Wednesday, August 20, 2014

Anniversary Trip to Kansas City


Me and Mike went to Kansas City the first weekend in August to celebrate our 8th Anniversary.  Can you believe we've been married 8 years?

August 12, 2006

August 3, 2014

We were excited about the trip.  This would however be the longest we've ever been away from the Kids - Friday night through Sunday afternoon, but we knew they were in good hands with my mom and dad aka Grandma and Grandpa.

We had beautiful weather for the trip up to KC.  Here is a picture of us arriving outside the city.  I love to see the tall buildings all around.  We drove the "date car"  aka Mike's car



The first thing we did when we arrived was eat at the Cheesecake factory.  How did I not take any pictures of that?!  It was absolutely delicious. WE shared 3 appetizers and grabbed a piece of cheese cake to go.  Two pieces actually - we grabbed my mom's favorite kind to keep for her to give for watching the kids.  I was excited about that.  Eating at the Cheesecake Factory gave us the chance to not only eat at the best restaurant ever but it also let us walk around the Plaza and hit a few stores, but than we were excited to get to our final destination so we hit the road about 20 miles north.

We didn't really plan on going to Schliterbahn.  We talked about Oceans of Fun or Worlds of fun.....than we realized Schliterbahn was across the street from our hotel!  It was a sign.  We decided to go on Saturday and see what all the fuss was about.


We stayed at the Holiday Inn Express in the Outlet Malls.  When checking in the lady looked at us and said they were out of King beds.  I'm sure my face immediately went to sad face BUT than she said, so we upgraded you to a King Suite and than my face went to awesome face!!  We were excited - what great luck

We headed out to the outlet malls.  There was a free concert so that was fun.  We just walked around and took a few pictures to send to the boys.  We can't wait to take the boys back to eat at TRex restaurant.  If you haven't been, go.  It is probably one of my favorite restaurants I have ever eaten at.  The atmosphere is amazing and fun.



We decided to go to Dave and Busters.  It's like a chuckee cheese, sort of, we actually saw a lot of the same games.  We saw a ton of families there, it made us miss the boys a little, but we enjoyed getting to play games.  We're a little competitive.





They had a fun photo booth at Dave and Busters.  We kept walking past it and talking about it.  Finally we decided to do it.  It was only $5 and it was pretty fun.  If we look like we are bending down it's because it really didn't look like our heads were going to be in any of the pictures - turns out they were, haha.


We LOVED getting updates from the boys while on the trip

My parents took the boys to a Frozen night at Barnes and Noble

They ran into some friends of ours - the Wagners - Raylee and Hudson.





Saturday morning fun - Schliterbahn!
Disclaimer - ignore how I spell it different every time :)


a quick picture before we go in at 9:30AM.  yes - mike wanted to be early, they didn't open til 10


We saw this for Alex.  We knew he would love it, so we bought it for him as his trip surprise

a view of the park



Not too bad of a view from our seats.  This was their version of a lazy river.  It had huge waves.  We went on it several times

We left the water park around 2, came back and swam a little at our hotel, than ate cheesecake, got ready, and headed out to eat.  We went to Stix, their version of Shogun.  It was of course delicious.

Next up - shopping!!!


Saturday evening we went to see a movie.  Their movie theater was fancy, leather seats.  We went to see that Planet of the Apes II movie.  It was ok - Mike liked it.

Sunday we woke up to POURING down rain.  We watch a movie in the hotel while the thunderstorm passed.  I'm talking buckets of rain, thunder and lots of lightening.

Still raining, but we decided to head to a very cool store we still talk about  Nebraska Furniture Mart.  We had fun shopping.  The store was huge.  Not Ikea huge but almost - several floors, everything you could want.  We had fun looking around and even playing a few video games.



On the way back we stopped at Overland Park.  We ate at Cheddars!!!! YUM  I will eat their every time we get.  It was amazing.  We stuffed ourselves. We ordered another soup to go, and 12 rolls.

