National Zoo

I got a Facebook message a couple weeks ago from a friend in Kansas who was spending their family's spring break in Williamsburg, VA and Washington, DC so we met up with them at the National Zoo on Friday morning and had a fun visit.

Thunder Cake

I grew up in southern California where thunder and lightening were rare.  When we'd go to our cabin in the mountains in southern Utah in the summer, the thunder was so loud on the aluminum roof and the lightening lit the black sky, it was amazing to me as a kid. Then I went to college in Utah and thunderstorms were common, I loved the summer thunderstorms when I could get drenched in rain while it was warm out.  When Princess Sparkley was 3 and Buddy was 17 months we moved to Kansas.  The kids were not a fan of thunderstorms.  I don't think I'd ever heard anything like a Kansas thunderstorm with the loudest BOOM BOOMs ever, until we moved to Virginia.  I didn't think Kansas thunder could get topped, but either Virginia's thunder is louder, or they are very close.  This morning was another one of those loud storms.  Thunder so loud it woke me and the big kids up.  It shook the house. The storm was weak compared to a Kansas storm, but the LOUD BOOMING thunder.  The thunder inspired me to read the book Thunder Cake by Patricia Polacco to the kids again, a book my mom bought us when we were living in Kansas and the kids were terrified of thunderstorms. And this time, we braved the recipe (which includes pureed tomatoes) and made a Thunder Cake. 

Kansas friends visit from Texas

Now that we live somewhere "cool," or so I'm led to believe because no one ever wanted to visit us in Kansas, we have had a lot of friends tell us they'll come visit. Tiffany and her family were the first to follow through with that promise. She's originally from Philadelphia and came up for her brother's wedding in the DC Temple. They came to our home and visited with us for a few hours on Friday and then we met them at the temple Saturday morning to watch their three boys for them. It was fun to visit and see how much her boys have grown.


Two months apart (Baby X is younger)




PS is 6 months older than their oldest. And I think Buddy is about a year older than their middlest.



Beautiful temple picture with the clouds (note the wedding couple -- NOT Tiffany's brother).


In case you couldn't see them, here's a close up. Interesting.

The Move

We rented an enormous Penske truck for the move. I followed B (who either had PS or Buddy with him) in our car with Baby X and whichever kid wasn't riding in the truck. I took pictures from the driver's seat along the way.

Sunflowers

For a music class lesson on Earth Day, I read stories about planting flowers to help the earth be pretty and then we recycled egg cartons making them into little pots for a sunflower seed. I ended up bringing home a lot of extra seeds and planting them in an 18 egg carton. When they were all 2-3 inches tall I transported 3 little plants to a larger pot. Right before we left for Utah, B planted them in the ground hoping they'd survive not getting watered daily by being able to pull water from the soil. And they survived!! Here are pictures of the first one that bloomed about a week ago. They are taller than my kids (one is almost as tall as I am).

To Do in Kansas

This is my tentative list of things to do in Kansas before we move:

Eat at Lidia's in Kansas City (Missouri).

Tour the Kansas state capitol in Topeka.

Go to the Kansas City Zoo (again, Missouri).

Visit the Moon Marble Company in Bonner Springs, KS.

Take pictures of my kids in a field of sunflowers.

Last weekend we went to Topeka to return library books, find Alf Landon's grave (this was on B's list of "to do before we leave Kansas," we were unsuccessful), and tour the Topeka Capitol. B, Princess Sparkley and Buddy even got to go to the top of the dome and outside to see all of Topeka from a bird's eye view. Unfortunately no one bothered to tell us that Baby X would need to be able to walk all 296 steps on his own or would not be able to go on the tour. We'd already been past security, and through the gift shop where the worker there (who ended up being our tour guide) directed us to where we needed to meet for the dome tour, but didn't bother to mention Baby X would be unable to go on the dome tour. So Baby X and I hung out eating fruit snacks while he tried to escape over the back of the bench we were on, to fall 20 feet down the stairwell. PS and Buddy went to the top with Jed and were both scared, but very brave.

Yesterday I took the kids to Moon Marble. I may have been more excited about this than my kids, but I think they (well, maybe not Baby X) enjoyed it as well. The guy who started it used to be a wood worker. He was making wooden game boards that needed marbles but couldn't find any of the cool marbles from his childhood anywhere. He finally found a company in West Virginia that would sell him some, but he had to buy 12 crates (I'm paraphrasing and may not have everything right). When they arrived, they came in a semi-truck and there were over 5,000 marbles. He says he's been in the marble business ever since that day. I'm not sure how he got into making marbles (Baby X was fussy during this part... I wouldn't recommend this for the littlest kids) but part of the tour is watching him make a marble. It's pretty cool. He asks that if you take pictures, you do so without a flash. This is not good news for me since my camera takes horribly fuzzy and out of focus pictures when the flash is off. I'll include pictures, but look here for better ones.

The marbles he makes sell for $30+. If you look at the marbles for sale on the website, they sell marbles from a variety of talented glass artists and some are as expensive as $350. They also sell a lot of vintage games and cheap marbles they buy from somewhere else.

