In May, we took a trip to Kansas City to visit some friends, Ben and Karen Divine. We met them when they moved to Mankato for school, but Ben graduated with his Masters and got a job in Kansas, so we don't see them much anymore. We were there for six days and we had a blast. Unfortunately when I uploaded the pictures, they uploaded in reverse order, so the pictures from the end of our trip are first.
Sophie taking a nap in her toddler bed. Monday after we got back from Kansas, Jon started teaching his 5 week summer session. I tried putting Sophie down for a nap and she wasn't happy. She didn't take naps while we were in Kansas, so she didn't want to take them at home either. I went downstairs while she was crying and a few minutes later I heard a big thud. I came running upstairs and found Sophie out of her crib. I called Jon and told him that it was time to change Sophie's crib into a toddler bed. As you can see she did adjust to taking naps once again.
Since we were so close to Missouri and many of the church historical sites, we decided to see the sites. The picture above is taken at Adam-ondi-ahman. It's beautiful but there isn't much to see other than a lot of land. What matters most is what is to happen here in the future.
This is the Far West temple site. Again not much to see, but you can see the four cornerstones for the temple.
Our good little traveler. She did so well with all the driving. We were worried, but she was a little angel for the most part. She read books, played with her toys, watched movies and slept.
Sophie with her friend Avery. They are 3 years apart in age, but they sure had fun together. Avery was so good to share all of her fun toys with Sophie.
Karen took us to a local farmstead. First of all it was free, which was wonderful and secondly it was so much fun. Sophie loved it! She loves farm animals. We got to feed the baby goats a bottle. I think Sophie was a little nervous at first, because the goats know what you have and we had at least three or four attacking us as we walked in the pen. They were so cute!
When I was 9 years old, my dad decided to go back to school and get a second Masters degree, so we moved to Warensburg, Missouri. Warrensburg just happens to be about an hour and half from Kansas City, so Jon was sweet enough to take me so that I could see where we lived. I was surprised by how much I remembered about the town, and I was very surprised to see that it seems much smaller now. Everything seems so much bigger when you are young. Anyway, this is the townhouse we lived in for a year and a half while my dad worked on his Masters. It looked exactly like I remembered it. It was fun remeniscing. I actually remembered quite a bit.
We went to the Independence Visitor Center. I went when I was 9 years old and it looked very different then. They have made a lot of changes since I was 9. One of the changes is this statue of the Christus. When I was 9, this wall was a mural of Christ descending from heaven and it was two stories in length. Now the stairs are actually in front of where we are and they have added a lot of neat things, one of which is a childs play area. They have also added a lot to the tour. During the tour you go into a replica of a cabin and learn about the pioneers. I don't know how to describe all of the other areas, but it is very nice and I'm sure others who go who aren't members of our church enjoy the tour much more. It is very visual.
Sophie riding the horse that is pulling a covered wagon, down in the childs play area. There is a small cabin in the play area too and Sophie had lots of fun playing inside.
We also went to Liberty and saw the Liberty Jail. I didn't remember that the jail had actually been demolished. The church bought the land and rebuilt the jail and then built the visitor center around the jail to preserve it. I believe the beams that are used in the walls and the rocks are from the original jail.
The Kansas City temple was dedicated a few weeks before we went, so we tried to get in for a temple session, but they were completely booked. With the temple being so new, you had to make an appointment to attend a session. We decided to drive up and see it, since it was on our way to Liberty. It's a beautiful temple!
Sophie became good friends with Percy, the Divine's dog. She had so much fun playing with Percy and I just love this picture. It looks like Sophie and Percy are having a wonderful conversation. I'm sure Sophie was telling Percy all sorts of stories.
We also went to the Kansas City Zoo. This was Sophie's very first trip to a zoo, and she enjoyed it. It was a neat zoo. The animals are in areas that are similar to their natural habitat, as opposed to being in enclosures. Sophie was excited to see the giraffes, but they were in their natual habitat with the zebras, out in the open African planes, and they were too far away for her to really see. I was used to the Salt Lake City zoo where all the animals are in enclosures, and you can see them up close but not here. I think the neatest animal to see was the kangaroos. They don't have a fence around them or anything, they are free to roam, but they don't. They stay in their area even though there isn't a fence keeping them in. It was a little crazy to watch them and to know that there was nothing between us and them. We never felt threatened, they didn't really move much. The zoo was huge! Jon said we probably walked about 5 miles, just walking around the zoo. It was big!
My beautiful Sophie girl waiting to go to the zoo. She is holding a stone frog, that sits on the front porch. She loved this little frog!
We had a wonderful time in Kansas City. We happened to be there over Mother's Day, so I got to celebrate Mother's Day with Karen. We went to their ward on Sunday. After Sacrament meeting Jon and I brought Sophie home so she could take a nap. I really wanted to attend Relief Society, since all the sisters would be together, which meant that Karen wouldn't be in Primary that day, so I drove back. It was the best Mother's Day Relief Society lesson I've ever had. It seems that more often than not, on Mother's Day the presidency decides to do a lesson on visiting teaching, because all of the sisters are together. I HATE it! I think it's awful. We should be talking about motherhood and womanhood, not worrying about visiting teaching. We have plenty of other times to talk about that, we only have Mother's Day once a year. Anyway, when I walked into the gym the sisters were all lined up. I couldn't tell at first, what they were lined up for, and then I began to see sisters with plates of food. The Relief Society presidency had brought fruit, fruit dip, banana cake and a veggie tray for all the sisters to enjoy during the lesson. How awesome! The lesson was taken from President Uchtdorf's talk "Forget Me Not". I left there feeling uplifted and hopeful as a mother. I was so happy when I left. It was truly amazing! I think that all Mother's Day lessons should be like this. I forgot to mention that the gift we got after Sacrament meeting was two chocolate covered strawberries, my all time favorite treat. It was a wonderful Mother's Day and a very fun trip.
