{Day 5 and to the end}

I thought I'd finish out the trip in this post... and it might be a little long. I have other pictures to download of stuff happening in the girls' life, and other funny things they have done/said that I want to get to posting before I forget it.

OK.... Wednesday rolls around on our trip. In Kansas City, Quik Trip (a gas station) makes the most phenomenal long johns (donut). It is one of the requested foods that Madison wanted to eat. (That & whalcomale {which is how Maddie spells it}..."guacamole"). My dad gets up and grabs some of these delicious super long donuts. YUMMY!

Wednesday is the day that my best friends are coming to visit! My best friend for over 20 some years, Jennifer, came over w/ her 2 kids. She's expecting a third any day now. We hung out for about 7 hours, taking in a trip to Costco and just visiting. We had so much fun catching up. I really miss her now......

Jennifer's two cute kids & my cute kid

this is her other baby... she'll kill me for even posting this, but I think I'm safe b/c she doesn't even read my blog. :P

Katie took in an opportunity to make some extra money, and my dad and Katie worked up a bargain so she could get a bike to replace the one we had to leave here when we moved last year (she had so much $$, and he would foot the rest of the money for the bike). My parents have several trees in their front yard that has these "pods" (or seeds?) that are spiky. They are a pain in the butt... literally. My girls used to get paid a penny a piece to pick these prickly things up. So, Katie goes to work in the entire yard, raking and placing them in bags. After Wednesday, Maddie gets involved, (well, because Papa Rod bought Katie a bike, and Miss Maddie had a huge meltdown, of which I'm still embarrassed about, so she got a bike as well..... all in all, Katie kept her money, and Papa Rod & Grandma Debbie bought the girls their bikes, but they had to finish the yard first!!).

this is only 1/3 of the yard!!

Wednesday night rolls around, and my other close friend Jenni (it was a day of Jennifers!) came to visit. She brought along her little sidekick: Owen. Owen & I have this relationship. He totally loves me, and I totally love him. We were buddies last summer, and I sorely missed him! So, they arrive, and she comes w/ Owen & her two girls: Alli & Reese, who the girls played w/ all summer last year before our move to Texas. Owen wasn't sure about me, but it didn't take long for him to open up and RECOGNIZE ME!! Yayyyy! My nephew is also visiting to let his parents enjoy a date night, so you would think these two little boys who are only a month apart would hit it off? No...... Owen only wanted ME! (and Jenni.... I'm not posting a pic of us! I promised!)

Thursday is a day of shopping. My SIL Rachel works for Hallmark, and they have a warehouse store inside their corporations that you can buy Hallmark stuff marked down SUPER cheap. So, we eat long johns that morning, drove to my grandma's house to pick up her minivan (and her as well), Rachel & Joshua jump in the van w/ us, and away we went! First stop was Gordmans, where I found this amazing hot pink purse w/ a cool wallet.... a must have! Next stop was Crown Center, an uppity type of mall in the middle of downtown KC filled w/ really cool stores that were so expensive. They had a traveling exhibit of The Wizard of Oz, so the 3 kids enjoyed playing around with that.

We represent.... the Lollip Guild, the Lollipop Guild, the Lollipop Guild!

and no, these are not the original shoes that Dorothy wore in the movie, just a copy since there were a bunch made "just in case".... you can see her name in the insides of the shoe!

Following the Wiz of Oz exhibit, we went to Hallmark to shop. I didn't find much to buy.... everyone else did though! After that, we went to eat at Chili's. At Chili's Joshua sat next to Madison. After eating I tried to get a cute picture of Madison holding Joshua. The first picture Madison is smiling really cute, and Joshua has this look on his face. Finally I said "Joshua, say CHEESE!", and he gave this amazing scrunchy face of a smile! It was HILARIOUS! He would only do it when he had a camera pointed at him!

Katie's new bike

Maddie's new bike

That night was a TV night as we watched our favorites: Grey's, Ugly Betty, etc.

Friday... can't remember much what we did on Friday. Oh.... we ran to Independence to drop Mike's truck off w/ him. He worked on his parent's property all week long installing & making a beautiful wrought iron gate for their property. They're building a house.

Mike (on right) w/ his dad & brother

gate he built from scratch.... beautiful!

Took another trip to Cargo Largo (this time I didn't get hurt, but we did find hats/scarves/gloves for a quarter a piece!). That afternoon the girls & I made won tons (we had our Butter Yaki meal for dinner!). I took the girls to a Highland Dance practice that night. Their old teacher wanted them to come back for a lesson, and she gathered up all the girls so they could see their old buddies. A nice cookies & pop display was laid out for them all to enjoy afterwards.

The girls kissing Joshua...

we did this last year when he was a little thing, and it was so cute.

My brother & his sidekick.... Like father like son?

Saturday we left (well, we tried to leave in the morning).... Mike wasn't done yet w/ the gate, so we hung out in Independence all day. Made a visit to the girls' cousins' house (actually, their 2nd cousins... they grew up w/ them). Finally at almost 5 that afternoon, we left KC.

Cousins...... group hug and in line of order of birth (except Price is a few months older than Katie, but Katie was taller this time, so they switched)

Finally made it home to Texas Sunday early evening!! Yay! Hate car trips! Love being home! Totally missing my family & friends again! :(

One more CHEESE for the road!