Our little family needed a break SO bad so when we found out about the Kansas City LDS Temple Open House we decided to make a road trip of it! It was a quick 2 night trip but we squeezed a lot in and had a great time! The temple was so breathtaking. I am very grateful that we all got to have such a unique and special spiritual experience as a family!
After the Open House we drove to the LDS Independence, MO Visitors Center. It was a really great experience and a really neat place and the kids loved it!
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| A rare family pic! The Christus Statue is so incredible and leaves me in awe. One of the few words Bailey says consistently is "Jesus" . It sounds more like "cheejis" but she points at the pictures in our home or at church. When we walked in the door the statue was front and center and Bailey got SO excited and kept saying "CHEEJIS" and ran to Him! It melted my little mom heart! |
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| They had an art exhibit of works depicting the life of Christ by Liz Lemon Swindle. She is an amazingly talented artist. Bailey ignored all the paintings except for this one. One of her other regular words is "beebee" (baby) and she said it about a gazillion times and pointed at it so much i thought she was going to dislocate her elbow! She got even more excited when I picked her up to see it closer! |
There was a kids play area set up to show how life wouldv'e beein in the mid 1800's. There was a kid-sized cabin and horse drawn wagon and games that the kids from back then would've played with. The only reason the kids left without kicking and screaming was that they were promised happy meals hahaha
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| "What's THIS dad?" hahaha |
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| BEEBEE! She rocked this little dolly for so long! (so long in toddler time is anything longer than 10 seconds) |
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| Of course chef McKenzie dove right in making an 1800's meal for everyone. bailey was a good little sous chef till she tried to make dolly soup haha |
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| McKenzie was so intrigued by the dozens of versions of The Book of Mormon all in different languages. We found out that the Book of Mormon is currently printed in over 100 languages! Amazing! |
Next thing on our mini mini vacation to do list.. BASEBALL OF COURSE! (well, baseball came after eating way too much KC barbecue from a diners, driveins & dives joint)
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| KC Royals play at kauffman stadium. This place was SO cool! |
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| The fountains in the outfield are incredible! |
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| We sat right next to the bullpen. Braxton loved seeing the ballplayers upclose! |
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| As was expected we were not even half way through the 1st inning and these two were STARVING TO DEATH and McKenzie was trying to flag down every vednor that went down our aisle... MOM I WANT PEANUTS, MOM I WANT COTTON CANDY, MOM I WANT POPCORN, MOM I WANT I WANT I WANT... Bracky ate the whole stin king pizza himself and mac pounded a $5 hotdog like it was nothing. Gotta love ballpark food! |
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| The munchkins snuggling their favorite ball player : ) |
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| The ballpark had a really awesome kids play area with a giant playground, carousel, mini diamond, mini golf course etc... once the kids discovered this there was no going back to our seats which meant rich could watch in peace haha |
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| Little rule breaker going up the slide |
The kids played until well after the game was over. We finally dragged them out of the stadium at 10:30 pm or so. I think all 3 were asleep before we even got out of the parking lot haha
The next morning we went swimming at the hotel indoor/outdoor pool (which was FUUUUREAZING!) Of all the awesome things we did the kids were looking forward to this the most... weirdos. I forgot the camera in the room but got a cute pic of Bailey in her suit... Her hair is getting so long!
After swimming we headed to another BBQ joint and stuffed ourselves silly... SO good but overall we prefer memphis BBQ to kansas city. We ate our lunch at pavillion across from the big downtown mall. It had some really amazing fountains that the kids were NOT happy they could not play in. Sorry kiddos we do NOT want to drive home 3.5 hours with a bunch of cold, ticked-off, drowned rats! McKenzie- "but MOM what if i accidentally fall into the fountains?" Nice try sneaky girl.
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| These two really are best friends and it makes me so happy! |
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| Bailey bug enjoyed rolling around on the soft, cool grass so i took the opportunity for a mini bug photo shoot haha |
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| MAN i LOVE that SMILE!!! |
The mall had an animal exhibit that the kids just LOVED!
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| CACAAAW |
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| GRRRRRRRRR! Mamma bear wouldv'e been TICKED in real life since bailey stole her cubs and ran away as fast as she could! |
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| Pony girl junkie! |
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| When she was done having daddy read this book to her multiple times she wouldn't put it down to go play. She had a death grip on it! |
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| Notice the book in her hand still haha |
Next stop... C H O C O L A T E ! ! !
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| This place looked so familiar and then i saw a food network sign... it was featured in kid in a candy store! |
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| The treat the kids picked! Good choice! Rich and i got a slice of fudge called Mudslide. It literally had caramel oozing out of it! (oops... i just drooled on my keyboard!) |
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| sugar high in 5...4...3...2... |
...1 !!!
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| I thought her jaw was going to unhinge she was opening her mouth so wide for more caramel apple bites! |
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On the way home rich and i saw THIS flying over us! AMAZING! This is zoomed as far as my camera would go. I think it is a b-2 stealth bomber... below is a google pic
We had a fantastic time in kansas city. Short but FUN! I can't think of anything I love more than making memories with my little family! |
