Road trip to Kansas City and beyond.

FINALLY posting pictures from our road trip to Kansas City and Lincoln in June. Yep, it's been almost two months but here we are...better late than never!

We took our first non-mountain, long road trip with the kids this past June. Our destinations were Kansas City to see friends and family and Lincoln, of course. The kids declared road tripping awesome. McDonald's in the car plus snacks plus movies equals a good time for sure!

We stayed in Lawrence with Don and Susan on Saturday night. They were gracious enough to tolerate our late arrival and made us feel incredibly welcome in their home. Sarah, Joe, and the boys came over Sunday morning for a delicious brunch. The Noltemeyers are old friends but they always treat us like family. It's so nice to having people like that in your life.

Speaking of Noltemeyers, our next stop was Olathe to see Matt, Sally, and the girls as well as their new home!

Love the Noltes and love these kiddos. They are all so sweet and are all so sweet together. Must because they have awesome parents. (Tee hee.)

Fireflies. Madelyn and Sawyer were beside themselves with the fireflies.

Brunch on Monday before heading to the Plaza. Let's do this again soon, Noltes!

Monday we moved to the Sheraton in the Plaza. We walked around some and did a little window shopping.

Met the cousins, Aunt Judi and Uncle Elvin, and everyone else at the Kansas City Country Club for night swimming and a picnic. It's been too long since we saw everyone but we had a blast. The kids loved the high dive and swimming. (Our joke was to see how many different pools we could swim in on this trip. As of this point, we were only at two.)

What a sweet group. Aunt Judi and Alasdair recruited us to help plan the Knight family reunion in the Fall and we're happy to help. Looking forward to seeing everyone again sooner rather than later!

Tuesday, we went to Oceans of Fun and had an ocean of fun. The weather was perfect and we got to the park early enough that we got to do multiple rides on all the really popular, really fun rides.

You'll never believe it but in the park, there was a trio of men playing drums and they were wearing tank tops with cats surfing on slices of pizzas. You should ask Madelyn if she saw it. (Also, wink.)

Hey, it's Ben Franklin!

After dinner treat on Tuesday - The Waffle Bar. Mine was good but I should have stayed simple.

Wednesday was an important day for our family. It was Sawyer's 7th birthday. Happy birthday, little brother! It was also the day we left Kansas City to go to Lincoln. GO BIG RED!

Stopped at the Arbor Day Farm in Nebraska City. Took a tour and picked up our free baby trees.

Ate lunch at Valentino's also in Nebraska City. Madelyn has declared their spaghetti to be the best. I'm not even sure what to say about that. Hello...pizza?! I know she's mine but sometimes her food choices make no sense. Either way, thumbs up all around for Valentino's.

After arriving in Lincoln and checking in at the Cornhusker, we drove over to campus. There really is no place like Nebraska. I got all sorts of nostalgic walking around campus. For real, it's been TOO LONG since we visited.

It was also really hot but that didn't cut my campus tour short.

Memorial Stadium. This was as close as we could get to the field on short notice. Also, one of my little campers was quickly running out of steam and any interest in doing anything else besides having some birthday dinner and swimming, again.

Birthday dinner at Shogun. He was intrigued but a little nervous. Griff caught the shrimp in his mouth and while Sawyer wasn't interested in catching shrimp, he did realize that he really likes shrimp. Happy birthday, Sawyer!

We had birthday cake back at the Cornhusker. I think it was a molten lava chocolate cake in a cast iron skillet with ice cream although I don't have any pictures of the treat. But, we did get a picture of this tiny boot of beer. How cute is that?

We headed back to Colorado the next day and it was good to be home.

This trip made me realize I miss the midwest, humidity, mosquitoes, and all. I loved getting to see our family and friends and getting to share Lincoln with my family. Bonus: I may have sold both kids on going to the University of Nebraska, too, so I think the trip was a win all around.

Oh, and our final pool count is below:

1 - Matt and Sally's neighborhood pool

2 - Swimming with the cousins at Kansas City Country Club

3 - After KCCC, swimming back at the Sheraton KC Plaza

4 - Oceans of Fun

5 - Swimming at the Cornhusker

Banner day for Sawyer.

