Monday, October 28, 2013
More Legos
Saturday: Legoland
When we arrived downtown, we discovered the Kansas City marathon was that morning and the finish line was in or adjacent to Crowne Plaza (legoland location). Parking was a disaster. It was very fortunate that we got such an early start. After 40 minutes, we finally found a spot...in the most stroller unfriendly place imaginable. There were no ramps, tons of stairs, the stroller didn't fit trough the doors, no power assist, no signage or directions to direct to where we needed to go. When we finally exited the ramp (by walking down and under a huge sign that said "do not walk on ramp, use stairs only), we found another problem. With the circling around and endless driving, we knew we were in the right vicinity, but didnt exactly know how to get where we wanted to be. We finally found it after scaling at least 3 giant staircases with not a ramp or sign in place. Totally not accessible which was the clincher to my award of "least stroller friendly place. Ever" award.
When we finally arrived at Legoland, we found the doors shut tight. After a short whole, a staff member Cane out to let us know they were opening late due to the marathon traffic. Their employees couldn't find parking either.
Anyway, the kids all liked legoland. It seemed fluke in most areas there were activities that made all the kids happy. Gemma adored this Lego motorcycle and Amelia and William enjoyed everything. They claim to enjoy "Merlin's Magic Ride" the most.
I can only post 3 pictures at a time from my phone, so look for more to come.
Saturday, October 26, 2013
Kansas City Friday:Science City
The day we were there, the regular entrance was blocked off. The research I did before hand wasn't super helpful as we were unable to locate the free parking and we couldn't find the way in. It was a frustrating start. I suspect we were given discounted admission based on my frazzled state.
At any rate, the museum was fun and had a wide variety of exhibits different from other children's museums we've been to. A lot of it was above the level of our kids, but there was enough stuff that the kids did like. The dinosaurs weren't the big hit as I was expecting. However, we spent a great deal of time in the space station area, the physical science area, and the water table were something all the kids loved. There was also a small area with some animals, including a talking parrot. The parrot would say, "Here kitty, kitty, kitty!" "Hello!" And a very impressive wolf whistle every time someone walked away from it.
There was a tightrope bike I couldn't get anyone to try with me. I meant to go back and give it a go on my own, but it didn't happen.
There was a police helicopter the kids liked crawling over - photos 1&2
Photo 3 was in a house of illusions. The bed and walls were crooked. If you were on the bed, there was supposed to be an illusion you could see. I wasn't able to make it work - maybe because Gemma was crawling all over me?
Thursday, October 24, 2013
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
Busted
On Sunday morning, Gemma slept in. This was not on our trip agenda. Apparently she did not get the memo that we were getting up and leaving earlyish on Sunday. She finally woke up about 8:30. This is a major sleep event for her with fewer than 5 similar occasions in the last 6 months.
However, the 2 nights spent in the hotel began the same way for everyone else.
6:20 to 6:30 William wakes up. He walks to the bathroom and turns on the light. The bathroom has a combined light/fan system so the light and fan are both on. William does not fully close the door. He finishes and washes his hands (note: Gemma is directly next to the bathroom area as that was the only place to squeeze in the crib.). While washing his hands, he mumbles and talks to himself. He stumbles back to bed and consistently finds a way to climb over Amelia's head.
Once Amelia wakes up, it is all over. Amelia has one volume. Loud. Here is a sample:
Amelia: it's not fair!
Mom (whispering): you need to whisper! Why isn't it fair? William is already ready to go.
Amelia (loudly, not a hint of a whisper): but I want to use your phone to play a game!
Mom: then get dressed. Get dressed quietly and whisper!
Amelia: but why? (Loudly, still) why do I have to whisper?
Usually, Gemma is awake at the first hint of her siblings so it was a true miracle that for close to an hour sunday morning Amelia spoke loudly and did not wake her sister.
Finally, I got the kids dressed, packed up the kids' half of the room and took the big kids down for breakfast, leaving Gemma with John.
Later in the morning, John was packing up the car and William was helping. On his way through the lobby, John grabbed a doughnut from the breakfast area. The trade off for getting to sleep until 8:30 is you don't get a sit down breakfast. When you get up with the kids at 6:15, you do.
