Kansas City Part 2

Hello again,
Yes, I am still on a quest to bring my blog as up to date as possible.  January is always a very slow month for us in terms of photo worthy events, so I am confident that I CAN accomplish what seemed impossible.  I am now into late November in terms of my photos to blog and I am pretty proud of the progress made of late (pat, pat on the back).  Here we go with Kansas City part 2

We spent A LOT of time up around the Legends Outlet Mall area.  It was across from a beautiful Nascar speedway and a construction zone for a new soccer arena.  It is obvious that at certain times of year, this place is hopping!  Not so much on a blustery November day.   We loved this area because of the attraction you will see coming up.

Sarah thought this gigantic Christmas ornament was cool so we snapped a shot of her with it.  Notice that we are the only ones around on this week day.  I guess everyone else is at work!

We went multiple times to the TREX cafe.  It is like the Rain forest Cafe, but it is solely devoted to Dinosaurs.  We at there once and it is pretty cool.  There is a volcanic eruption once every hour or so!  There is an ice age area, an ocean area, and the jungle.  The girls looooved this place because they were able to...

play in the sand and...

Dig for dinosaur bones!  They also had a small cave to explore creatures.  All for a nominal fee of course.  As is the usual, Sarah made friends with a little guy there and talked about him for the rest of the trip.

Another cool place we visited to pass the time was "Monkey Bizness".  For those of you who have never heard of it, it is a cross between Monkey Joes and the Kids Zone at the Lexington Athletic Club.  I enjoyed the small kids area immensely.  It allowed Sarah to bounce and swing to her hearts content, while Leah played safely on age appropriate toys.  I wish we had something similar around here.

The swinging area was definitely my big girls favorite area (along with the giant inflatable slide of course).
Not all days there were super duper.  On Sunday, BOTH of my girls got sick within 30 minutes of one another.  Chris and I took turns going to church and allowed them to recuperate.  Unfortunately, in a two bedroom apartment with one tote full of toys and no DVD player, the girls had to get creative with their sick day.   Sarah adorned herself with every hair bow we brought on the trip!

Once everyone was well (yay!) and Chris was back to work (boo!)  we headed to Science City in Union Station.  What a beautiful historic building this was!  It reminds me of Cincinnati's union station.

They had put their Christmas trees on display and we spent a long time just admiring the beauty. 

   Finally, we found the place we were looking for... Science City.  I must say, I was a little underwhelmed after the great time we had a the FREE St. Louis museum.

It was really pretty and had lots of fun places for big kids to learn and play, but their little kids area left a lot to be desired. 

Sarah did like the Escher exhibit.  She didn't understand everything, but she LOVED this mirror trick that made her body disappear.

To my surprise, Sarah was pretty scared of the caves there.  She is growing more afraid of the dark every time we encounter something like this.  We just avoided this area.

The biggest hit was the put put golf zone.  Leah loved crawling around and Sarah honed her skills.

On the way out, Sarah chose her two favorite trees.  Of course, both were.....

Pink!  No shock there.

What trip to Kansas would be complete without a drive to Kansas University or as Chris puts it " the place where it all began"   I think he was referring to the great sport of basketball.

I was not so amused.  We got there around supper time, couldn't find a recognizable place to eat, and got stuck in basketball game traffic.  Yet one more reason to have no love for Kansas University.
After our two weeks were up, we headed home.  I got my second ever speeding ticket on this trip (yipee!).  At least it was a reasonable amount.  We did make it to St. Louis for a stretch break and decided to check out the City Museum.  Boy was that place interesting.  It was unique because it was a playground made entirely of original art.  Sounds cool right?  Well, it looked like it hadn't been cleaned since it opened.  It was a wonder we didn't catch a horrid disease from being there for one hour.  Chris's face says it all.

There were some cool exhibits and places to climb....

There were also balls that were mildewed and two inches of water in the pit itself (ick... you couldn't get us out fast enough!

More outdoor climbing areas.  These were difficult even for me.  I am so glad I did not send Sarah up alone.

Finally, it was time to leave Missouri.  We got some beautiful views of the arch before we left.

As with all trips, there were wonderful memories made, but there really is no place like home.  I love my house, and especially my bed.  We will never forget our adventures West in 2010. Thanks Lexmark for footing the hotel bill!