After getting stung yesterday twice in the neck by a wasp at the Denver Botanic Gardens at Chatfield, sweet Sawyer had a much better day today. In fact, you could say he had a banner day! He...

a) Received his kindergarten teacher assignment. And, it's official. He has Mrs Murray! We are so excited for him and know he's going to have an awesome year. (See previous post re: Mrs Murray.)

b) Leveled up AGAIN in swimming lessons! He swam 25 yards backstroke all by himself and passed up to level 6. Way to go, my little buddy!

c) Attended a LEGO Mini Build with Madelyn this afternoon at the LEGO Store. They each built a cute little apple complete with worm, or in Madelyn's case a caterpillar because caterpillars are less gross than worms.

Happy days all around. Hope yours was good, too!

Pool time!

One of our favorite things about the Westin Kierland - there are many to choose from - is the swimming pool. Last year, the weather was overcast and cool for two of our three days which is very unusual for Arizona. Not so this year! We had 70 and 80 degree weather with clear skies the whole time and it was great.

Saturday and Sunday mornings, we spent a nice chunk of time swimming, floating in the lazy river, and riding the water slide. Poppie really enjoyed the lazy river while Madelyn couldn't get enough of the water slide.

After her first trip down with Griff, she said, "I want to do that one or two...or maybe five more times!" In all, she went down twice with Griff and a handful of times with me. She would have ridden it more but it was getting close to lunch time and In N Out was calling.

Playing with a new circus elephant pool toy.

Poolside in the shade.

Lazy river time.

Happy girl.

Splash!

Without sounding like a commercial, I have nothing but good things to say about the Kierland. It's the perfect place for a young family or an old family or a couple to vacation. Great location, beautiful hotel and grounds, excellent service...and delicious s'mores.

Tired babies

This morning, Sawyer, Madelyn, and I went swimming with Poppie and Honey.  Honey sat with Sawyer while Madelyn, Poppie, and I swam.  School is back in session so we had the indoor and outdoor pools mostly to ourselves which was a real treat.

We started at the indoor pool and went around the lazy river several times.  After a short adult swim (or safety break as they call it), we played briefly in the fountains and then went outside.

Outside, Honey and Sawyer found a nice table in the shade.  Madelyn, Poppie, and I played with an orange ball, did motorboat, kicked, practiced back floats, and jumped in the water among other things.  We swam until Madelyn got cold and then ate our snacks, cleaned up, and came home for lunch.

At 100P today, both of my babies were tucked in their beds and sound asleep.  This at least 30 minutes earlier than our usual nap time.  Additionally, it included no nap time shenanigans from Madelyn.  SO, it would seem as though if I really want to wear out my kiddos, all we need to do is pool it up real good.

Tomorrow's outing - Museum of Nature & Science.  Hopefully we have the same luck!

Fish

The day we've been waiting for is finally here.  Swimming lessons started today!  For the next six weeks, we'll have our lesson at 1030A on Saturday at the Aviator Pool.  Below is a quick summary of today's outing.

Before -

During -

And, after -

Staycation

Last year we trekked to Grand Lake for Memorial Day weekend.  This year we're having a staycation.

Our stay-at-home vacation started on Saturday morning with a walk to the market in our town center and a trip to Central Park playground.  The fountains were running and a dozen or so kids happily played in the water.  Of course, our little one wanted to play in the water, too, but the swings plus promises of a post-nap pool outing satisfied her.

After a good nap and snack, we sunscreen-ed up and headed to the Aviator pool.  We went to the Puddle Jumper pool a few times last summer but Madelyn was much more in to the water and swimming this year.  I might be biased but she was cutest and best behaved little swimmer at the pool.  We only stayed for thirty to forty-five minutes but long enough to get our fill.  Madelyn went under (not entirely on purpose) two times!

The day was capped off by a visit from Grammy and Grandad while Griff and I went out for a staycation date -- sushi followed by beers and baseball.  Quite a combination!

Day two of our staycation included a trip to the zoo.  We saw the foxes, giraffes, sea lions, polar bears, elephants, and, of course, monkeys.  Madelyn's favorite were the giraffes.  She liked the baby giraffe running around the giraffe yard.  We also enjoyed a picnic lunch at the zoo.  We were unsuccessful in finding the lions today but I promised her we'd make sure to find them next time.

The scheduled activity for day three of our staycation is a trip to Tiny Town, Colorado, and some backyard fun at Grammy and Grandad's.  Stay tuned for pictures and an update of the rest of our "trip"!