William, John, and his doughnut got into the elevator with a group of older women who were traveling together (William met them at breakfast because he is Mr Personality).
Woman 1: oh! Are you bringing your wife a doughnut? How sweet are you?!?
John: ummmm.....I guess
William: (looks incredulously at John) No, Dad! That doughnut is for you!
--the group of women dissolves into laughter--
John: well, it is for me because I didn't have any breakfast yet. So, it is okay. Mama already had breakfast.
William: you didn't have any breakfast because you were sleeping in.
--more laughter--
Busted by a 6 year old.
William
Sent from my iPhone
However, the 2 nights spent in the hotel began the same way for everyone else.
6:20 to 6:30 William wakes up. He walks to the bathroom and turns on the light. The bathroom has a combined light/fan system so the light and fan are both on. William does not fully close the door. He finishes and washes his hands (note: Gemma is directly next to the bathroom area as that was the only place to squeeze in the crib.). While washing his hands, he mumbles and talks to himself. He stumbles back to bed and consistently finds a way to climb over Amelia's head.
Once Amelia wakes up, it is all over. Amelia has one volume. Loud. Here is a sample:
Amelia: it's not fair!
Mom (whispering): you need to whisper! Why isn't it fair? William is already ready to go.
Amelia (loudly, not a hint of a whisper): but I want to use your phone to play a game!
Mom: then get dressed. Get dressed quietly and whisper!
Amelia: but why? (Loudly, still) why do I have to whisper?
Usually, Gemma is awake at the first hint of her siblings so it was a true miracle that for close to an hour sunday morning Amelia spoke loudly and did not wake her sister.
Finally, I got the kids dressed, packed up the kids' half of the room and took the big kids down for breakfast, leaving Gemma with John.
Later in the morning, John was packing up the car and William was helping. On his way through the lobby, John grabbed a doughnut from the breakfast area. The trade off for getting to sleep until 8:30 is you don't get a sit down breakfast. When you get up with the kids at 6:15, you do.
William, John, and his doughnut got into the elevator with a group of older women who were traveling together (William met them at breakfast because he is Mr Personality).
Woman 1: oh! Are you bringing your wife a doughnut? How sweet are you?!?
John: ummmm.....I guess
William: (looks incredulously at John) No, Dad! That doughnut is for you!
--the group of women dissolves into laughter--
John: well, it is for me because I didn't have any breakfast yet. So, it is okay. Mama already had breakfast.
William: you didn't have any breakfast because you were sleeping in.
--more laughter--
Busted by a 6 year old.
William
Sent from my iPhone
Kansas City Run Down
We took off for Kansas City this weekend*. I'm just going to quickly run through our stops so I can remember what we did when for future reference. I'll be back later with pictures and stories from our "quick trip"**.
Friday: Kids are up early. We finish packing up and hit the road. I was hoping to hit the road at 9ish. We didn't make it.
It is about 3 and a half hours from where we live to Kansas City. After our driving summer, I was expecting this to be a piece of cake. I was also expecting to make it without stopping because this is a shorter trip than we are used to.
We had to stop once.
When we got to Kansas City, we hit up the Science City attraction in the historic Union Station. Unfortunately, Ann Coulter was at union station that day as well so it was much more difficult to find the entrance and purchase tickets. We wandered around for at least 20 minutes trying to find the entrance while Amelia and William alternately said helpful things like, " Why did you pick the wrong elevator?" "Are we very lost?" "Why don't you just find a map?" "The entrance is right there - why can't you find it?" Frustrating. We all enjoyed the exhibit, although the big dinosaur section wasn't the big hit I was thinking it might be.
After Science City, we checked into our hotel and then went for some local pizza.
Back to at the hotel, we got ready to swim. I was careful to choose a hotel with a pool because it is a good way to burn some of the evening energy off before trying to make 5 people sleep in the same room who are not accustomed to that arrangement. We paraded ourselves down to the pool area....to find it was an outdoor pool. Whoops. Should have read more carefully. The temperature was just about 40 degrees, so no one wanted to even check the pool area out. Everyone was very disappointed. The big kids were finally persuaded it would be just as fun to swim in the bathtub with bubbles up in our room. I'm not actually sure it was more fun than a pool, but it did lessen the disappointment.
