Branson, Day 3

Day 3
Friday, March 23, 2012

On Friday, after breakfast at the hotel, we headed to the Grand Country Fun Spot to meet up with my friend Kim, a/k/a teacherkim!  Kim and I met each other as online friends a long time ago...I'm guessing at least 12 years ago, on a website called scrapbookaddict.  We met in person one other time, also in Branson, in 2003 when my older daughter was a baby.   Our daughters have the same first name.  Kim's daughter is older so Kim gets the cool points for the name, though!  So many things have changed in my life since our first in-person meeting in 2003...overall for the better, although I still mourn some of my lost dreams.  Visiting Branson has a therapeutic effect for me, though, and I appreciate the opportunity to be there more now than ever.  And of course it's always good to spend time with friends, even if you only see them once every 9 years LOL.

So Kim, my sister and I hung out and dished a little about the Haygoods and life in general, and I got a pic of the Two Chesneys.

Next we were headed to go see The Hunger Games movie, but the next showing was sold out so we bought tickets for the 6 pm showing and decided to go have lunch and go back to the Grand Country Fun Spot to play indoor mini-golf upstairs in the black light course.  I have had the opening date for this movie marked on my calendar since the day they announced it.

I've been looking forward to trying the Blue Man Grill after seeing the good reviews posted on the 1branson.com forums, and we were not disappointed! 

I ordered the Ridge Runner Clucker Italiano, which is chicken, marinara sauce & melted provel cheese on grilled panini bread.  Delish!  Absolutely loved the little onion strings.

I think Katie's was the Yokum Yeti Burger.  She liked it pretty well.

The girls ordered off the kids' menu.  Allie chose the Mini Monster Sliders with fries, and Chesney got the Ridge Runner Cluckers with mashed potatoes and a salad.  Chesney said the chicken "tasted like an angel."  The kids' meals also come with dessert which makes the meal well worth the price of around $5 for each kids' meal.

As you can see, the portion sizes are generous.  The staff was very friendly and efficient and we liked the atmosphere and decor inside.  They also serve the kids drinks in what they call "mood cups" which are cups that change color with the temperature and the girls thought they were pretty awesome.  Especially because they get to keep them!  They told us to come by the next day and the Blue Man would be there, and sure enough...

With our bellies full, it was time to work at least a little of that food off by playing mini-golf.

Yeah, I won.  Not that I'm bragging.  Much.  (Yes, I know it's lame to brag about winning when playing against 9 and 7 year olds.)  It's fun to play there, though.  The black light really makes those colors pop and the artwork is fun to look at.  They did a good job designing that course.  I used my Branson Guest Card for buy-one-get-one-free golf games.  It's $7.95 for adults and $6.95 for kids so that's a pretty good savings. 

Speaking of the Branson Guest Card, I used it at the movie theater to get a free small popcorn (with purchase of drink).  I could have used it to get more free popcorns but the first guy I asked said it was one deal per use, so I ordered, then the next guy said I can get as many free popcorns w/drink purchase as I want.  Not a big deal...I know better for next time.  A small drink is $3.50 and the small popcorn is $4 so it's a decent deal.

Between mini-golf and movie time, we relaxed at the hotel for a little while.  Had to play some rounds of Scramble with Friends on my iPhone ya know.  And take a catnap. 

We went to the Walmart on the Strip to get candy to take to the movie and it smells awful in there.  Moldy.  The girls started coughing and Chesney was coughing so much I thought we were going to have to leave and go elsewhere, but then her cough settled down so we grabbed our snacks and got out of there.  I'm sure it's largely from the water damage to the adjoining buildings, but I wonder if Walmart has insulation or something in their ceiling that should have been replaced.  The location of that store is convenient but at this point I'd drive over to Target or the Walmart Supercenter before I'd go back in there.  Hope they get that figured out and fixed.  Here's a pic of the outside:

Ready for the movie:

(Potential spoilers in this paragraph if you haven't read The Hunger Games or seen the movie.)
The movie was great.  I thought they did a great job adapting it from the book.  Jennifer Lawrence turned out to be a great Katniss Everdeen and I loved Josh Hutcherson as Peeta!  Even though there was a lot of violence in the book that had to be brought to the movie in order to translate the story, the movie makers were very restrained and conservative with it and it was very well done.  Allie is still a little on the young side for the subject matter but I had her sit next to me and told her when to expect things might be a little scary, plus I told her that Katniss was not going to die so she wasn't worried about that throughout the movie.  She watches the Walking Dead with me lol so she handled it fine. 

After the movie, we checked out some of the little shops in the IMAX complex and then went back to the hotel room and watched the KU game.  I kept trying to go to sleep but the game was too intense so I stayed up and watched instead!  Rock Chalk Jayhawk!