Kansas City Fun!

We stayed in Kansas for another week after we got back from Nauvoo. My sister's family lives there because Brendan, my brother-in-law, is going to chiropractic school there. It was nice because 1. we got a free place to stay (thanks for letting us mooch Calli!), and 2. we got to spend time with Calli's family and Amy got to play with her cousins.

We spent a lot of our time just playing games (Hey Calli, Mike... remember when I won Settlers of Catan 3 times in a row? That was fun!), watching movies, and letting the kids slip-n-slide in the backyard. But we also hit some of the local fun sites too. On Saturday we went to Science City. Amy was a little young for it, but she liked the magnets and the playground areas and the dinosaur digging exhibits. My other child, Michael, LOVED IT! We spent half the time looking for Mike because he had wandered off to this exhibit or that. He probably would have preferred to go without us. It was a lot of fun the the kids did enjoy it.

That night, Mike and Brendan took in a Royal's game. Mike and Amy and I had gone to a spring training game of theirs earlier this year, but Mike had this desire to be back in Royal's stadium. Lots of memories of watching games with his dad, brothers, and sometimes Grandma. She's quite the Royals fan. They said it was a really exciting game (the Royals won by a homerun in the bottom of the 9th), but I think the highlight for them was when the two young, cute girls came over and hit on them, hoping they would ask them out. Poor girls. Wasn't their lucky day.
On Tuesday morning we went to the Deanna Rose Children's Farmstead. This was a really neat place. First of all, IT'S FREE! We need more stuff like this where we live. It's an old farm that was converted into a petting zoo / early American life museum. It was run by volunteers in the area (including the missionaries, who Calli says volunteer there 6 hours each week). They had goats and sheep and cows for the kids to see and pet, a fishing pond where you could get a pole and worms and catch tiny guppies and throw them back, a pony ride, and a 19th century school house with chalk boards on each desk for the kids to color on. It was really a cute place. We started early and it was really nice outside, although we were definitely ready to go by noon when the heat got to us.

On Tuesday night we went over to the local swimming pool, which Amy of course loved, being the waterbug that she is. They had a kiddie area with a 1 foot deep pool with a slide. Right next to that is a giant beachy area that the kids can go back and forth between the beach and the pool. It really was fun and Amy was sad when we had to go. I swear that child would live in the pool if we let her.

Well, that was our trip! Thank you so much Calli and Brendan for your hospitality and letting us crash with you for so long. Two weeks is a long time for house guests, but you never made us feel unwanted or in the way. I know mom and dad live here, so you probably won't ever need to stay with us, but if we ever move away and you want to come visit us, or if you're tired of Summer and Jessie and want to run away to Goodyear, our house is open to you! You guys are the best!