Saturday-
We purchased tickets to Legoland. A few of William's school friends have visited Legoland recently and he has been asking to go. They only let a certain number of people into Legoland at a time, so we booked an appointment ahead of time to make sure we could get in. Luckily, William was up at 6:15 and woke Amelia. Amelia woke Gemma shortly after, so we were up for the day. Our appointment was at 0 am, so we needed to leave by 9:30. William had us up so early, we had plenty of time. Which was good, because we didn't realize the Kansas City Marathon finish line was in the same block as Legoland. Our GPS kept telling us to turn and the streets were blocked off. People were everywhere and the traffic was pretty heavy. Parking was terrible and after close to 20 minutes of circling around we finally found a spot close to where we needed to be. Only, we couldn't figure out how to get to the door. It felt like a rerun of the precious day. At this point, I really wanted to rename this city "Unfriendly Stroller Place". There weren't any ramps, the staircases were long and everywhere we went had more and more stairs. We were frustrated. But, we finally found our destination....only to find our Legoland couldn't open yet because their staff couldn't find parking either in the Marathon mess. When the doors finally opened, the kids enjoyed the experience very much. We played and explored for a long time. Legoland was very well set up with lots of different stations and sections appealing to different age levels. It was mostly stroller friendly and had a few things Gemma could actually do. Very few places were problematic. I was worried about it being loud or filled with tiny pieces that it would be totally unsafe for Gemma.
We finished up at Legoland at lunchtime and walked across the street to a food court for lunch ($50+ for a lunch of hot dogs just doesn't do it for me). There were still tons of people roaming around wearing their running gear and I overhead am employee at one of the restaurants comment "In 6 years, I have never seen this many people here...wow!" Kind of by accident, we wandered into what appeared to be a train themed restaurant. It was a hit! It was called Fritz's and had train tracks running all over the ceiling. And the trains DELIVERED the food! Unbelievable! The trains all had little trays carrying food in a box that was dropped off onto at your table. The kids enjoyed it very much and were very entertained.
Back to the hotel for naps (Gemma, mom, dad) and a little downtime watching tv for the big kids.
For dinner we tried a new-to-us place called On the Border. It was pretty good, although we had to laugh because it was right next to our standard favorite, Chilis.
After dinner, we went over to a mall area and went to Michael's. William has been BEGGING for a rubber band bracelet. We picked up a Rainbow Loom and William was thrilled. Next we swung by the bookstore for a little browsing. can you beat that? A craft store and a bookstore in one night? That night while I put Gemma to bed, John helped Amelia and William make their first bracelets in the lobby. They were so happy.
Sunday:
We were supposed to get up early and hit 2 stops before heading home. Interestingly, up until this point, we had not ventured into Kansas. Despite being in KANSAS CITY, we hadn't yet been to Kansas. I spent about an hour furiously researching on Saturday night for something, anything that met the following criteria:
1. Open early on Sunday
2. Child appropriate (which eliminated all the casinos)
3. In Kansas
4. Wouldn't take us more that 30-40 minutes to reach from our current location.
I thought I had come up with a good option on Saturday. John and I discussed it. However, while on our way on Sunday, John revealed it was not actually in Kansas. (He swears he told me this before Sunday morning. I have no recollection of this part of the conversation). So, we drove to Kansas and turned around. John stopped to fill the car with gas when we realized we were across the street from a second location, the TRex Cafe (and adjoining gift shop +BuildA Bear). You can't be that close and not go to the TRex Cafe. So we did (more about this later).
Our last stop was a loving history site called Missouri Town 1855. It is basically a collection of building from 1850 or earlier with people reinacting the historical period. We love this- the kids are able to ask tons of questions and John and I can read/listen/photograph/learn. This was a nice collection of interesting buildings. It was unfortunate that there were only 2 people working. However we all enjoyed the experience.
