Kansas City Trip

We thought it would be fun to do a family vacation birthday trip to Kansas City, MO to see some of the church sites since Jace will be turning 8 and getting baptized soon.  We booked a hotel, imagined our kids behaving perfectly, swimming at the pool, enjoying some awesome bbq, and being grateful for such a fun trip.  This did NOT happen.  :(  The first day started out great and then the rest of the trip went downhill quickly from there.

We checked out the World War 1 museum which was awesome.  We all really enjoyed the set up and the short movie clips explaining how the war started and ended.  When you first walk in the floor is glass and they have a field of poppy flowers beneath you.  Poppies are significant because so much of the war was fought in poppy fields.  It was beautiful.  They had so much to see.  At the end we got to take an elevator to the top of the building that overlooks all of Kansas City.

While we were at the museum I noticed that Ty had a low grade fever and was being a bit more fussy than normal.  Then while we were watching one of the movies he was sitting on my lap and I literally watched these little sores start to form on his hands.  We stopped at Arthur Bryants for lunch and were wowed by their awesome BBQ.  Then we picked up some motrin and just went back to the hotel.  A few days earlier a friend of mine on facebook had mentioned that her daughter had caught Hand Foot Mouth disease.  Gross!  Ty had been exposed from her before she knew about it.  By that night he had sores in his mouth, all over his hands, bum, and feet.  :(  That meant no swimming for him.  Nobody slept well that night.  Ty does great if there is a door I can close and he can't see people when he is put down to bed, but this particular hotel room didn't have anything like that so we were all squished in the same room and Ty cried for ever it seemed.  We finally took a family car ride at about 11pm to try and get kids to sleep.  It was not fun.

The next day was Jace's birthday.  We planned to go to Liberty Jail, Independence, Kansas City Temple and then hit Strouds Restaurant for dinner.  He had picked out some Star Wars Lego sets a few days ago and didn't even want me to wrap them.  He wanted easy access to them as soon as he woke up. :)  He played with those in the morning then we headed over to Liberty Jail.  It was truly amazing.  It helped me understand more fully what Joseph Smith suffered while he was there for months on end.  Jace snuck his Legos in even though he had asked him not to.  Both Jace and Brooke were not as reverent as we had hoped.  We had high hopes of this being a really spiritual trip and help Jace learn more about the church.

By the time we arrived at Independence both kids were behaving horribly.  We had a special prayer before going into the Independence Visitor Center.  Brooke and Jace had too much energy and were running around not being respectful at all.  They started fighting during the tour and I was surprised they didn't kick us out.  We were so disappointed with their behavior.  Neither Craig or I could enjoy it because we were constantly putting kids in time outs and putting out fights.  It was exhausting.  We left early and sat in the car in the parking lot for about an hour while we talked to them about how they should have behaved and how we can trust to take them to reverent places if they can't act appropriately.  They both felt badly.  I didn't feel like we should take them to the Kansas City Temple after the last outing but they both apologized and Brooke fell asleep on the way.  It was raining when we arrived but Jace and I decided to walk around the temple anyway.  It was really special and Jace was great.  We had a really long spiritual talk and I was really proud of him.  It was wonderful to have some special time with him on his birthday. :)

Independence Visitor Center

Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints now known as Community of Christ's temple.

Kansas City Temple

Even though it rained the whole time we were there Jace and I had a good time walking around and chatting.  He was very reverent and obedient and we had a really spiritual talk together.  He is such a special kid.  I'm so proud to be his mom.  I'm excited for his baptism and I know that he will go far if he chooses to follow the commandments and try to be like Jesus Christ.

Birthday Dinner at Stroud's Restaurant

This place was AWESOME.  The best fried chicken, mashed potatoes & gravy that I had ever eaten.  Yum!!

The next day we ended up just chilling in the hotel room the whole day.  Brooke came down with Hand Foot Mouth as well and with two kids sick there wasn't much else we could do.  Jace played with his Legos all day.  Brooke was sad that she couldn't go swimming.  It was a pretty boring day.  Nobody slept that night so we decided to check out early and head home.  We stopped at Adam Ondi Ahman on the way home.

ADAM - OND- AHMAN

ADAM-ONDI-AHMAN was beautiful.  We hiked around a bit and the kids enjoyed being outside.