Magic Dragon Car Show - Lake Ozarks

This past weekend was the Magic Dragon car show held at the Lake of the Ozarks. I wondered why they called it "Magic Dragon". Some people say the Lake of the Ozarks looks like a big dragon from the air as it winds through the Missouri hills. Several years ago it became known as The Land of the Magic Dragon. At their very first car show in 1987 they used the name Magic Dragon and it's stayed with them ever since. I thought it might be fun to take Melissa, Jamie, Violet, Khloe and Lola for a weekend at the lake. I booked a condo at Southwood Shores which just happened to be down the street from Jamie's Grandma Barb.

So Friday night we picked up Grandma Barb and took her to dinner at Li'l Rizzo's Italian restaurant. I didn't make a very good selection for my meal but Melissa, Jamie and Grandma Barb had the chicken parmesan and said it was delicious. After dinner we dropped off Grandma Barb and headed to the Bagnel Dam Strip to see the cars. I remember going to the strip many weekends as a child but if you blindfolded me and put me in the middle of the strip today, I would have no idea where I was. It has changed so much.

After walking the strip and looking at the cars we stopped at the ice cream parlor for a little snack. I think Violet had more ice cream on her face than in her cone. It was the favorite part of the night for her.

And then we tried to get her to pose with me in the giant chair. I should have been paying a bit more attention to my own pose.

On Saturday we spent the whole morning at the outlet mall. While Jamie headed back to the car show, Melissa and I drove through Steak 'N Shake for a quick lunch. But Violet couldn't even make it through the wait for our food. She fell asleep. So we decided to eat our lunch in the parking lot and head back to the mall. Melissa and I did a sort of "tag team" shopping while Violet napped. Melissa would go into the store, pick out something she liked, then come back to the car while I went in to see her choices. At some stores I think the sales people were getting a little leery.

Later we went back to the condo to pick up Jamie and headed to Miner Mike's - the kid's arcade at the lake. Besides the room full of arcade games, they had this giant maze. And even though they had many different types of slides, we couldn't get Violet out of the ball pit.

Jamie had to leave Saturday night and as he was loading his car, the ducks came around for dinner. So from the steps of our condo, Violet fed the ducks. I think I used the excuse of going to the car show just so I could go shopping at the outlet mall. Whatever works!