The Kilps Family: Benetti Family Missouri Vacation

Before I share about our vacation, we had a pretty major development happen in our family: Graydon got braces!

He has already been looking so much older lately and the braces just amplified it.

Looking good Grady Boy!

Now, on to vacation photos! This may possibly be one of the longest blog posts I have ever done!

Missouri: Day One

The kids and I left Indiana around 9am on Friday, June 18th. (Andy would be flying out after church a few days later to join us.) I didn't sleep the best the night before and hadn't been feeling the greatest, so the eight-hour drive felt extra long to me. The picture that kept coming to my mind was sitting on the couch, holding a cold beverage in my hand, and closing my eyes. That thought just made the drive feel longer, so it was such a happy sight when we finally arrived at our rental house. This house looks small from the front, but it fit our 20+ people and each bedroom had it's own full bathroom!

Graydon had just gotten braces a couple days prior, so his mouth was still feeling a little sore. Now there are two braces-wearers in the family!

Our youngest nephew, Bennett, had gotten so much bigger and stronger since the last time we saw him. He's only five-months-old here and already so close to crawling!

We all got a kick out of this speed limit.

View from the back balcony.

We had a lot of great conversations on this balcony throughout the week and it was definitely a favorite hang-out spot.

Missouri: Day Two

Our development had two pools - an outdoor and an indoor (with a large outdoor opening on one wall). The pools were nice, but this water was cold! I was content to just dip my feet in.

Each family took turns with dinner each night. The Kreusers went first with their delicious pulled pork! They also had build-your-own ice cream sandwiches for dessert!

Missouri: Day Three

It's such a joy to watch the cousins have fun together - especially since they don't get to see each other very often.

We took a lot of walks - sometimes twice a day. This was the view from a walk with my dad, Jodi, Bella, and me. We were looking for an access point to the lake below. The one we found was a little far away. A few days later, we discovered the closer one on a different walk.

More pool time!

My mom brought all sorts of goodies and toys. One of them was this huge beach ball. Between Curtis, Bella, and finally me - we got it blown up!

This cinema area was a pretty cool space in the lowest level.

Into the afternoon, my dad and several of us visited a couple of wineries and did some wine tasting.

My dad had each of us pick our favorite bottle and he bought it for us. Even on Father's Day, he continues to give and give. We have the best dad!

We arrived at this winery fifteen minutes before they closed. We all enjoyed this one the best.

It had this beautiful view!

Branko is such a smiley baby!

These two bring the average age of our family down a few years. It is SO much fun to have babies in the family again!

Another evening walk. I missed this one because I was heading to the airport to pick up Andy.

Missouri: Day Four

The main event of the day was the kids' Nailed It Challenge! We also took some family photos in the middle of it all (those will come on a later post).

Jeff and Steph have a friend who is a professional baker. She created some adorable cookies for the kids to replicate.

The kids drew names for teams. Bella and Rose made team "Brose."

Nora and Sydney made up the "Shadow Wolves."

And Ava, Graydon, and Curtis were team "Brace Face & Curtis."

All seven participants!

Each team was given the recipe and ingredients. The first part of the challenge was making the dough. Those of us watching laughed so hard - these kids were hysterical as they tried to figure it all out!

While the dough chilled, we went out and took our family photos. Afterward, it was time to cut out the shapes and bake them!

Final step: Decorating!

"Brose" decorated the pear and carrot.

"Shadow Wolves" decorated the watermelon and pineapple.

"Brace Face and Curtis" decorated the apple and grapes.

Grandpa and Branko kept each other entertained during the decorating.

Time for the teams to showcase their work.

Nailed It!

Our four judges.

"What are your thoughts, Branko?"

Serious deliberation.

And the winners were. . .

SHADOW WOLVES!!!

Later that evening, we went on another walk/hike.

The cinema room was a great place to view the Bucks game.

Guy time on the balcony.

Missouri: Day Five

Some of the guys went mountain biking on some of the mornings. After Andy got to town, he joined them one morning. Each of the guys do a lot of mountain biking at home, so Andy was definitely the least experienced. But he did it!

Some of us went tubing that day. This little shop nearby is really cute. It's hard to read, but the area above Bella's hand in this photo says, "Bella's Hat Shop."

Graydon will probably not be happy that I'm posting this photo, but it makes me laugh and I can't help myself!

Time for tubing!

That evening, we explored Branson Landing.

Every hour in the center of the landing, there is a fountain show put to music.

We got some snow-cones and ice cream while waiting for it to start.

One fun activity was this Mirror Corn Maze. This was such a unique, crazy experience.

It felt like you were walking down a long hallway only to run into yourself.

At one point, I bumped into someone. I turned to say, "excuse me," and discovered that it was myself who I bumped into!

At the end of the night, we caught another fountain show. This time, it was all lit up!

Missouri: Day Six

This was boating day! We rented two pontoon boats and spent four hours on the lake!

I'm starting to relax a little. Boating/tubing always makes me a little nervous at first.

A little worn out after all that sunshine and water.

My mom brought some tie-dye kits, so the kids did that while we worked on dinner.

Andy and I were in charge of dinner that night - we made pizza. After prepping a few pizzas, we started baking - only the oven wasn't completely warming up. After some trial and error and even attempting to cook one in an air fryer (Thanks Pat!), Scott had the idea of grilling them. That's what we did. Dinner was definitely delayed that night, but I was really relieved we were still able to provide it!

After dinner, we had some family milestones to acknowledge. A family our size comes with a lot of celebrations and my mom made sure that every recent event was celebrated: birthdays, first communions, graduations, and anniversaries. She is so thoughtful and does so much to make everyone feel special.

Here is Curtis receiving his birthday present.

And Graydon receiving his graduation present.

This was our last night in Missouri, so we took one last walk.

Here is my Dad collecting rocks. He had a little collection going on the front porch. When he travels, he likes to pick a favorite rock or two to take home as a souvenir. I love that he does that and I loved watching his pile grow.

On the drive to Missouri, Jodi's family and Scott stopped at a fudge factory in the town of Uranus, MO. It sounded like such a comical shop as they described store employees shouting, "Thanks for picking Uranus!" as they left. They got Curtis this shirt from there as part of his birthday gift!

All the cousins who weren't babies shared this room for the week!

Missouri: Day Seven

This was the day we packed it all up and moved out - each of us going our own ways. The final day of vacation is the worst. I do not like it one bit. And my family does not waste time. I think the last of us rolled out at the late hour of 8:15am! It was probably for the best since we all have 9ish hours of travel ahead of us.

Instead of heading home to Indiana, we were on our way up to Wisconsin to visit with the Kilps side of our family. On our way up, we decided to stop in Uranus and it did not disappoint!