My kids each got a, handpicked by them, tube of marbles and a shooter marble. Buddy is obsessed with the game.

Day 2- Great Sand Dunes Nat'l Park

We drove much further on day 2, but left our hotel in Hays early and stopped at Great Sand Dunes National Park near Alamosa, CO at the end of the day and still got to the hotel early enough for the kids to swim (and get all of the sand off of them).


Day 2 brought the introduction of Baby X to the lollipop. Yea for Dum Dums! This helped immensely on the trip, except when I looked back to wipe up some colorful drowl and the lollipop was no where to be found. He quickly became a no handed expert.


Here are some pretty pictures of flat flat Kansas taken out the car window as we drove through hours and hours of flat flat fields. Don't you love Kansas clouds?


And then we spotted mountains (the Wet Mountains by Walsenburg, CO). About a year and a half after we moved to Kansas we flew to California to visit family. Buddy was almost three and spent the whole trip amazed at the "mountains." We didn't get quite the same reaction from any of the kids this time, but Baby X did notice them and point a lot. But he currently notices and points at everything. His favorites: buses, motorhomes, semi trucks, bridges, airplanes, birds, clouds, etc.





Great Sand Dunes Nat'l Park was awesome. Buddy especially loved it. B and I were surprised by how prepared all the other visitors were in their bathing suits for a tiny stream we had no reason to expect, but all these visitors were treating like a beach. Also, several people came with snow sleds (which didn't slide very well on the sand), snow boards, or cardboard sheets to slide down the dunes on. Buddy preferred to scoot down on his bum. We were surprised by how into this Buddy was. Walking out to the dunes he was way in front of us and frustrated with our slow coachness. Then we got to this super super steep dune (B estimates it was a 60 degree angle) and he just started scooting down it. I was terrified for him... then realized that he wasn't going to slide since sand isn't like snow. Even Baby X joined in on the scooting. B tried rolling and just got dizzy and queasy. I was in charge of holding all of our stuff so it wouldn't get covered in sand while B rolled down the dune. *



Sliding down the dunes and leaving.

*Sorry, there a so many pictures and they are so little in this collage. Click the collage to enlarge.

Strawberry Patch

Friday we picked strawberries at a berry farm just south of town.


Buddy, who loves strawberries, helped me pick quite a few.
Princess Sparkley, who won't eat a strawberry, picked one
and spent the rest of the time on the playground.



Baby X hung out in the shade with his friends, M and A.

Train to St. Louis

One of the things Buddy got as a Christmas present was a folded piece of paper with a picture of him, a plus sign and a picture of a train. When the card was opened, there was an equals sign and a picture of the St. Louis arch. We finally got around to fulfilling this Christmas gift and he got to ride the train to St. Louis. B went with Buddy and Princess Sparkley. I drove Squeally McSqueal, aka Baby X in the car.


Baby X and I dropped them off at Union Station in Kansas City to catch the 7:30 AM train. While we drove straight east from Kansas City across the state of Missouri, their train headed southeast and went through Jefferson City instead of Columbia. The train ride was about $44 for the three of them (once we figured in discounted fares, student discounts and AAA discounts). It took 5 hours and 40 minutes. The drive from our home (about 40 minutes west of Kansas City) to Chesterfield (this side of St. Louis) takes 4 hours without stops.

Here's where I don't know the story anymore. B will have to fill it in but he's fallen asleep next to me. And just half an hour ago he was set to go rent a movie from Redbox. :)













PS has no idea what Hogwarts is. She just saw that I was making B take a picture and she wanted to be in it.


A fun caboose photo op in Union Station which isn't where the trains go anymore... it's all fancy restaurants and stores.


Union Station. Downtown St. Louis, MO.

Graduation photo shoot

(Click on the collage to enlarge images.)

After all our extended family had left, we drove back up to campus (when it wasn't so full of other graduates having their pictures taken) and took some pictures of B in his cap and gown.

The bottom row, where B looks like he's in a tunnel is in the base of Campanile (or bell tower). The story behind this is that the first time you walk through it is supposed to be when you graduate. Otherwise you jinx it. So if you go in it before you are graduating, you have to walk out the same door you came in. Princess Sparkley followed this rule. Buddy did not. I'm recording this so that in the future, we can see if this comes true for our kids. The graduate procession into the stadium for the ceremony earlier today led them through the Campanile.

Some pictures swith the rest of us.

The sun was setting so they aren't all the best quality. And, I'm blaming it on the camera, not the person holding the camera, some pictures are blurry.

Graduation: Day 2

B's parents came back for the main University Commencement that was today (Sunday) along with B's brother's family.

We met at our house and then drove to a building on the edge of campus where we got to ride a University bus (that looks like a Jayhawk) to campus. B had picked up free tickets for all of us to eat at the Chancellor's lunch. So we spotted Big Jay (the mascot) and ate our lunches before walking down to the stadium to get seats. We were really lucky that the seats we picked were on the side of the stadium B was going to walk past so we saw him close up.


Before the graduates came in.



If you click to enlarge, you can see where I've circled B's face in red as he walked through the line of professors.

