A Visit with Santa

For the last 17 years, Ashley's family has traveled to Bass Pro Shop in Springfield, MO to get our picture taken with the "real" Santa!  He has a real beard, a wonderful suit with gold buttons, and is surrounded by "real" (dead & stuffed) reindeer...and it's the same guy that does it every year!  Growing up, we did a family picture.  And we still do - Since our family is getting bigger with our husbands and kids, we had 14 people in the picture this year (plus 2 babies in the womb).  Unfortunately, I don't have a copy of this picture.  But here is the picture that our small little Pierce family took with Santa....and then one with just the kids!

Caeden was truly so excited about seeing Santa - the past few years he didn't really care.  And when Santa asked what he wanted for Christmas, he said he wanted a REAL fire truck! (Mom & Dad are thankful that this is what he's been asking for for the past month - phew!)  

We always make a day of it by hanging out at Bass Pro for awhile - the boys love it!  Then we go eat lunch, and stop by Hallmark to pick out our annual Christmas ornaments. 

They have a carousel inside Bass Pro - Here are Caeden/Daddy, along with cousin Emerson and Uncle Caleb riding:

Callie & Papa

Nana & Caeden

 Climbing on a boat

This year, we then decided to head to Silver Dollar City for the afternoon/evening.  Boy, was that a mistake!  In all the years I've been to SDC (including Christmas time), I've never seen it so packed.  We were walking shoulder-to-shoulder the whole time and couldn't get anywhere.  Literally all we did was see 5 minutes of the end of a show, Caeden & Reid got to play with the balls at Geyser Gulch, we watched the parade, and left.   And we were there for 5 hours...so that's all we got done in 5 hours because there were so many people there!  The restaurants and food stands were running out of food!  It was crazy!  One of the employees said she was told there were 23,000 people there that day.  We even got there 2.5 hours after the gates had opened and had to park in employee parking...and when that was full they parked people in a field and at a bank.  I can honestly say it wasn't even enjoyable...we just wanted to leave.  So next year, we're taking off work and going to SDC on a weekday!

BUT at least we had fun at Bass Pro, got to see Santa Clause, and made some memories!