Recapping SuSu and Big Daddy's visit

We had a great visit with my mom and dad! They flew out for a week and we kept busy! (Tons of pictures of the week are in an album linked at the end of the post.)


They arrived Saturday evening and Sunday we went to church and brunch. Here's Emmy and Big Daddy outside the Santa Fe Cafe, which is in the old train depot. Very neat building!


Monday, we visited the Steamboat Arabia museum, ate BBQ at Gate's, went to the Crown Center and the Hallmark visitor's center.

The Steamboat Arabia sank in the Missouri in the 1850s and was finally excavated from the middle of a farm in the 1990s. The effort was led by none other than the Hawley family...the dad and his two sons.  Crazy! We even met one of the son's during the tour, as they are still very involved in the museum.  

Arabia wreckage

The Hallmark Visitor's Center was neat to go through, definitely a walk down memory late! We saw an actual Emmy award (from multiple awards for the Hallmark Hall of Fame movies), how card dies are made, and lots of Christmas ornaments, come of which we have in our family. 

 
Tuesday was Emmy's first ballet class!  Mom and I took her and, well, let's just say this teacher has a lot of patience to try and teach two and three year olds.  Herding cats is putting it mildly.  She had fun, though she was pretty clingy and nervous in the new situation.  It's an 8 week class, so we'll see how it goes! It is really more gymnastics and ballet combined and I think it will be good for her balance and gross motor skills.


Wednesday was Emmy's Kindermusik class, which is a good 45 minute drive to the other side of Kansas City. Mom and Dad came along and got to sit and watch the class. Emmy was excited to have them there, but still did well participating. After class, we ran a couple of errands (there are lots of stores out that we don't have close by) and then had a yummy lunch before heading home. 

 Thursday we decided to go to Wonderscope, the children's museum down in Shawnee, KS. It took almost an hour to get there and our neighbors also met us there.  The museum was a neat concept, but it was a bit tired and in need of some updates. Turns out they are planning to build a new one, so that explains it a bit. Plus, there were lots of school groups there so it was surprisingly crowded.  I wish there was a staff person in each room (each room had a theme like Farm to Farm Stand, the vet clinic, water play, the LEGO Sea Exploration, etc.) to put the pieces back together periodically because it was so chaotic, the "stuff" was all mixed up. We bought a membership cheap off groupon so to get our money's worth, we will only have to go one more time, and I'd like to plan to go on one of the "member's come early" days when we can get there before it's all messed up for the day.  Anyways, after a fun morning, we went for more KC BBQ at Oklahoma Joe's (which, if anyone cares, is our current vote for our favorite BBQ in Kansas City...but we still have a couple more to try).   Lunch was in a word, amazing.  I still love chopped pork Carolina BBQ, especially mustard based, but this is yummy in a different way.  Of course, as our friend Steph said, I haven't met many pigs I didn't like.  What makes KC BBQ unique, I'm told, is they will smoke anything.  You see pulled pork, beef brisket, ribs, ham, turkey, and sausage on most of the menus we have encountered, whereas a lot of other regions focus on one or two meats. Thus ends your unofficial and likely inaccurate BBQ commentary.

Along the river, checking out Ft. Leavenworth

 Friday was extra fun because Charles was off from class for Good Friday and we got to spent the whole day together! We had been saving a trip to the museum on post and the Ft. Leavenworth history tour for when my dad came, so we headed over to the museum first thing. It is HUGE! We could have stayed there for hours, but with Emmy, there was only so much she could take, so we headed outside to view a few of the highlights. We stopped at I think 6 of the stops on the tour and it gave us a chance to explore the post a little more. It is very lovely here!  Can't imagine what it must have looked like when Lewis and Clark stopped here on their infamous journey.

Some of the beautiful, historic homes on post in the background

Friday afternoon we drove into Weston, which is  small town just across the river in Missouri.  There is a distillery there with a store in town where you can sample their products.  We wish we had planned to eat at the Brewery there, but we'll have to go back another time! Instead, we had reservations for yummy German food back in Leavenworth. 


Saturday we drove to Legends to take dad to the Cabela's. I tell you, it's an interesting store. Like the Bass Pro Shop, but with what we refer to as the indoor zoo...a whole bunch of stuffed animals that have been hunted. I'm talking elephants, tigers, mountain lions, yaks, if it's wild game, they probably have it there.   Also, we introduced them to the Nebraska Furniture Mart, which is seriously the biggest furniture store we've ever been to.  They had the Easter Bunny there for a couple of hours so we'd planned to take Emmy. Unfortunately, we misunderstood the time and it didn't start until Noon (we thought 10). So walked around other stores, then came back and of course had to wait in line. She was so excited, though, she didn't care and she was very good.  And, she love seeing the EB, even if she was a little shy.


Lunch we had MORE BBQ at Arthur Bryant's (so we hit three of the big ones during their visit) and spent the afternoon dying Easter Eggs and getting ready for Easter Sunday.


I already posted Easter pictures in my last post, so I won't recap all of those, but we had a great day going to church, eating a yummy lunch as a family, and then capping it off with an Easter Egg hunt and potluck supper in the park with our neighbors. Lots of fun was had by all!


I had to have Mom and Dad at the airport very early Monday morning. It was sad to see them go, but we're so glad they came to see us in KS! And,we get to see them at the beach in a couple of months. Yeehaw!


Some of my photos seem to have disappeared in the transfer to the computer. Fortunately, I copied Mom's photos before the left, so I have to rely on her photos for Monday-Thursday's activities.  I have uploaded them all to a new album in Picasa and there are are almost 400 for your viewing pleasure.


Also, I uploaded several more photos to the March 2012 album, so check out the end of that album, too! 

P.S. Blogger has changed it's formatting and I'm tired of fighting with it and trying to fix these weird paragraph/photo issues, so I'm sorry, y'all will just have to live with it, lest I toss this computer out the window!