Six

We are enjoying our vacation so much! I especially love the time it gives me with my children, without all the distractions of day-to-day life. Here are a few highlights from our first full day in Branson.

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The above photo was taken on Sunday night while we were watching Inkheart on DVD.

We slept in until 10:00 Monday morning. It was so nice to spend a morning luxuriating in bed with no rush to do anything. In this picture, I had just woken Dylan and Jacob.
As soon as they were up, the boys did a few chores for me and then headed over to the recreation center to play some tennis and take a swim. The tennis didn't last long. We just aren't used to this much humidity.

Sarah stayed with me at the condo to check her Facebook while I got some laundry started. Then we wandered over to the rec center to check on the guys.

After that, I went into the building and used the WorldMark guest computer to take a look at the most recent post on my blog, the one about our resort here.

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I was horrified! The blog was a mess; the words were wrapped around in weird places and the descriptions weren't attached to their correct photos! Naturally, I spent half an hour immediately cleaning it all up.

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My new laptop has a wide screen, which distorts the photos, and apparently it wreaked havoc with the positioning of words and pictures in the blog. Until I return home to my desktop, my vacation posts will be in this simplified format: centered pictures with paragraphs beneath. It's harder to mess that up!

In the late afternoon yesterday (Monday), we went shopping at WalMart and a grocery store called Jubilee, supplying our kitchen for the rest of the week.
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After dinner we headed into Branson to see a show called "Six." We'd heard it was great, voted the best new show in Branson for the year.

I'm making sure to hand the camera to the kids once in awhile to include myself in some of our vacation photos.

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I learned my lesson after I realized we spent 11 days on vacation in 1995--traveling to Iowa, Chicago, Lake Michigan, Brookfield Zoo--and only took one picture of me on that whole trip! Almost as if I weren't even there...

Here we are waiting patiently for the show to start. By the time it began, the theater was completely packed.

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"Six" features 6 brothers, the Knudsens, who have unusual singing talent. They are completely unaccompanied by any band or soundtrack, but you would think they had a full orchestra behind them. The brothers themselves make all the sounds of the intruments with their voices, from drums to bass to trumpets to electric guitar. It was astounding.

My sons, who would normally think this sort of thing is lame, were completely entranced for the full two-and-a-half hours. They insisted we had to have all three of the group's CDs.

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"Six" was very entertaining, with plenty of humor and slapstick to go along with their incredible talent.

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Then they shared a video of their family, which actually includes 10 brothers (no sisters), and they dedicated a song called "Love Times Ten" (written by one of the six) to their mother, who died of cancer at age 52 several years ago. Their father was in the audience. It was so touching.

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Although I'd never heard of "Six" before, while watching the video I suddenly had the thought that this was an LDS family. It wasn't anything blatantly mormon in the film, just a feeling.

When the show ended, Jacob and Dylan bought their CDs and had them signed by all 6 brothers, who came out for autographs and photos with any fans who remained. What great guys they were!

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I ended up having a nice talk with the teenage daughter of one of the performers (she sold us the CDs), and she confirmed that they are LDS. When you're LDS, it's always fun to run into other people of your faith. I also had a visit with one of the "Six" brothers, who wondered if we were from Mesa and actually knew where Show Low is located!

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It was a great night. We're all glad we went!