April 16, 2022

Kansas Highlights, pt 4

Eli taught Katherine how to play chess.


We met Cara and her daughter at the Natural History Museum.  I haven't been since I went there on a field trip in grade school with Cara.  It was fun to take the kids, but also much less exciting than I remember.




Grandpa taught Alison to drive!  The same way he taught me and she did great!


Our last night together:



I am the shortest of this group of girls!





Thank you Ben for taking this picture for us!

April 15, 2022

Kansas Highlights, pt 3

It snowed again and the cousins had school cancelled, which meant lots of playing for us!












I forgot how tiring playing in the snow is!




Kansas Highlights, pt 2

Eli's turn!


Ben and I discovered running at the wetlands.  The prairie may not be beautiful to everyone, but it's always brought me peace.


Grandpa took the boys out to the farm many times:


And shot BB guns with them:


Playing "colored eggs"


We had dinner in Kansas City with friends inside an "igloo".



My uncles came over one afternoon.


Playing games is in the genes.



If Charles was at the house, you would find him with Alison.


 

April 14, 2022

Kansas Highlights

Beth made Valentine gingerbread houses with the kids while Ben and I took way too long getting groceries.  The hard part about going back "home" is that you think you know where everything is, because you used to know where everything is, but everything has changed since you left and it leaves you very confused.





Charles and Alison quickly became best friends. 
 


Alison put a game on the iPad that they could play together and he LOVED that.


We went over to Lydia's for dinner one night.  It's always fun to see our kids love playing with each other, even though they barely see eachother.
*sorry, all my pictures of the kids was bad, but it's documented



We planned on being in Kansas for 5 days, but a few days into our stay, we found out all of our belongings were still sitting in California and the sellers of our new house wouldn't move out until the end of the month.  We were so thankful for my parents who embraced our circumstance, cleared some drawers for us and helped us settle in to living there for a few extra weeks.  Maya claimed her territory of guard dog for their house:

 
Staying longer had it's perks.  Ben took both the boys to a KU basketball game!
Colin's turn:
 
 

And we had lots of time to play games with grandpa.


Grandpa likes to keep you on your toes.  One day, he asked Alison to give him a haircut!