Kansas City

Jake had his builder 20 meetings in Kansas City, Missouri this time and I got to tag along.  I have to admit that I really like going to these meetings.  I get to see parts of the country that I would never go to otherwise, and while Jake is in his meetings I get to do whatever I want.  It's pretty amazing.

We flew in Wednesday evening, after barely making our flight.  I really don't like flying with Jake.  He always cuts it sooo close.  Super stressful.  Anyway, we drove right to dinner from the airport.  We ate yummy bbq food and then this place had tons of pickle ball courts, so we got to play for a couple of hours.  I love pickle ball.  It was a lot of fun, and such nice weather!  I'm trying to talk Jake into putting a pickle ball court on our lot.  He's not so excited about the idea.

While Jake was in meetings Thursday, I got to drive around and see some church history sites.  This was definitely a win-win.  I'm not one who's ever going to plan a trip just to see church history, and Jake really doesn't ever want to do that, but since I was right there with time to kill I got to go!  I went to Independence first.  Pretty cool.  It was just me and two sister missionaries.  Slightly awkward.  But as I was leaving two buses full of people pulled up, so I was happy to have the awkwardness.  From there I went to Liberty Jail.  That was really cool.  So small.  Strong spirit for sure.  After that I took an unplanned detour to some cemeteries.  Not something I usually do, but why not?  I saw David Whitmer's grave and Oliver Cowdery's, plus a cool memorial for the three witnesses.  And then I headed to Adam-ondi-Ahman.  That was probably my favorite.  So quiet and beautiful.  There was such a good spirit there.  I'm glad I got to go!

Friday I went fake shopping for a couple of hours (I don't really shop, didn't buy anything because it was all so expensive).  Then I hung out and did nothing for a couple of hours.  Which felt sooo good.  Most people left Saturday, but we stayed an extra day.  Of course it was pouring rain, but we still had fun.  We ended up hanging out with another couple from his group.  We went to this hole in the wall bbq place.  Delicious and excellent people watching.  Then we went to the WWI memorial.  I knew nothing about that war before I went, so I learned a lot.  That night the weather cleared up enough that we were able to go to a soccer game.  That was a lot of fun.  Maybe I should go to a Real game some day!

Anyway, that about sums it up.  I don't know why, but it was such a great trip.  Like one of my favorites ever.  I think what that means is I really needed a break.  It was wonderful.  Now I'm back home to the craziness of May.  Heaven help us all!

Pickle Ball!

Crazy temple right next to the visitor center

The land the church owns in Independence

Liberty Jail

Adam-ondi-Ahman

The view from the roof of our hotel

Fake shopping

Awesome diner I went to.  The guy in the picture was talking to me.  And then quickly left after he found out I'm LDS.  

Biscuits and gravy! (no I didn't eat all of that)

French tank that we have for some reason

Soccer!

Visiting the office of the host for these meetings.  This was the whole group.

New York!!

I got to go to New York with my friend and her sister.  It was such a great trip.  So nice to get away, fun to be with girls, and of course, fun to explore New York.  It was a quick trip, because moms can't leave for too long, but we had great fun.  And Jake and the kids held up quite well.  Yay!

We ate delicious food, of course.  I had my favorite burger ever, delicious cheesecake, and some really good New York pizza.  Yum.  I'm normally not much of a pizza person, but this pizza was so good.

We rode our bikes around Central Park.  This was probably my favorite thing we did.  The weather was amazing, and the trees were blossoming and flowers blooming.  So great!  From there we headed to Chelsea Market for, you guessed it, delicious food.  I had an authentic italian meatball sandwich.  So, so good.  From there we headed to the Brooklyn Bridge.  That was super cool.  So big.  Fun to think about how they built it so long ago.  All of this was done amidst lots of people.  So many people.  Everywhere.  Sometimes I think Midway is getting too big and busy, but no, we live in the country for sure.  I didn't mind all the people for a few days, but I could never live someplace that busy.

We went to the 9/11 memorial and museum.  That was amazing.  The museum is really well done, and very intense.  It's packed with people, yet super quiet.  Everyone talks in a whisper.  There's a definite reverence there. 

We went to two shows: Aladdin and Chicago.  Aladdin was really good and a lot of fun.  Chicago had Christie Brinkley as a guest lead.  She's 65 years old and can't sing at all.  Not so good.  Oh well, still a fun experience.  We rode the subway everywhere, even from the airport.  We only had a semi-bad experience with a really creepy guy.  Luckily he was creepy, and then just when I was starting to get worried, he left.  Thank heavens. 

We got to spend an extra few hours in the airport.  We were almost there to catch our flight when we were notified that our flight had been delayed 3 hours.  What?!  If they had told us sooner we could have stayed in the city.  Instead we spent a few hours in the airport.  So we went to a spa where I got a manicure, and finally made it to Shake Shack.  The time at the airport passed fairly quickly, but the flight seemed eternal since we'd already been sitting around so long.  I finally made it home at 1:30am on Sunday.  Let's just say I was a little tired at church the next day...

The view from our hotel room

Ate the best burger ever, followed immediately by the best shake ever.  Oh yeah, that's Ashley on the left and Audrey on the right.

Times Square in all it's madness

Creepy adults dressed up to get paid for pictures.  Yikes.

The cool bikes we rode in Central Park

Beautiful gardens.  The worker was going through each flower and pulling off specific petals.  Crazy detailed.

Chelsea Market

Brooklyn Bridge

The beautiful theater where we saw Aladdin

A weird piece of "art work" by the Highline Trail

At the spa in the airport

This pizza was so, so good.