Happy Daddy Day!

For Father's Day we (AKA the entire Malone clan) decided to take a road trip to St. James to visit the Trout Park.  We started with lunch on top of a BIG cliff overlooking the stream.  Although it was a pretty view with 2 toddlers in tow it was a bit scary!  After lunch we headed down to the stream where I captured these pictures of our stay.....



I think everyone in the entire family had a great time!  Its always nice get everyone together.  I think next time we might hold off on the fishing and just feed the trout and have lunch....the kiddo's (AKA Clare) were more concerned with getting in the stream than fishing!

I'll leave you with a saying that I found....

"I never knew how much I loved your daddy until I saw how much he Loved you" 

I think any wife who has seen the love daddy's have for their children would say this to be true!

Happy Daddy's Day!

Pickles and Cucumbers

The title of my post does not reflect in all actuality what I will be blogging about but I will explain....!We had the privilege of taking a little getaway for the last time before we become a family of 4. Its amazing that when you getaway for even a small amount of time you learn so much about each other. I for one was very proud of myself for turning my email off on my phone to allow myself some much needed family time (which Paul was completly shocked but he learned that I can do it!). For Paul he was floored when he found out that Pickles were made from CUCUMBERS!  Thats right...he had lived for almost 31 years without knowing this.  Being a major Pickle lover I couldn't believe I had never talked to him about how pickles were made - hints the name of my post! ANYWAYS.... 
Branson was always a place I went as a child and when Paul and I met I introduced him to the small town of shopping, boating, fishing, and shows.  He instantly fell in love with this town, after all, where else can a man and women be so happy in the same place...fishing, lake, and shopping???!!! 

Accommodations:


We are in LOVE with this hotel!  Its the Hilton Promenade at Branson Landing and the staff are always so nice to upgrade us to a condo with a separate bedroom and living space which is a MUST when traveling with children. 
It also has a "lake/landing" view which we really enjoy along with lots of shopping and dining places.  We literally walked to dinner from our hotel.






Day 1:
We had dinner at our most favorite resturant on the landing....Texas Land and Cattle!  Its a great place, family friendly, good food, and has a lake view!

And these days since we will be adding a BOY to the family, Clare's bows seem to be getting bigger....why NOT?  If she is going to be the only girl we are going to go all out with girl stuff!


Day 2:
Because we have never been to Branson with kids before we took this chance to try out the kid things there were to do.  We headed to the water park on the 2nd day and sadly I have NO pictures because we put the camera and my phone in a locker (I stole this one from their website) : (
However I did get a picture of Daddy and Clare checking out the weather before we left for the water park.
Clare did love the water park but we wanted to keep her on schedule with her nap so we were only there for 3 hours.

Day 3:
On our third day we decided to check out the "beach".  We found a wonderful spot at Moonshine Beach and had just as much fun - more fun - than we did at the water park!

Day 4:
We spent the morning doing some shopping, looking at fish at Bass Pro Shops, and then planned to attend the Dixie Stampede for dinner and a show.  However, mommy learned a good lesson....BUY tickets ahead of time because these places sell out!  It worked out for the best becasue Daddy got some much needed fishing time in and we got to take a duck ride on the lake where Daddy got to drive the Boat!

LOOK! Fishy!

 We had changed clothes to go the dinner but when we found out the Dixie Stampede was sold out thats when we dropped Daddy at the lake and I attemped to have a Mother Daughter shopping trip...but Miss. Clare was having NOTHING to do with shopping.  I guess her mind was with her Daddy back at the stream because when she laid her eyes on him when we got back it was all over from there.  You can't really tell from these pictures how much she loves him so hopefully I explained it well enough : )

Day 5:
We left to go back home this day to start the kiddo's rooms.  Clare's new big girl room needed to be painted and Dominic's room needed his drawers filled with itsy bity clothes.  So we spend all weekend getting rooms together (which still are not done...pictures will come when everything is hung and in order)
Until then here are some random pictures from our trip.....

Referring back to lesson learned at the beginning of the post....Packing is one thing I need practice on especially with adding another child soon.  Our poor bellman was such a trooper about all of our luggage!

And Clare really didn't need ALL these SHOES....

Could she get any more beautiful?

 My FAVORITE picture yet of Daddy and Clare

The family time was one of the greatest parts about our entire trip but something even better that I will always remember is Paul saying "I was born to be a dad!"  I continue to see the bond he is creating with Clare and he's right; some dads are just born to be dads and he is 100% one of them!