Silver Dollar City

While the boys were at camp...

Alexee discovered a nest under the swing.  It contained three pretty white eggs, and a few days later they'd hatched.

We colored together.

And we went to get donuts for breakfast one day before going to Silver Dollar City.

Lane and Alexee rode lots of rides.

Ice cream for lunch!

When Crosby got home we had more ice cream (It's really hot.  That's about the only thing that sounds good these days.)  They also did some reading in the hammock.  :)  Fun summer so far!

Kansas City

While the boys were at Kanakuk Kamps and Alexee and Bogart were in Flippin, Lane and I went to Kansas City for a couple of nights.  It was a quick trip, but we had a great time!  We've been saying we'd go since we moved here two years ago, but the timing never seemed to work out so this was our first trip there.  It was an easy three hour drive, so hopefully we'll go again soon.  When we got there on Sunday we had lunch in the Power & Light District then went to the Nelson-Atkins Art Museum for the afternoon.

And we drove by the stadiums.  Lane always likes to do this.

The museum was really nice!  We didn't have time to see it all before closing time, but we enjoyed a few hours there.

The Ancient Egyptian gallery was one of our favorites.

Then we checked into Hotel Sorella and walked to dinner at Jack Stack Barbecue (both in the Plaza). 

We both really liked the beef burnt ends.  It was a lot of food, realized mostly when walking way back to the hotel in the heat in uncomfortable shoes!  ha!

Monday morning we had breakfast at the hotel then went to the KC Zoo.  We thought we'd just spend 2-3 hours there, but I think we actually stayed about 6 hours!  Favorites:  The penguins and koalas and the African Sky Safari.   (Disappointment:  The polar bears were never visible.)  :(

The penguins came right up to the glass.  They were so cute, and they seemed to like entertaining.

Views from the sky ride:

We rode this several times.  It was a nice break and cool to go right over the giraffes and zebras!

After the zoo we went to Trader Joe's, mostly to stock up on jars of Crunchy Cookie Butter, but we tried some other things too:  coffee, trail mix, lemon wafers, vanilla, figs, fig butter, sour gummy candies for the kids, etc.   I wish we had a Trader Joe's closer to us.  :( That evening we did some shopping in the plaza and ate dinner at Cheesecake Factory.  We ordered key lime and salted caramel cheesecakes. 

I was happy smelling candles at Anthropologie for an hour or so, and I also loved this stationery store. 

Pretty rooftop garden (view from our hotel window), fountains & statues.

This was a nice place to sit after dinner.

Tuesday morning we walked to Classic Cup Cafe for breakfast and sat on their patio.  (We really liked our hotel, but it was kind-of on the opposite end of the Plaza from every other place we wanted to go.)  It was a nice day and we enjoyed eating there.

On our way home we stopped at Powell Gardens (about 30 minutes outside of Kansas City).  It was crowded, but it very pretty.  The "living wall" rock garden and island water garden were my favorites.   

the island garden

I'd like to have all of these in our yard!

The trail circled around through a Wildflower Meadow Garden (which we decided was a fancy name for "the area we don't want to mow") to a memorial chapel.

It was a relaxing little trip, and we hope to go back before school starts and take the kids!
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Summer So Far...Camps!

Summer is off to a good start with lots of activities for the kids.  Alexee had fun doing a three day basketball camp.  Some of her teammates were there, so she enjoyed learning with them.

June 4 was Kamp drop off day for the boys!  They were SO EXCITED!  Lane ordered new trunks for them to take, which was great.  Everything they needed fit into the trunk and a laundry bag or duffle.  This was their first time to go, so we had no idea what drop-off would be like, but it was super organized and exciting.  Everyone there was very nice and helpful.  

K-Kountry Gates opened at 2:00.  Crosby was ready!

After sign-in, kids get to go on stage to get introduced and receive their barn/cabin assignment.  There was a small mix-up and Crosby was sent to Barn 1, but we were soon redirected upstairs to Barn 2 where all his friends were.  He knew four boys his age from school!  He chose a top bunk right next to a friend, we helped him get that all set up then we were on our way to the next camp to drop Rhett off. 

See you in a week!

His building and the snow cone stand:

It was a 45 minute drive to Rhett's stop at K-West.  He was also ready to get there and catch up with his friends who had already checked in.  Drop off was easy there, too, and campers go on stage and get introduced and receive cabin assignment. 

Cabin #2

We took a few quick pictures, and then he hurried off to meet up with friends.  See you in two weeks...that sounds like such a long time!  

So then it was just Alexee and Bogart, and they were going to spend a few nights with my parents!  We drove to Harrison to meet Mom and Dad then ate a quick dinner there.  Busy day!

Alexee's stay in Flippin should probably be called Kamp Kitten.  She spent a lot of her time playing with Mo's kittens at the barn, and Aunt Donna had cats, too.  She also got to play with my cousin's little girl, Marcee.  She had a great time.  She went grocery shopping with Mo and got a new coloring book and markers, so they did some coloring.  She also went to church with Mo & Grandad, went to brunch at 178 Club, visited her great great great great grandparents' grave on the way home from brunch, listened to frogs and looked at stars from the back of the truck (summer nights in the country!).  While the kids were doing all of this, Lane and I had the opportunity to go to Kansas City for two nights.  We enjoyed the time away--I'll post pictures of that (and Kamp Updates!) soon.

Berry Farm Fun

We started June with a trip to the blueberry farm.  This was our second year to go, so I will just go ahead and call it a tradition.  :)  It's such a pretty, peaceful place.  We had thunder muffins for breakfast in their restaurant before picking berries.  

We had two buckets.  Alexee and Rhett filled one, Crosby and I filled the other for a total of 11 pounds of blueberries. 

Not all areas were open for picking because some of the berries weren't quite ripe, but it was no problem finding enough ripe ones to fill the buckets.  And I love that blueberry bushes don't have stickers.  That makes them much easier to pick that blackberries!

The Queen Anne's Lace was also really pretty in the field.  

Enjoyed the morning with these sweeties!

Weighing the blueberries in the store.

Before we left the kids shared a blueberry milkshake.  Yum!

Great morning, great start to summer!