Again, he's circled in red, smiling and waving.


Walking past us. The kids were really excited because they could spot him and wave and he'd wave back.


He's circled in red, in the crowd of graduates.

Graduation: Day 1

(Click on the collage to enlarge images.)

Saturday the Economics Department had their graduation ceremony. B's parents came out from St. Louis for both days. Our kids were wonderfully behaved, especially since there were probably only six kids in the entire auditorium, and three of them were ours.\

Congratulations B, we're all very proud of you!

Kansas City Royals

B decided we should drive to Kansas City twice on Saturday so after we drove Buddy's two friends home from his birthday party, we drove back to KC a few hours later to watch the Detroit Tigers beat the KC Royals. The game was sold out. We had to park way further away than we ever have before at Kauffman Stadium and we weren't one of the first 20,000 fans so we didn't get any Royals replica jerseys. Oh well. It was still fun and being there made it so we missed the crazy weather at home including the tornado sirens going off for 40 minutes or so. And somehow it all missed KC.

Baby X was perfect for the first hour or so. I think the noise and the size and the bright lights had him mesmerized. He just sat on B's lap and watched until he spotted me and then he switched to my lap and just watched. Then for about 45 minutes he was restless. Then it cleared out a little and he could walk around our row but this mostly involved picking up peanut shells and handing them to me. At least he didn't put them in his mouth. Once he discovered the chairs and that he could climb onto them, that kept him busy. For awhile.

After the game we asked a woman to take our picture. We have pictures of our family at every baseball game we've been to. After the woman took our picture and left, a guard standing there told us he'd take a better picture for us and had us walk down a level while he stood up top. His pictures turned out blurry. And neither of our photographers included the new, giant, crown topped big screen TV that Kauffman Stadium added with their renovations (see below).

picture from here

Buddy's 5th Birthday

Buddy turned 5 today but we celebrated his birthday on Saturday by taking two of his friends from church with us to Fritz's Railroad Restaurant where a train brings you your food.

His cake was a train of cupcakes with toothpicks holding pictures of Thomas and his train cars.

We're Astronauts!!

Princess Sparkley brought home a paper from school the other day about a thing NASA was doing at the University of Kansas where people could come and touch one of only 7 moon rocks on Earth. So, we met B up on campus Tuesday afternoon and touched a moon rock. The kids loved it. I think we were all a little disappointed in the moon rock... it was slightly larger than a quarter but not shaped like a circle and basically looked and felt like a button made from plastic. BUT, we can say we touched a piece of the moon (except Baby X because we felt weird trying to make him stick his hand under the little plastic bridge thing to touch it). These pictures were the coolest part (and the only part we had to wait in line for... a LONG line). Buddy refused. PS and I did it. Enjoy us in space...

Moving on...

Sorry about the lack of posts. B's decided on George Mason (in Fairfax, VA) as his PhD. program of choice, so my life has been taken over by moving truck reservations, trying to find somewhere to live, etc. Plus, it's like we're waiting for Christmas, something big is coming soon. As sad as I am to leave Kansas and our friends here, I'm excited to be somewhere new. I'm seeing things by big milestones... Buddy turns 5 at the end of this month and B and I celebrate our 8 year wedding anniversary. In May B graduates . In June is my birthday. At the end of June we leave for a family vacation to Utah where we'll get to see my family (whom we've seen very little since moving to Kansas). In July we pack up (ahh... I'm not looking forward to this part) and move.

Bath Time and more

I've just reached the point where every once in awhile I let Baby X get in the bath with one of the older kids. This time everyone wanted in so PS was in with Baby X, and just before she got out, Buddy got in as well. So they sort of time shared the Baby X bath time experience.

Also included is a picture of Buddy throwing a fit (what's with him lately???) while hugging tightly a deflated Valentine balloon refusing to let me throw it away.

And, Buddy and PS posing with a Jayhawk cookie I bought them at the store to celebrate the Jayhawks having a basketball game (which they ended up losing).

And that bottom, foggy picture... that's from the ice storm. It's a picture looking out our kitchen window, all the water (freezing rain) is frozen onto our screen.

Coming Home

Here are pictures from in the car on the way home from Spring Break in St. Louis and B is such a nice dad that we stopped at a second Fritz's Railroad restaurant(this one in KC, KS) for dinner on our way home.

Buddy and Baby X are always the first asleep on car trips. PS is never ever ever the first asleep... anywhere. The picture of her with the TV is at Grandma and Grandpa's watching What Not To Wear (as do we). She loves that show.

I have a video of the train delivering our food, but can't get it to upload right now. I'll try again later.

Santa's Early Delivery

We woke up this morning to this
,

and this


and it kept snowing all morning and after lunch.


"Santa" couldn't very well send the kids out to play in the snow knowing perfectly well that she (I mean he) had boots for them in her/his closet that they'd asked for on their Christmas lists. So Santa dropped off a special delivery due to the snow that came before Christmas.






We also got B this new yellow snow shovel which he's going to have to fight Buddy for. PS wanted to sled. Buddy wanted to shovel. I can't wait until he's a teenager.