*William was off of school on Wed, Thurs, Friday. I am always off on Fridays. When we got the school calendars, we (I) made a mental note about a few weekends I thought we be our travel weekends to go visit family or see something new.
**When originally planned, we were going to go to Chicago. We used to go to Chicago AT LEAST once a year to visit John's sister. We haven't been there since I was pregnant with William. Shameful. We love Chicago -museums and edible pizza! We aren't hard to please. However, for the last 2+ years we have been saying that we were going to plan a trip back to Chicago (and meaning it). So, with this short break, we planned on going to Chicago to check out the dinosaurs at the Field Museum and catching up with our Chicago branch. Sadly, when we talked with Joe and Cathy, we found out this is the weekend they had plans. We briefly considered still traveling to Chicago, but without the draw of family at the end of the drive, it felt too far for a short weekend. Kansas City has been on our to-see list for a short while AND we found a good hotel deal, so Kansas City away!
*
Sent from my iPhone
Friday: Kids are up early. We finish packing up and hit the road. I was hoping to hit the road at 9ish. We didn't make it.
It is about 3 and a half hours from where we live to Kansas City. After our driving summer, I was expecting this to be a piece of cake. I was also expecting to make it without stopping because this is a shorter trip than we are used to.
We had to stop once.
When we got to Kansas City, we hit up the Science City attraction in the historic Union Station. Unfortunately, Ann Coulter was at union station that day as well so it was much more difficult to find the entrance and purchase tickets. We wandered around for at least 20 minutes trying to find the entrance while Amelia and William alternately said helpful things like, " Why did you pick the wrong elevator?" "Are we very lost?" "Why don't you just find a map?" "The entrance is right there - why can't you find it?" Frustrating. We all enjoyed the exhibit, although the big dinosaur section wasn't the big hit I was thinking it might be.
After Science City, we checked into our hotel and then went for some local pizza.
Back to at the hotel, we got ready to swim. I was careful to choose a hotel with a pool because it is a good way to burn some of the evening energy off before trying to make 5 people sleep in the same room who are not accustomed to that arrangement. We paraded ourselves down to the pool area....to find it was an outdoor pool. Whoops. Should have read more carefully. The temperature was just about 40 degrees, so no one wanted to even check the pool area out. Everyone was very disappointed. The big kids were finally persuaded it would be just as fun to swim in the bathtub with bubbles up in our room. I'm not actually sure it was more fun than a pool, but it did lessen the disappointment.
Saturday-
We purchased tickets to Legoland. A few of William's school friends have visited Legoland recently and he has been asking to go. They only let a certain number of people into Legoland at a time, so we booked an appointment ahead of time to make sure we could get in. Luckily, William was up at 6:15 and woke Amelia. Amelia woke Gemma shortly after, so we were up for the day. Our appointment was at 0 am, so we needed to leave by 9:30. William had us up so early, we had plenty of time. Which was good, because we didn't realize the Kansas City Marathon finish line was in the same block as Legoland. Our GPS kept telling us to turn and the streets were blocked off. People were everywhere and the traffic was pretty heavy. Parking was terrible and after close to 20 minutes of circling around we finally found a spot close to where we needed to be. Only, we couldn't figure out how to get to the door. It felt like a rerun of the precious day. At this point, I really wanted to rename this city "Unfriendly Stroller Place". There weren't any ramps, the staircases were long and everywhere we went had more and more stairs. We were frustrated. But, we finally found our destination....only to find our Legoland couldn't open yet because their staff couldn't find parking either in the Marathon mess. When the doors finally opened, the kids enjoyed the experience very much. We played and explored for a long time. Legoland was very well set up with lots of different stations and sections appealing to different age levels. It was mostly stroller friendly and had a few things Gemma could actually do. Very few places were problematic. I was worried about it being loud or filled with tiny pieces that it would be totally unsafe for Gemma.
