Kansas City: Day 7 & 8

Our last days...aren't you lucky?

Easton woke up a little too early thanks to going to bed a lot too late. Oops. That's sometimes how it goes on vacation, though, right?

Anyway...breakfast down in the lobby again (where Easton disturbed everyone by falling over backwards in his chair twice!!!) and then we went to meet AJ, Matt, and Adam over at a really awesome place called Paradise Park. I'd describe it as a children's entertainment complex. Part children's museum, part Chuck E. Cheese but with batting cages and bumper cars and go karts and such. It was great. I really wish we could've spent more time there but people got hungry.

They had a neat little room for water play. The boys got soaked first thing. Especially Easton. I didn't realize till much later that he was walking around in squishy socks and shoes. What a trooper. Anyway, Easton took it quite seriously at first:


But quickly realized what fun it could be:






Poor Dalton, having to miss out on his morning nap and all the fun:


After the water play it was on to their face painting station:


Easton has hated the moustaches I've drawn on him in the past. This time was no exception. He wouldn't even look at anyone until I wiped it off:


We drew on a green nose and whiskers instead:




We moved on to some painting and such after that.

Adam was a big handwashing fan. Wish that would rub off on some of the other males in this world. Somehow even with all that handwashing the poor guy still picked up a bug somewhere and got sick on Monday :( Easton liked the small sinks and such too...just not quite as much as his new pal.


Anyway...

Some footage:

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Hit up the ball pit after that. Even Matt joined in! And the little guys certainly had fun in there:






Poor Dizz missing out once again:

The next vacation we take we'll make sure he's old enough to do more than sit in the stroller, car seat, or Snugli. Sweet baby.


There was a really neat foam ball room with air jets. I don't know how else to describe it. They had one E loved at Six Flags too. Anyway, I think everyone had fun in this room. Sometimes I'd see J shooting things with Easton not even close by :) But that's because E was busy enjoying himself too:




Even Dalton got to play with some balls this time:

Looks like he's about ready to pitch in the big game!

Then sweet AJ rescued the poor lad from the confines of his stroller:



He's so happy to be free to roll about he even abandoned the paci!

We moved to the arcade for some skeeball:


Gramoo (the Whack-a-Mole queen) would be proud of her grandson and his two whackers:


Posing in their race cart thingy before we left:

It was my idea, not theirs as you might guess from the expressions.

D on the back of it:


So by that point we were hungry. Off to Rainforest Cafe! We used to have one in Denver. Not anymore. But I wanted to take Easton for sure. Each one has a talking tree in the gift shop and he had been obsessing over going to "the place with the talking tree" when we went on "bacation in Kascity". :)

Anyway... We got Easton a high chair for lunch. Falling out of his chair 3 times in less than 24 hours necessitated that. Hee hee! He didn't eat a thing. Stinker. But the scenery was cool. And he enjoyed fist shaking a.k.a. toddler dancing with Adam:

This picture of Adam makes me laugh...like he's praying for the animatronic gorillas to stop their show or something:


Can I just say again...we really loved AJ and family. We wanted to spend the rest of our time with them. (Oh...they don't live there, by the way. They're Arkansasians.) So, we moved to the gift shop where Easton finally got to check out his talking tree:

AJ was a big nicey and held him for this even though he was soaking wet from having poured lemonade all in his lap. On purpose. Is she a true mom or what?

My other cutie patootie:




Checking stuff out:


Sporting some tree frog wraps:


Dizzle liked the fuzzy fur on his feet:


Being sweet and nurturing while rocking baby monkeys. They did this on their own:


Checking out the alligator outside the restaurant:




Bendy little fellow:


Rainforest Cafe is located in a mall. So, we had the idea (Jason did) to check out their play area just so we could keep hanging out. We found a cool two story carousel on our way. The moms rode with the two year olds. It had seat belts which I made fun of. Then Easton fell off! (You think lack of sleep can make someone fall out of chairs and off carousel horses?) So, I was glad for the restraint at that point. I scratched his face trying to "save" him. He was a crank. He normally would've handled it so much better. Oh well. But, got back in the saddle, so to speak and the next time the dads rode with the lads.

