Christian's Birthday Weekend

 Where to begin???  James and I (me) concocted this plan to surprise Christian with an awesome birthday weekend to Branson.  I called a couple of his friends' moms (in secrecy) about a month in advance to get the ball rolling.  I told them we were keeping it on the DL.  He didn't suspect a thing...Muhahahaha!  His birthday fell on a Tuesday which was also Showstoppers (the big music concert) so we took him and Tiffany with us to Pizza Hut, gave him his gifts and all that and he was satisfied.  Until....his friend Sterling's mom accidentally texted him instead of me...she didn't exactly give it away but she said something like "I talked to Sterling and he's up for this weekend".  Well then Christian questioned me, saying, "You're up to something".  That was Tuesday afternoon, I refused to tell him what was going to take place, his friends made it even more fun...they wouldn't tell him anything or even give hints...well, Jeremy said (on Friday to Christian) that his mom told him to pack swimming trunks which was even confusing to him for November.  Fast forward to Friday after school...I picked up all three boys, Cameron had basketball practice so we just ran to Wal-Mart, they bought candy - yeah, that's what teenage boys need...Candy!  Sterling and Jeremy (the friends) brought their over night bags, of course, Christian still didn't know, he thought they were just spending the night.  We go back to pick up Cameron and then we were on our way, we thought maybe the direction we were headed would prove to give some hints but he still wasn't getting it.  We programmed it into the GPS to which he replied, "It's gonna take us 2 1/2 hours to get there?  Where are we going?"  I had packed the boys' bags (they didn't mind, I knew what to get)  We had to finally just tell him because all the hints we were giving him were going over his head (*brain fairy).
It was getting on to suppertime and the kiddos were getting hungry so we stopped in Buffalo at Pizza Hut, this is where the fun really began.  The boys discovered a vending machine with facial hair in it.  Each of them purchased a bit of faux fur for the reasonable price of 75 cents.  We told them Branson Landing was our first stop and they decided to wait till we got there to apply them to their sweet little baby faces.  This was the result.

 These things stuck good, Cameron's and Jeremy's looked most like their own hair color, Sterling's was too red (uh, orange) and Christian's made him look like he belonged in the 70s.  They exited the van and we followed behind watching the people passing by.  The looks on their faces were priceless, we felt like we were on a hidden camera show.

Cameron reminds me of someone, I just can't think of who??? Chuck Norris? I don't know.

 We went to our friend's condo and the boys went to the game room still sporting their manly men facial hair.  They returned shortly to change into their trunks to swim in the indoor pool.  Cameron jumped in with his goatee on...
The next morning we went down the road to a Laser Tag and Glo-Minigolf place.  James and I joined in on the fun and sure enough James won both Laser Tag and Minigolf.

 What I liked best was the cool names we had Venom, Viper, Bond, etc. I was Crush (yes, like on American Gladiators - the 80s version).

 The boys spotted this Adopt-a-Highway sign along Highway 65 on the way to Branson.  We told them we might stop on the way back so they could take a picture.  Little did we know there wasn't a sign on the other side of the hwy, James had to turn around and then go a few more miles out of the way to find a ramp back...but it was worth it.

 We stopped at Springfield on the way home and went to our favorite movie theater and watched "Despicable Me" again!  Worth it!  And our guests hadn't seen it yet.

 Our last stop was a little shopping at the mall...what a great weekend!