We finished up at Legoland at lunchtime and walked across the street to a food court for lunch ($50+ for a lunch of hot dogs just doesn't do it for me). There were still tons of people roaming around wearing their running gear and I overhead am employee at one of the restaurants comment "In 6 years, I have never seen this many people here...wow!" Kind of by accident, we wandered into what appeared to be a train themed restaurant. It was a hit! It was called Fritz's and had train tracks running all over the ceiling. And the trains DELIVERED the food! Unbelievable! The trains all had little trays carrying food in a box that was dropped off onto at your table. The kids enjoyed it very much and were very entertained.
Back to the hotel for naps (Gemma, mom, dad) and a little downtime watching tv for the big kids.
For dinner we tried a new-to-us place called On the Border. It was pretty good, although we had to laugh because it was right next to our standard favorite, Chilis.
After dinner, we went over to a mall area and went to Michael's. William has been BEGGING for a rubber band bracelet. We picked up a Rainbow Loom and William was thrilled. Next we swung by the bookstore for a little browsing. can you beat that? A craft store and a bookstore in one night? That night while I put Gemma to bed, John helped Amelia and William make their first bracelets in the lobby. They were so happy.
Sunday:
We were supposed to get up early and hit 2 stops before heading home. Interestingly, up until this point, we had not ventured into Kansas. Despite being in KANSAS CITY, we hadn't yet been to Kansas. I spent about an hour furiously researching on Saturday night for something, anything that met the following criteria:
1. Open early on Sunday
2. Child appropriate (which eliminated all the casinos)
3. In Kansas
4. Wouldn't take us more that 30-40 minutes to reach from our current location.
I thought I had come up with a good option on Saturday. John and I discussed it. However, while on our way on Sunday, John revealed it was not actually in Kansas. (He swears he told me this before Sunday morning. I have no recollection of this part of the conversation). So, we drove to Kansas and turned around. John stopped to fill the car with gas when we realized we were across the street from a second location, the TRex Cafe (and adjoining gift shop +BuildA Bear). You can't be that close and not go to the TRex Cafe. So we did (more about this later).
Our last stop was a loving history site called Missouri Town 1855. It is basically a collection of building from 1850 or earlier with people reinacting the historical period. We love this- the kids are able to ask tons of questions and John and I can read/listen/photograph/learn. This was a nice collection of interesting buildings. It was unfortunate that there were only 2 people working. However we all enjoyed the experience.
*William was off of school on Wed, Thurs, Friday. I am always off on Fridays. When we got the school calendars, we (I) made a mental note about a few weekends I thought we be our travel weekends to go visit family or see something new.
**When originally planned, we were going to go to Chicago. We used to go to Chicago AT LEAST once a year to visit John's sister. We haven't been there since I was pregnant with William. Shameful. We love Chicago -museums and edible pizza! We aren't hard to please. However, for the last 2+ years we have been saying that we were going to plan a trip back to Chicago (and meaning it). So, with this short break, we planned on going to Chicago to check out the dinosaurs at the Field Museum and catching up with our Chicago branch. Sadly, when we talked with Joe and Cathy, we found out this is the weekend they had plans. We briefly considered still traveling to Chicago, but without the draw of family at the end of the drive, it felt too far for a short weekend. Kansas City has been on our to-see list for a short while AND we found a good hotel deal, so Kansas City away!
*
Sent from my iPhone
Saturday, October 19, 2013
Cartoons
Here is one he constructed using Star Wars stickers. The interesting thing is that to my knowledge, William has never seen Star Wars in any shape or form. He hasn't read any books,
magazines or anything else to reference this story. My guess is this is fueled by sheer playground information. Which is amazing, if you ask me.
You will also find my knowledge on this subject lacking as I attempt to describe what is happening.
The red guy at the top left is swinging his swords and says "Come on boy!"
The letter "H" airplane things can only say "beep!"
The airplaney thing under the H plane is saying vroom.
The golden robot guy is saying "I want candy". (I adore how the words/letters are spread out in separate bubbles)
The white guys below are both saying "no"
Finally the white roundish robot guy isn't saying anything yet.
William was beside himself with laughter as he explained this scenario to me. Apparently it is very, very funny.
*please note, the storytelling is by William. The name descriptors are made up by me.
**I'm certain my Star Wars fan of a husband is going to be horrified at my lack of retention regarding Star Wars information.
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