Fun Things on Friday

Jackson had a half day of school today, so we invited his friend Matt to join us for a day of fun at Crown Center. We ate lunch at Fritz train restaurant. Your food is delivered via trains that run along tracks set up across the ceiling. It's very fun.

Then we headed to Kaleidoscope at the Hallmark Center. President Bush also visited there today a few hours before us! Kaleidoscope is a creative art experience for kids. They provide all sorts of art materials and kids go in and create. Jackson made a great Patriots Super Bowl banner.

But the fun didn't stop there! The boys had a blast ice skating at the outdoor rink.

Jackson and Matt.

And the fun still wasn't over! We stopped at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art for their Chinese New Year event. We saw these dancing dragons. The boys thought they'd like to do this and argued on the way home on who would have to be in the back. The boys snickered through most of the art exhibits. Anything with partial nudity- and there were quite a lot- was good for a laugh.

Good bye old friend

I sold my old van this morning. We shared a lot of good memories together, and I drove it unto it's last breath!

Cookies and Milk

Jackson can now say "my mom made me cookies and milk after school." And we have the pic to prove it!

Change for America

Jackson and I attended the Barack Obama rally downtown today. He's been absolutely begging me to take him for several days. When our countries leaders start to seem like rock stars to my 12 year old- well this can be good. We were at Municipal Auditorium at 4:10, and waited in the foyer for 35 minutes. The wind chills are in single digits so as we waited the foyer became increasingly crowded until there literally wasn't room to bend down and tie your shoes. Then we waited another hour and 15 minutes in a long serpentine line. Finally, back aching feet throbbing we made it to the rally hall. Obama obviously has a lot of supporters in KC! We stood along a second floor rail where a big old pillar blocked our view of Obama but at least we could see him enter the stage and we could see the people's response. I didn't think that the strict security would allow camera's (I was wrong!) so today's picture is of Jackson eating his dinner. I was so tired I couldn't even think about waiting in a real restaurant for food! Jackson by the way was very impressed with Obama and now wants to "volunteer for his campaign."

Loving Books

Today was Toddler Story Time at the library. Erin and I love to hang out together at the library. She carried her own bag of books.

And she carefully put them into the return box- one at a time.

We listened to more stories about elephants. We sang songs and clicked our sticks to the music.

This afternoon I made trip number 9 to the vet. To remove stitches. Here's the finished product. She actually has three remaining toes- the thumb toe is just underneath in this pic. Nasty huh? The good news is that she can lose the big old cone head.

Gentle Sunny Sundays

Don't cha just love Sundays? This morning we went to church. Jackson is studying with the confirmation class and will hopefully make a profession of faith in late April. They unveiled the new youth room~ with much admiration from Jack and his friends!

Then Deb and I visited Granny in the hospital. We are so happy that she's receiving excellent, loving care. I didn't bring the camera or I would have taken a picture of the cherry pie & vanilla ice cream that brought her such joy! We really enjoyed our visit together.

It's a wonderful 50 degrees today. So Jack and I found a trail that wasn't just sopping mud. John sometimes rides his bikes along this trail. Cooper still ended up a muddy mess. Poor Colby had to stay home so that her wounded paw wouldn't get filthy.

I used to commute through the lake every day- and in the winter I love this scene. It's a winding little creek that flows into the bigger lake. The rest of the year the trees and leaves block the view entirely.

Here's Jack checking out the woods along the hiking trail. This trail is on a bit of a ridge that runs along the rim of the lake.

Griswald Politics

Remember the Griswalds trip to Wally World. Well it turns out it's very much like the Myers go to a political rally! Tonight we went to see Bill Clinton in Independence. Everyone in western MO went to see Bill Clinton in Independence tonight! The high school parking lot was absolutely packed- and people had parked in every inch of lot. I ended up getting stuck in a wretchedly small place to make a right turn. I rolled down all the windows and inch by inch somehow got my mammoth old van to go right. Back and forth, back and forth, and a report by Sammy sticking her head out the window that I was getting "a little close to the other car." Back and forth some more. Kids are scared all heads stuck next to windows. I was about to have Jackson hop out and find a police officer- because I was just plain old stuck. Then I said well just one more try and somehow we got out of there. We parked way down the road. We decided to just walk through the grassy area next to the school to save some distance and time- not knowing that we would walk through a bog of ankle deep mud. When we finally got inside Jackson told the person handing out the stickers "this is not dog poop- it's mud." And she just laughed.


We finally found some seats. Such relief. We made it. Then I look around and think 'man there's not THAT many people here." No one had told us we were the overflow audience! Now how to keep three kids occupied who can't see anything. But at least we could hear him. After his audio speech we waited and waited. The staff had said "he always speaks to the overflow crowd." Finally someone comes to tell us that he's already left. The kids were great- and I do believe we had fun in spite of ourselves. Jackson says he'd really like to go see Obama who is town next Tuesday. ("well ya never know he might be the next president") I don't know if my nerves will have been sufficiently recovered by then. But the civics lesson went well huh!



There were lots of Ron Paul people at the rally. Jackson asked one "um who is Ron Paul and why are you here?" The whole crew of them responded. One asked him "what issues concern you most?" And I had to redirect "he's 12- his friends are 9 and 7."