marketing, huh? ;)



Karen is fabulous. I loved her. She is warm and friendly and easy to talk to. She has such a gentle spirit - someone you would want to be friends with. Just being around her and hearing her speak made me want to read all her books.

During the cruise we watched the movie Like Dandelion Dust (click to watch the trailer), based on her book with the same title, and I have to tell you - I came this.close. to having to get up and leave. Oh.My.Goodness. It was soooo hard to watch. Really hard stuff. About a 6-year-old boy. I almost couldn't take it. In case you don't remember, I'm one of those weirdos who actually DOES want to know how a movie (or a book) ends before I start it, but I know most of you DON'T want to know so I won't spoil it. But go watch the trailer and then you can decide if you want to see the movie. Or read the book. [I just watched the trailer, and something is messed up with my computer so I didn't have any sound, and I still almost couldn't even watch the whole thing.]

And that's a wrap. Looking back over this post, it appears that I LOVED everything, and everything was SO COOL! haha :) Loved the ports. Loved the baby sea turtles. Loved Karen and Lysa and Renee. Loved Shanti, Melissa, Nicole, Rebecca and Mark. Loved the desserts. Loved the ocean.

Oh yeah, and did I tell you I tried escargot for the first time? Didn't love that.