say QUE?!
First you had your
neighborhood scouting moon and
then you had your
house hunting moon and now you're saying you went on a familymoon
too?!
We did. Those Pattons the moon hounds. That's us.
So, as promised ... a bevy of words and photos and more words about said familymoon in Kansas City.
But first ... I have to give a little background! Yay.
Simon attended his first two years of med school in Kansas City before we moved to Wichita for his second and final two years. Right after we got engaged before his second year I found a teeny tiny impossibly cheap apartment down the street from Simon's house that smelled like curry and cigarettes (hence the happy price tag) by the med center, landed a job 70 miles away in Topeka, and lived a nice little engaged life in KC while he studied and studied and I commuted and commuted. Aren't you glad I gave you that history lesson? I thought so. No, my point is that we have a lot of fond memories in Kansas City and always want to stop and see our old haunts with the kids on the way to visit Simon's family in Wichita but we've never been able to make it happen .... UNTIL NOW.
Trumpets. Bright colored banners.
Visit KC invited us to take a mini vacation over the weekend in Kansas City and we were so happy the timing worked out before I was too pregnant to fit in the van with the rest of the family and before we moved. Not that we should've by now (at all) but we've never taken a
"vacation" that wasn't to visit family or tagging along with Simon to one of his conferences so this felt bizarrely grown up and somewhat foreign but I'm not complaining because the kids l-o-v-e-d it.
We drove up Friday and randomly heard
this song on the radio so surely .... it was fate? Surely. Anyway, after getting settled into our hotel suite at the
Westin Crown Center (we are now ruined forever and ever and ever ... having two rooms completely changed the quality of the sleep situation for the much, much, much better) and giving the kids much-needed naps we headed across the street (no driving! thank you kid-friendly gods!) to
Sea Life.
To be perfectly honest I think the kids would've been happy with the display tank in the lobby but we pressed on and went through the (mostly empty! we went sort of late around 7pm) entire aquarium.
Sebastian claimed to have found a "fish made of broccoli",
Phoebe couldn't have cared less, and Theo has now requested a similar sandbox in his future Florida quarters ...
... and when we asked the kids what their favorite part was after we left Sebastian happily exclaimed, "the WHALES!!!"
(no whales, only their fun-loving cousin ... the shark)
Onto dinner! Aside from our road trip pit stops and the hospital cafeteria we don't take the kids out to eat (um ... ever) for every obvious reason under the sun so I was mildly apprehensive about going to a sit down restaurant but
Fritz's Railroad Cafe back over at Crown Center delivered the food via train ...
which Sebastian thought was just awful ...
Stop judging ...
... it's just Diet Coke with an extra three shots of caffeine. That's all.
The food came super fast and the baby really appreciated
my Oreo Sundae that I super reluctantly ordered for dessert.
The next morning we headed across the street (by foot, again!) to run around the courtyard full of fountains ...
and eventually
Legoland Discovery Center which almost sent Sebastian into overly excited cardiac arrest. He'd been studying the website all week and could hardly believe we were actually there in the flesh. There was a happy mix of (tame) rides, hands-on exhibits, and a huge indoor playground full of big (soft) lego blocks where I'm certain Julia would still be camped if we hadn't insist that we leave with her cruel family. They had kiddy pool sized vats of Duplos which suited Phoebe
just fine ...
... while Simon the fun parent Patton built complicated little cars with the boys to send sailing down the ramps they had set up.
Because you have to make reservations for
Legoland Discovery Center Simon was nervous that it would be a total zoo (he is a well known hater of lines) but it wasn't too crowded at all for a Saturday and if I had to do it again I would dedicate far more than two hours to the excursion. Lesson learned!
And then we had lunch at the
Crayola Cafe at Crown Center where once again, the service was fast, the kids happy to sit and color and not share a bunch of broken crayons like at home (sue me), and I'm still regretting not just going for it a la dessert round two. I'll live. I think.
And just when you thought your day's luck had run out I have to go and tell you that I'm going to go ahead and throw a cliffhanger at you because round two .... it'll come at a (not that much) later date. What will we do next?! What will we eat?! How many hours will the kids nap? Will someone throw up?! Multiple times?!
All that and more .... next time.
Next time, patient people.
(And now that we're feeling stupidly brave .... I'd love to hear your family vacation destinations of choice. Looking back at my childhood .... my parents were very, very brave souls taking young kids camping at Yellowstone ... so maybe something with a little more electricty? Thanks.)