Friday, July 15, 2011

Branson Trip-Friday






Our last full day of vacation that doesn't involve driving a looong distance. What a bummer! After we got up and ready this morning, Sean Kaelyn and I went to a few t-shirt shops to do a little shopping. We didn't find much in the short amount of time we had, but we got a pretty red shirt for Kaelyn that has Branson written in sparkly rhinestones or something. She liked it. After that short outing we had a quick lunch and everyone but my parents and Kaelyn headed to the theater for the Noah show. I had heard it was 2 1/2 hours long and there was no way I wanted to pay that much for a ticket and not get to see it so I figured it was best to leave Kaelyn behind. My parents are staying an extra day anyways so they can see it on their own then.




We arrived early at 12:15 for the behind the scenes tour, which started at 1. It was a really interesting tour that took us, well, behind the scenes. We got to see some of the sets and learn a little about how they built them. We got to stand on the stage and see some of their marks and we even got to see inside the turtle costume. The show uses live, animatronic, and costumed-people animals. The information we got on the tour made us curious to see the show. It takes them 3-5 years to build the sets, get the script and songs written etc. It's quite a production. After seeing it, we can understand why. And we also understand why it is the most expensive show in the area!




After the back stage tour, we had an hour before the show so we went to a nearby craft mall to shop around. It was lame so we didn't do much shopping, but at least it was something to do and somewhere to go for a little while.




Then, it was time for the show. The sets were simply amazing. We couldn't take pictures, of course, because it's all copywrited. But they were SO neat. They had live animals running around on stage from time to time and they led them up and down the aisles at times too. The very end of the first act was Noah and his family loading the ark so there were a lot of animals involved in that. Then, at the beginning of the first act, the revealed the set for the interior of the ark. It had stuff all the way around us on both sides. It was the coolest thing I've ever seen, set wise. The main level was real animals like camels, sheep, goats, ducks, pigs. The second and third levels were animatroinic like elephants, giraffes, penguins, etc. There were also real people in gorilla and monkey costumes. There was so much to see it was hard to know where to look.




The play itself was pretty cool and the music was nice as well, but the sets really stole the show. The theater group itself is really neat, it's all Christian based and their mission is just to spread the word of God. On the backstage tour the guide said that they have understudies and back ups for every role but it's not a competitive thing. The understudies get to go on at least once a week and be on stage because it's not about who's better, it's a higher purpose. I thought that was really neat. The whole atmosphere was very cohesive with a single purpose and it was obvious they had their stuff together and their aim in the right place. It was called Sight and Sound Theatre and I would love to see more of their plays in the future.




After the big show, we came home and ate a quick supper, took a picture in front of the house, and went swimming! It was after 7 when we got there, but it was our last chance, so we went anyways. It sounded like Kaelyn had a great nap and ate a really good supper so I figured she'd be good to go for awhile. She had a blast at the pool again and it was hard to leave.




We hope to get things packed up and hit the road first thing in the morning. We'll see how that goes! I sure don't want to go home. It'll be nice to get things organized and back in place at home, but I don't really want vacation to end. It's nice not being alone and having lots of different things to entertain Kaelyn...and me. :) But what do you do, vacation only comes every so often! Take what you can get and enjoy it while it lasts! We sure have enjoyed this one!

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