We went shopping after that.  We could have shopped longer but we were ready to head home and see our boys!  I did take the below picture while shopping for the boys.  It's their lego store.  The boys could have spent hours in this store.  Even me and Mike spent a while.  We also bought Max a surprise from here.


We had a lot of fun on our trip.  Can't believe it's been 8 years. I think I wrote in Mike's card...8 years, 2 kids, 2 houses, several jobs, cars, and diplomas later...

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY MIKE!  Here's to year number 9 :)


Sunday, August 17, 2014

A good Memory of "Old Grandpa"

My neighbor and good friend of ours lost his Grandpa last night. Losing a grandparent is so difficult.  I feel bad him and his family that they have to go through this but I am hopeful that he will be reminded of some happy memories and comforted by his friends and family. It made me think about a few months ago when Mike lost his Grandpa, and years ago when I lost my Grandpa.

I lost my Grandpa in Summer of 2002, very unexpectedly due to fire accident in his backyard. He passed away a few weeks after the accident in the burn unit at Children's Hospital in Little Rock in July 2002, the summer after my freshmen year in College.  He was taken from us way too soon, but still, I have countless number of happy memories with him and I am thankful for that.  I miss him and think of him often.  In a below picture he is on the far left next to my brother and my dad on the couch

I met Mike in 2003.  I think...I went down to Delight for the first time in fall 2004, and that's when I got to meet Mike's Grandpa.  He was just the sweetest, kindest Grandpa.  He always asked how I was doing and would just sit and listen to whatever you had to say.  He had the best stories.  I loved to listen tell him tell a good story.  Below is a picture of me and the first of two blankets we made him.


Mike's Grandpa turned 96 in March.  He passed away June 7th of this year.  We sure miss him. We still talk about him all the time. We want to make sure the boys keep good happy memories of their "Old Grandpa"  For those of you who don't know, My dad is called Grandpa and Mike's Grandpa was always called Grandpa.  Since we had two Grandpa's the boys started calling Mike's Grandpa, Old Grandpa.  Not to emphaseze his age necessarily...just a cute nick name that Max came up with and it stuck with the boys good so we went with it.  
Anyways - This weekend I was looking through old pictures and remember I never shared all the pictures I took of Mike's Grandpa's 96th Birthday trip to Delight.  I wanted to do a blog so we can always look back at this happy Memory us and the boys share.

Most of the time we go to visit Delight, we stop and visit my Grandma aka Nana to the boys.  She lives in Russellville which is pretty much half way so it breaks up the trip and there is nothing I love better than a visit to my Grandma's. 

Max got to sleep in the living room this night on the couch

Alex "helping" Nana with the dishes

the boys love to look out Nana's windows for the birds.  My Grandma has 4-5 Bird feeders outside her windows int he kitchens.  She's quite popular with the birds on the neighborhood :)



Off to Delight we go - the boys fell asleep in the car on the way


I was in a running kick.  Ran 3.14 miles - a 5K - all the way to the Welcome to Delight sign and back.  I was pretty worn out by the time I got there so this was the best photo I got

went on a walk with MiMi and PawPaw




The boys are getting a little big for PawPaw's lap but still enjoy listening to him read bible stories



Alex helping with biscuits



The annual cousin photoshoot

The delicious cake - we celebrate John's Birthday too every year - Mike's cousin

Grandpa at the Birthday party

Loved this picture we got of the two of them with their cake


Lunch outside on the blanket


Uncle Randall telling a funny story to aunt Sally

Wouldn't be a proper Lamb family gathering if there wasn't some guitar and fiddle playing :)



The Lambs dancing to the music :)









 a ride on the bad boy with PawPaw




I love to see how good the cousins play together




Mike visiting with his Grandpa

sugars....
Getting cleaned up at MiMi's house


a good picture of Grandpa with the great grandkids I edited that night


a good picture of Grandpa Lamb and his kids

Alex and uncle Carval


Alex was so warn out from the day he fell asleep on PawPaw's lap!

I'm so thankful Grandpa Lamb came into my life.  I will have sweet memories of him, his stories, and his sugars forever :)