Kansas City Weekend

I didn't have a good picture to start off this post with, so I'm throwing in a funny picture of Nelson for ya. Anyways, this past weekend the kids and I, sans Chris, made a trip to Kansas City. Primarily we went to see the American Idol Concert on Sunday night. We gave the kids tickets for their birthdays this summer. As a BONUS we got to visit with our old neighbors who moved two years ago to a suburb of KC. This was the first time I had ever gotten a hotel room with the kids by myself, not to mention drive to and navigate around a strange city. We would have enjoyed it if Chris came along, but I must say we did quite well on our own! A shout out goes to "FM" for letting me use his GPS, which we affectionately named "Darlene"...not to be confused with Brian's "Charlene." Thanks a BUNCH "FM" - I hope you are enjoying your cookies! :)
So we left Saturday morning and arrived around lunch time. We got checked in and drove to our friend's house. After some visiting and lunch, they gave use a great tour of the city with our first stop being the Hallmark Crown Center. The kids enjoyed "Kaleidoscope" which as you can see is all about kids and creativity. We also toured the Hallmark visitor's center learning lots about the company and it's history. We did a little shopping, wrapping up the night with delicious steaks on the grill. By the time we got back to the hotel it was nearly 10 pm. Long day. Thank GOODNESS (yawn) the pool was open until 11 so the kids got a little swimming in before bed.

Showing off some of their "Creativity".

At the shopping center we stopped for a mid-afternoon snack at the neatest little place. You place your order by phone, and then a model train circles above your head. When it gets to your table it drops a tray with your food and it makes it way down to you. How cool is that?

Sunday morning we stopped for breakfast at Krispy Kreme. Tony and Livie enjoyed watching them make the donuts and I enjoyed a LARGE cup of coffee.

We couldn't visit without going to the zoo! It was a beautiful morning and the kids were excited to check out the Kansas City Zoo. We're spoiled having a world-class zoo here in Omaha, but we all really enjoyed our visit. It didn't have the inside exhibits like we do, but the outside exhibits were wonderful and natural in their design.

Photo op in front of the elephants.

In the "Africa" exhibit bamboo grew wild along the path. Tony thought this was very cool and marveled at how much it resembled corn.

Along the way there were all sorts of spots like this to take a break and enjoy the animals. Genius. They could have sat there all day!

Tony is STILL talking about how I got the Meerkats to pose for me. Funny little fellas.

The baby zebra was a big hit as well. Did you know they are brown when they are babies???

We happened upon a hippo feeding. The keeper was tossing them pieces of bananas. Hard to believe these GIGANTIC creatures don't eat meat.

After a morning at the zoo we picked up lunch (salads, to balance out the sugar we had for breakfast) our friends came to the hotel so the kids could swim. All afternoon.

They had the place to themselves and had a blast. It's always good to be with old friends. We miss them dearly but are glad to see them so happy and comfortable in their new home.

So.....after a morning at the zoo....an afternoon of swimming....we heading downtown KC to the Sprint Center for the concert. I thought myself quite savvy when I coughed up the 10 bucks and parked right across the street. Made it SO easy to get to the concert and made it SO hard to get out afterwards (to the tune of an hour). Sigh. So much for savvy. Thank goodness for Darlene!!!

Since I bought the "cheap" seats, we found ourselves at the tippy top. Not bad really, because with no one behind us we could stand up and dance our hinders off. Well, Livie and I did. Tony just danced in his seat. Chicken. The kids scored "American Idol" light sticks on the way in. (one benefit to no dad on the trip.)

I don't think either kid really knew what to expect. They got really excited at the place started to fill up and all the special effects started. Because of the way the facility was built our seats really weren't bad at all. We could see well, and they had the giant screens on either side to help.

We brought along Chris' binoculars and the kids each got 5 of the 10 performers to watch. Do the math...how many did I get to watch???? All in all we really enjoyed the concert. We heard some really great music as almost all of them had greatly improved since we watched the show. As you might guess, I had two really tired kids by the time it was over.

We didn't get back to the hotel until after 11 p.m. and it was hard waking them up the next morning. We arrived back in town in time for Tony to make it to lunch at school. Liv picked up a cold over the weekend and ended up staying home and sleeping all afternoon.

This weekend the weather looks beautiful and the Skubics are coming for a visit. To all our MN friends and family...enjoy your last summer weekend!