Kansas City: Who knew?

We took a mini-vacay to Kansas City two weeks ago and it was a lot of fun- who knew? I have lived in St. Louis my whole life but have never traveled four hours to the west and actually stopped for longer than it takes to go the restroom. (I did go to my Mothers of Twins Club Conference last year in KC, but I only left the hotel once and it was kind of a random 'Where are we going?' sort of situation and I ended up at the library reading for two hours. So it doesn't count.) Kansas City has always had bad mojo for me; a sweet, sweet lady who went to my church died in Kansas City and I think it must have been one of the first times that I really was confronted with the death of someone I saw every week because it really stuck with me and made me feel icky about going there. But spoiler alert- no one died on this trip, so phew- the bad mojo is broken.

That being said, the only thing that could get me to Kansas City initially was seeing my favorite author of all times live, in person, in the same place, breathing the same air as me. I started reading Stephen King books when I was WAY too young to, if memory serves me correctly it was somewhere around seventh grade. My junior high was connected to the high school and we shared a library, so I got a permission slip from my mom (I'm still not sure why she signed it, she had clearly never read any Stephen King), and started my love affair with... Christine? I think? I really wish I could remember my first SK book, but once I started it was like an avalanche and I can't remember. I do remember reading IT in eight-grade social studies during the scene were the girl has to have sex with all the boys to take their mind off the big scary spider that's going to kill them, and I think she was on her period... I don't fully remember but I remember being kind of traumatized. But clearly I recovered. Except I still get leery when I take a shower and there's a drain on the floor.

So when I saw that he was actually going on tour to promote his latest book, and he was actually leaving the East Coast and was going to be only FOUR short hours away from me, I knew I had to go. Luckily tickets were only $30 which included the book, and I snatched two up pretty much as soon as they went on sale. I thought for a minute about taking Jamie and making it a relaxing, rejuvenating, sex-filled weekend, but that lasted only a minute and I figured I should take my mom who is now also a SK fan. And then take Jamie to babysit for us. From my lover to my babysitter. Jamie has been traveling to visit his second family in New Jersey a lot this year, and is a Gold Level Marriot person, so we got two free nights at the Residence Inn which I now want to live in all the time. It was so nice. So, so nice. I can never not stay at somewhere that is not a Residence Inn now, I am ruined for life. RUINED!

We left St. Louis Thursday morning and stopped in Columbia for some Shakespeare's Pizza. We got to Kansas City in the afternoon, hung in the hotel for a while and then my mom and I headed out to the reading. The church were the reading was being held was only two blocks from the hotel so we walked through the not-scary-at-all streets of Kansas City. We were in some kind of shopping district and I wish we would have had more time and had been about fifty degrees warmer because I would have loved to have walked around. The reading was great, I actually cried a little when he walked out, it is a moment I won't forget. Seeing Stephen King in person is definitely a bucket list thing for me; now if I can get John Corbett to  pick me up and carry me somewhere like he does to Carrie Bradshaw all the time, my life would be complete.

On Friday we went to Legoland, with intentions of going to the aquarium next door at some point later in the day. The reviews of Legoland are not the best and I didn't have very high expectations. Perhaps low expectations are the key though, because I really thought Legoland was great. We stayed there all afternoon and didn't make it to the aquarium that day. Good times were had by all.

You enter in a 'Lego factory' and some well-meaning tour guide tries to give information while the kids run around randomly. But you do get a souvenir Lego. Well worth the price of admission.

What I'd really like to know is my weight in Lego bricks. I'm guessing 45 million.

This is how many Lego bricks tall she'll be when she graduates high school.

They had a whole Star Wars room. Lot of nerd hours went into the making of this room.

They had a ride. Two rides actually, but the first one was even lamer than this one, where you had to pedal yourself up and down. Ugh. Exercising on vacation? No thank you.

They had a whole Kansas City room, it was actually seriously amazing.

I had forgotten that Wizard of Oz took place in Kansas, but Legoland Kansas City had not.

There was a Chuck E. Cheese-style indoor playground with a slide. Obviously.

Sigh. The Lego Friends area. While Harry and Jamie took a 'Master Builder' class to make a dinky airplane, Penny made 75 pink and purple houses while I struggled to stay awake. I mean proudly watched my future engineer, encouraging her every step of the way.

And of course there was a kitchen. Because, vaginas.

The race track area, the kids spent a little time here...

Jamie spent a lot of time here. Like, I had to tell him to leave because we were all ready to go home.

There was also a 4D movie theater that showed movies every 45 minutes. There was one where a female character wore this half-shirt halter top thing and my mom complained that it was sexist and the manager said my mom was the very first person she'd had complain. Which is super depressing. And mildly embarrassing.

We left Legoland and headed straight to a Mexican restaurant called Margaritas, as I suspect most parents do. The food was delicious and the margaritas were on happy hour, so it was a wonderful experience. Except we had to meet Jamie's old friend for dinner later and all I wanted to do was sleeeeeep with my best friend tequila. But I rallied, and we met his friend and his lovely wife for dinner and had a great visit. Since I had already had dinner I ordered guacamole and anytime I can eat an entire bowl of guacamole and call it second dinner I'm happy.

The next day (Saturday) I took the kids to the pool and played Captain America Pups where the kids are Captain America's dogs and I'm Captain America but also a bad guy at the same time and the kids talk in these annoying dog voices and I'm in spitting distance of a hot tub and it was all very unfair. We checked out of the hotel (I miss it so much already!) and went to the aquarium before heading home. The aquarium was meh; we had bought a ticket package with Legoland so we had to go, but I would not have wanted to pay full price for tickets. We were there for about an hour or so, and the kids were more interested in the little stamp booklet than the fish.Or the sea life I should say. It wasn't great, it wasn't terrible, but it was a nice way to end our trip.

Look! A turtle!

You could touch a starfish, which I hear feels like a rock but Penny and I weren't having any of that. I don't trust things that live in the water.

This was cool but terrifying. An octopus of some sort.

THE STAMPING STATION!!! WE GOTTA GET TO THE NEXT STAMPING STATION MOM!!!

She was ready for the next stamp at all times.

Harry got to first base with this Angelfish.

Oh. My. God. This was some kind of horrible Sea Spider crab that is the stuff of nightmares. You'll notice I'm taking the picture and not the one forcibly holding Penny next to it.

The Octonauts were there supposedly, but this was the only evidence I saw.

Harry,

my cooperative child.

Penny,

my...

child.

We had a really great time in Kansas City and I feel like we barely saw it. I hope to come back sometime and spend a little longer when it's a little warmer. Until we meet again KC!