Road Trip

A quick day trip to the Kansas City Temple Open House with my good friend Puan and her two girls plus my three kids. We originally planned to go to the open house about two weeks ago on a Friday but it didn't workout. We had to reschedule the whole trip. I was getting a little bit worried that we wouldn't make it to the open house but we managed to work it out. We weren't able to get tickets for the Open House but everyone told me that they weren't checking tickets. So, we decided to take the chance and hope for the best.

This was the plan of the day:

Kansas City, MO Temple Open House
Liberty Jail
Penguin Park
T-Rex Cafe

The new temple is so beautiful. The drive up to Kansas City is so easy! I still can't believe that we have never driven to Kansas City before. Hello, I spent the first seven years of my life living right outside Kansas City. It's been ten years and our first trip up north...lol. We told the kids to keep an eye out for the temple. I had been told you can see it from the expressway. Sure enough, the kids were eager to spot the temple. The kids kept saying that whoever saw the temple first would be able to go into the temple first. Leah is really obsessed with the idea of being the line leader...lol. Anyways, Logan spotted the temple first and wanted me to give him a dollar.

Mobs and mobs of people were at the temple grounds. Everyone told us, the tour takes about 45 minutes but it was more like 2 hours. I was surprised how many people were not members were taking the tour. Long lines everywhere but it was worth it. They had us start in the Stake Center and watch a movie. Leah thought it was funny that the temple has a pool inside...opps! I had to explain to her that it was a baptismal font and not a pool. The inside of the temple is really beautiful.

I feel so grateful that the kids were able to take part of this great experience. The boys loved the celestial room. After the tour, they had cookies and water. All of the kids came away with a great experience. Puan and I talk to them for a long time about what they enjoyed the most about the temple and it turned out to be a great experience.

Puan has a super nice camera and has a lot more pictures of our trip to Kansas City. Hopefully, she will send me a copy and I will post them later on.

After the temple, we decided to head over to Liberty Jail. I forgot how small the visitor center but it's been a long time since we last went to the Liberty Jail. The missionary ask if anyone had any questions and Leah raised her hand. She asked about the "key" but she just said "key". I'm so proud of her, she should of phrase it in a question instead of a word but she didn't know any better. The kids took all of the pictures inside the visitor center. Afterwards, I had to bribe the kids to stand in front of the sign. I gave them all a dollar and told them they could spend it at the lds bookstore...too bad everything at the store was overpriced. They came away with nothing.

I decided to take the kids to Penguin Park, it's an old park that I used to go to as a little girl. The kids had so much fun. Massive amounts of kids everywhere but it didn't slow down the kids. They had so much...it was hard to pull them away but we managed to leave after an hour and half. At this point, it was close to 5:30pm. I asked if the kids wanted to go straight home or go to T-Rex Cafe. Of course, they all wanted to go out to eat.

By the time, we arrived at Legends Outlet mall which we all enjoyed. We couldn't find parking anywhere, the place was packed solid. This isn't your regular outlet mall, this place is down right fun. We finally made it to T-Rex Cafe but we found out that we had to wait 65 minutes to eat. The kids really wanted to stay and wait. A big mistake if you ask me but the kids loved it. The food is so overpriced but they did come away with these really cool dinosaur bones drinks. Sadly, we waited to be seated, we waited for our food, and we waited some more to check out. We didn't leave until 9:00pm.

Wow, where did all the time go. A long story made short, we didn't get back home until almost 12:20am. Luckily, as soon as we left the parking lot. The kids were fast asleep. We did managed to get pulled over by a state trooper that followed us off the interstate to tell us that my van's headlight was brunt out and not working. We had to drive all the way home with my brights on. Puan was suppose to drive us home but she only got about four hours of sleep the night before and couldn't keep her eyes open. So, I had to drive home for the last 2.5 hours.

Overall, we can't wait to go back. So much to do but not enough time. I still can't believe we were gone literally all day long. We might go back in a couple of weekends before the new baby arrives. Leroy doesn't want to go anywhere when the new baby comes. I think he's being a chicken. It can't be too hard to do things with a newborn. Don't they sleep all the time?