KC, the rest

Our reservations for the temple open house were not until 3:30 in the afternoon, so we decided to do a little more around Kansas City.  We went to the zoo first.  We got there just in time to go to the sea lion show.  It was pretty fun.  The trainers and the sea lions all put on an enjoyable show.  I filmed some of it, which is available below.  It was a Saturday, so the zoo staff tried to schedule different fun activities at different places.  First it was the sea lion show.  Then it was snack time for the cheetahs with some time to visit with the zookeeper.  Then it was feed-the-elephant time.  Then it was . . . something.  We didn't make it any further.  They didn't plan the route as well as I would have liked, so we were running from one exhibit to the next and barely making it in time, sweating, panting, and dealing with kids who weren't lovin' the running.  So, we just walked around and looked at whatever interested us.  It was a little rainy, too, keeping it fairly interesting.

Sea lion show

Feed the cheetahs, talk with the cheetah keeper

Elephant time

All our little ones intently listening to a short presentation about white-cheeked gibbons (who are dangling in the background, making sure the speaker gets the facts right)

Ava cruising down a slide at warp speed . . . 

. . . and loving it!!

She really did love it with some help

Here we all are chillin' with the kangaroos

Ava likes the tiger

The video of our zoo time

After the zoo, we caught a bite to eat at Subway, then went to the Independence visitor's center.  We were there just long enough to change clothes and load up to go to the open house.

The temple, of course, was beautiful.  The kids enjoyed seeing the inside of a temple.  After the temple open house, we went to Liberty Jail

Ava helping us get ready to leave the next morning

The rest of the kids helping us get ready to leave the next day

The kids got a pamphlet/play book from the Money Museum.  One of the pages asked you to name some words (ie, tell me a noun, now an adjective, now the name of a friend, now another noun, etc).  You would fill in the words into certain spaces and then read a paragraph.  The kids cracked up at their funny creations.

Eventually, we had to start movies.  Ava was content with that for about 5 seconds (I got a picture just in time, I guess).  Ava did do very well, though.

The rest of the kids, as you can tell, enjoyed the movies.

KC, Day 1

We decided last-minute to take a trip to Kansas City over Easter weekend to go to the temple open house. We decided to make a weekend out of it and got into town a day early.  To start the day off, we went to the Hallmark museum.  The kids were each given a pamphlet and when they came to certain stations they could put a stamp in their pamphlet.  Here's Caden putting a stamp in. 

The Hallmark museum is basically in Crown Center in downtown Kansas City, so, naturally, we had to check it out.  We found this chocolate store and watched them make some fudge (cowpie patties, in this case.  Sounds delicious, doesn't it?).

We left the store and went down the escalator (we honestly could have spent the rest of the day going up and down the escalators.  So much fun for the kids!).  We found a fun play area where we spent the next hour or so.

Here the kids are pretending to be little birds.  Jordan is opening her mouth to accept chewed up food from Mother Bird.

Ava in a tunnel.

Jordan's trying to get Ava back inside the cave so I can take a picture.  Ava wasn't too happy about that.

A bear in a cave.  A couple of growls, and Ava wouldn't go near it.

Ava DID like the mini trampoline, though.

Almost there, Jofdan.  We found out even Dad wasn't as tall as the ostrich.

We had signed up to spend some family time in a family play area called Kaleidoscope.  We were still waiting for our appointment time, so we had some lunch and then played in the fountains for a bit.

They had colored the water blue--probably in honor of Easter?  Cool to look at and touch, though.

We made it to Kaleidoscope.  This is a play area with left over card-making materials from Hallmark.  The kids were able to play and color and make some pretty fun things.

Cameras that did cause a kaleidoscope appearance.

A dark room with black lights.  Jordan decorating paper eggs.

A camera that would take pictures and project them on the wall.

After Kaleidoscope, we went to the Federal Reserve and took a tour of the Money Museum.

While we were there, we made some of our own money.

Shelly was too mature to make her own money.  Anyway, after the money museum, we decided it was time to eat.  I had seen some pamphlets about a place to eat called T-REX.  So, we made our way there.  It was a lot of fun.  They had a bunch of life-sized dinosaurs, some of which did a little moving (freaked out Chase and Ava).  The atmosphere was a lot of fun, and the food was pretty good, too. 

T-REX was in a shopping center, so we window shopped for a bit and found a fountain to sit around.  Here's Ava with one of her classic walks and looks on her face.

We made one final brief stop at Cabela's, since it was just down the street.

We got home a little after bedtime.  The kids were wiped out from all the fun.  I thought the sleeping with the stuffed animals was interesting--some comfort from home, I guess.  They don't usually cuddle up with stuffed animals.