OK gang, as many of you know life has been pretty much on hold for our family this year thanks to a job assignment that my husband was "honored" to receive in March. He has been gone for around fifteen weeks (I think I have lost count) since then. He has always been asked to go overseas and we were not able to accompany him (who could afford an international plane ticket?) until now. In November, he was asked to go to Kansas City in the good old USA! Finally, a trip we can load up the car and have the family all together! We were able to spend two weeks seeing sights that we probably would have never seen before and I must say, we enjoyed our time there. Here are some of the highlights of the trip.
Our first stop on the trip to Kansas City came somewhere in Indiana. Here was a beautiful monastery, but not much else. We needed a place to eat and stretch our legs, but it was not to be for some time. Oh well, load up and move on!
Now that Leah is mobile, frequent stops have become our necessary. Thank goodness for rest stops and walkers. People probably thought we were crazy but we stopped caring long ago. Leah was over the moon to have this much room to "walk".
My little "cheeser"
Yikes! What a transition! Our stop for the night came in St. Louis. It was a planned stop because we heard about all the great free things families can do in St. Louis. Our first stop was the children's museum. Most exhibits were free, a few were pay. Sarah is not so into dinosaurs, but she had a good time at the exhibit.
Her favorite activity of the day was a team effort to "raise" the St. Louis arch. It took three to four people and adult help was necessary. Leah and I took a break while the team went to work.
Next up, the kiddie zone. We did have to pay for this area and it was only for 45 minute increments, but boy was it worth it! Leah played in the ball pit for 30 minutes, I kid you not. After a day of traveling, it was just the release she needed.
Sarah was so happy that they had a kiddie version of her favorite arch activity. She put this one together quickly, since she is an "old pro".
She even enjoyed playing Pocahontas in the dress up area. Both the girls loved the tee pee.
Day one was done and we were beat! Next up, a free trip to the St. Louis zoo and on to Kansas City!
Leah and I spent an hour that morning in the parking lot while she slept and I surfed the Internet while Sarah and dad went inside, so photos are few and far between. Don't be sad, I loved having an hour of peace and quiet! Once she was awake, we headed in and found Daddy and Sarah at the FREE carousel. I can't get over this place! If we lived closer, I can assure you we would be frequent visitors.
I included this fuzzy IPhone photo for one reason. I realized I have never introduced "blankie" to the world. This is Leah's favorite object in the world. She sleeps with it, she giggles with delight upon spying it in any corner of the room. There are times she is fussy and when I take her upstairs, she beelines for her crib to pull it out and fall on top of it. Cute!
It was a beautiful day with perfect temperatures. The zoo was just beautiful. I only wish we had more time to see it all. But we had to be on our way after lunch. We had a long drive ahead.
The girls enjoyed looking at the sights and listening to the soothing sounds of the waterfall.
Leah is just so happy to be out of the car seat. Travel is so hard on infants.
The wildlife was quite comfortable with people as you can see...
And Leah is quite comfortable with the wildlife!
Great start to our day! Next we loaded up an moved on to KC!
This gives "living out of a suitcase" a whole new meaning!
Seriously, we had a great time once we got to Kansas City, but we had very limited amounts of toys and space. These were the types of activities the girls did to keep themselves busy.
Sarah adopted a kitty while there and took some time to dress it up!
Once we got settled for our two week stay, Chris was off to work and it was just me, the girls, and a strange city to explore! Good thing he left me with a GPS. I would have never made it without that!
Early in the week, we decided to explore Kansas City's children's museum. It was OK, but was overpriced. We still found enough to do for two to three hours while Chris was away. I call that a successful day.
Sarah loved the room of balls and ball tracks. This one was like a roller coaster. Fun!
Leah, on the other hand, preferred the "pediatrician's office" I tried a hundred times to get this out of her mouth, but to no avail. No wonder she was throwing up a few short days later!
Sarah, as usual, found a little boy friend and played the rest of the day with him. Here she is playing "mission control". Funny thing, he was from Oak Ridge, Tennessee, just a few short hours from our Kentucky home. Small world, right? We spent many of our days letting Leah nap, and then spending the afternoon exploring these kind of places to kill time until Chris returned. Not a cheap couple of weeks, but very fun! I will post more weekly activities in "part 2"
On our first weekend, we decided to go downtown and visit Hallmark Gold Crown Headquarters. What a wonderful tourist destination!
I am guessing that Hallmark owns crayola in some capacity. There was a wonderful Crayola store and cafe in the Crown Center.
We spent a lot of time in the Crayola store. The great thing about the store are the various stations for kids to create while parents shop!
I loved this color wheel. It has every color in the Crayola wheel. I should have took a close up, but this wheel is made entirely of crayons!
They also had a real comic illustrator on hand to draw, sign autographs, and answer questions.
Next up, a play date in Hallmark's "Kaleidoscope room". You go and pick up a free ticket for a certain time of day and parents and kids can create to their hearts content and take home their creations. How fun!
Kaleidoscope is located in the Hallmark headquarters. They regularly have plays, ice skating in the winter, concerts in the summer, etc. What a great asset to the community.
My sweet girl taking a photo with me before the playing begins! I am so thankful to have such a wonderful child.
Let the games begin. Kaleidoscope had centers to draw, paint, create puzzles, read, dance, and any other artistic endeavor you cold imagine. How wonderful!
Leah was partial to the reading zone. Here she is looking at Dr. Seuss books. I am pretty sure they made no sense to her. They make no sense to me!
The little ones playing "peek a boo" while the bigger kids create works of art. Soooo fun!
Sarah is drawing her puzzle in preparation of putting it in the machine that literally cut it into pieces.
It was just a beautiful place to look around. They had music playing and colors were everywhere. I can't say enough great things about Hallmark.
They even had a booth set up to write cards to sick children in the Ronald McDonald houses. We all took turns crafting a card. Then our time was up and we were starving!
Off to Fritz's. There are two Fritz's in existence. This is the second. We heard it was famous, but not for the food.
It is a restaurant where your food comes to you via a train in the ceiling! How cool!
Everyone took turns playing engineer. I think Sarah liked the had much more than Leah on this day.
My little one! How challenging she can be in restaurants. But I still love her dearly...
Check out the rails in the ceiling. The train comes around, drops the box above your table, and the arm lowers it to the patrons. Genius idea!
Our happy girls heading home holding hands.
Who would ever guess from these smiles that they were just over twelve hours from a stomach virus that kept us home all day Sunday? Life with kids! Part two to come soon.