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Minus Dalton who AJ snuggled:

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Did I mention AJ is pregnant and Adam will be a big brother next spring?!?! Just getting in some practice:


Then we made it to the play area which, as parents, we thought it was quite lame but the boys had a blast. Like, I think Easton had the most fun there than he did all the rest of the day:


Adam spotted balloon swords and went and got one for Easton too. E decided to behead himself:


I just thought this was a cool picture:


Jason and I hardly knew what to do with ourselves as AJ had custody of Dalton at that point and Easton was off playing. So we chatted and watched and took pictures instead.

My silly boy doing his "surprise face" while riding the escalators back from the potties:


Both families were game for continuing to hang out but at the same time, Easton was just so on edge. It was hard. So, we took our own two kids back to the hotel instead and said goodbye to my new BFF. :( I really hope we get to see them again...soon. I knew we'd hit it off and doubted there'd be any akwardness (as technically we were strangers). But, I know more about her than some of my real life friends. Beauty of the internet, I guess. She and I have been known to have to return emails in three phases...that's how long they can get! I really wish our families lived closer together or had more time and money to travel or something. Or go RVing ;) That's for AJ.

Anyhoo...E and I went for a brief swim back at the hotel:




Jason had an important LSU game to watch on TV that night and we wanted to make sure the boys got to bed at a reasonable hour as we had a long drive ahead of us the next day. So we did that instead of more fun with AJ's crew. Darn.

The next day the boys did so great in the car. We did it all in one big 8 hour stretch. It really wasn't too bad. Easton even napped a bit this time. Jason listened to football on the radio. Gotta love how far those AM stations can travel. :) The temperature dropped over 40 degrees during our drive west and when we got home it was fall. The trees are changing and everything.

It's okay. I was ready.

And that, dear readers, is the end of our Kansas City trip. Why Kansas City, you wondered? Here's why: Jason wanted somewhere driveable. So we started thinking of destinations: Santa Fe? Colorado Springs? Salt Lake City? Hey, AJ mentioned a bunch of cool things to do in K.C. (her inlaws are there) and there's a cool hotel another girl told me about (Great Wolf Lodge). Sooooo...Jason said, "Hey check the Chiefs schedule". Wouldn't you know it--the time we were planning to go they were playing the Saints!!! This was back in pre-season. And AJs inlaws gave us their season tickets and we were all set to go to that game with AJ, Matt, and Adam!! And then Microsoft called, so we had to postpone. I was so sad. But at least we were able to make it work a little over a month later. Meeting my friend (who I don't have to call an online friend or blog buddy anymore) was another big draw. If I couldn't have met her we might've tagged along with Jason to Seattle instead. I'm so glad it worked out the way it did. Now I just wish we'd had more time and that they didn't see Easton as cranky and sleep deprived as he was. That kid dissolved into tears so easily towards the end. It was frustrating to me and him, I'm sure. Maybe next time he'll be better....

Oh yeah! And also, we were not wanting to "waste" a trip somewhere really cool while the boys are so young. Ya know? Hence joking about it being a vacation for Easton. We tried to make it very E-friendly and didn't look at fancy restaurants or nightlife or whatever the city might have had to offer. We want to go to Chicago someday, for example, but that will be for when the kids are over. Make sense?

Anyway...

I think we found a lot of the cool things to do there with help from AJ and Google. Many big cities would offer a lot of that same kind of stuff (minus the awesome and free Kaleidoscope and Farmsteads)...you know, so if any of you want to come to Denver... Hee hee.

Thanks for tuning in for all this! I know I can be very long-winded. I thought about trying to be brief but decided to heck with it. I reminded myself that I blog for me and our family and how in a year I will love to look back at alllllll these details and pictures.

The end.