graduation day!

We made the haul up to Missouri Friday to watch Brooke graduate from the nursing program at Missouri Western.

The plan was to leave Wichita at 3 (mason's nap time) in hopes that he would sleep a majority of the way. Emily was coming home from school in Oklahoma and ended up arriving a little late. We didn't hit the road till closer to 4pm. Mason did fall asleep rather quickly....

but that only lasted 30 minutes.

after about 45 minutes of playing fine in his carseat we stopped about an hour out to feed Mason in hopes that he would go back to sleep till we got there. We had dinner plans with Brooke and Nate so we needed him to hopefully not be cranky. By this time it was getting dark and Mason absolutely HATES being in the car when it is dark, thus being said he whined for 40 minutes before finally drifting to sleep

I wasn't sure how he was going to sleep in the hotel room. We had 2 full sized beds, my thought was to bring some of the blankets he uses around the house and put him in one bed to himself. Luckily he slept great, all night infact, 9:30-6:30.

Graduation day was the real test. Brooke had pinning at 8:30 and graduation at 11. This left little time for a morning nap. We got ready, ate breakfast and heading to the pinning. Normally Mas naps around 8:30-9 so i was slightly worried we might have a mealtdown. 

I am happy to say we didn't! He did fall asleep during the speaker but once they announced the first name and everyone started clapping he was woken up. He sat with Austin, so I could take pictures, and he thought playing with daddy's beard was quite entertaining.

getting pinned

Brooke and Nate

Mason with Auntie Brooke

After the pinning we took Mason to Brooke's dorm to get a quick nap before the ceremony. He was able to sleep 30 minutes before we had to head to the next event. About 10 minutes into graduation he was over it, luckily Austin took him to a little waiting area they had with chairs and a tv. Austin said there were quite a few dads out there with little babies =)

we were on the balcony so pictures were a chanllange

Mason was exhausted at this time and I don't blame him, he hadn't really got a nap and most of the time he is on a 3-4 nap a day schedule! We headed to lunch and this was where he melted down. Poor baby was just over all the running around. Needless to say after multiple attempts to stop his screaming in the restaurant (everyone tried-grandma, me, austin, and even grandpa) I took him to the car so he would fall asleep.

The ride home was much better, he slept the first 2 hours and played the last hour.

We were so proud to see Brooke graduate with honors. She has worked so hard, between soccer, school, and clinicals she has pushed herself. She received a job at Children's Mercy in Kansas City just days before graduating. We are sad she will not be moving home but excited she has the opportunity to work in the field she was hoping to, pediatric oncology.

the whole family

Congratulations Brooke!

st. louis- day 2- the arch

Before we headed home on Monday there was one thing we had to do; take a trip to the top of the Arch.

Was I nervous?

You bet

We paid our fee and sat in little (and when I say little I mean LITTLE) cars for the 4 minute ride to the top. Once at the top the experience was not as frightening as I thought it would be. Austin wanted it to be windy so the structure would lean as we heard it did in the wind.

Inside the top

Beautiful Mississippi ;)

Awesome shadow

Looking out was awesome! You could see forever it seemed. Looking down... not so cool.

Favorite view captured, standing under the arch

Arch at night

Once we returned to the bottom we walked around the underground museum and learned the history of the arch. There were also a brief introduction about the west. The displays caught my interest; they were life-like, moved and talked

We also had to stop at a Bass Pro Shop on the way home. We saw 4 on the way up and I promised Austin we would stop at one on the way home. We spent a good hour in the shop. After all the looking around all Austin got was two can coozies and a frog. The whole way home he kept giving me a hard time saying, "We finally got to go to a Brass Pro Shop and all you let me get was a couple of coozies and a frog!"

Please note I told him he could get whatever he so desired.

st. louis - day 1

I won't even get into the long 7 hour drive that may or may not have turned into an 8 hour drive because I took the wrong route. Not that we were lost, just on a more scenic route. AND I won't even tell you about how the hotel messed up our reservation, sent us to a room already occupied and the how it took 45 minutes to get worked out and put in a new room. AND I am not even going to tell you how the hotel told us their parking was free in the garage across the street when in reality it was $15 a day.

I will tell you that we had a blast in St. Louis.

The first day we were there was baseball day. 

They had a bald eagle fly in before the game!

 We, I was super excited to finally attend a game at Busch Stadium.The weather was amazing. We got a bit chilly when the sun wasn't out but that was better than sitting in 110 degrees!! The view around the stadium was perfect. We could see the court house and arch. 

The game was slow and Austin was more than bummed his favorite players didn't play (it was the last game of the season and it pretty much counted for nothing so they let a lot of no names play).

We did see my favorite player; Colby Rasmus

And the great Pujols

We also strolled around downtown for a bit, the hotel we were staying in was across the street from the stadium, downtown, and the arch. It was relieving to walk everywhere and not battle traffic.

Mini arch

Explorers

This weekend we headed up to Manhattan to visit our friends; Kelli and Matt.

While we were there the four of us stopped by this beautiful waterfall.

The second we got there shoes were off and the boys were in the water exploring.

They found a small cave under the waterfall and headed in!

Down the way we found a tree swing which they spent a good 30 minutes jumping off of.

The whole trip was a nice get away for the weekend and we enjoyed spending time with our friends. The drive was short and smooth. We were lucky to not have any car troubles this time :)

A Trip Worth Blogging About..

( I am a Cardinal fan)

This Sunday we went up to Kansas City for the Royals vs. Rockies baseball game. Austin is a huge Rockies fan and my parents got him tickets for his Birthday. I, being the good wife that I am, supported the Rockies by wearing a shirt and painting my nails purple.

We started the morning by grabbing some Winchell's because they are the best doughnuts ever!

About 10:15 we were on our way.

We arrived in Kansas City and headed to the stadium

The sun was bright and I even got a little burnt.

The Rockies won 11-7 and Austin's favorite player hit a home run

All in all the day was fun and we can't wait till the next time we get to see a live game

What? You thought this story was going to be more exciting by the title?

Okay, you are right. Lets back up to ..we were on our way. as we drove through Emporia we heard a loud thud like my tire had popped but the car was handling fine. I pulled over and we examined all the tires but found nothing. We looked at the engine and belts, still nothing. Finally as Austin was getting back in the car he saw that one of my tire's tread had been completely ripped off and it was slowly losing air. Not sure how this happened we put on the donut tire and SLOWLY continued to Kansas City. We were 90 miles out when this happened and couldn't drive more that 55-60 mph.

While we were barely pushing 60 mph I had time to snap some photos of all the scenery we saw and don't worry I will share .

Feel free to ohhh and aweWe finally arrived at the game 50 minutes late, luckily they were only in the 3rd inning. After the game was over, about 4 pm, we headed into town to find a new tire. Within 45 minutes we had found 5 tire stores all closed. Our luck was not looking good. We decided we would just stay the night and fix it in the morning. When we realized that nobody was going to help Austin out at work we called in the backup team, My uncle David who lives in Kansas City and my mom. They were able to call around and find an open tire store about 30 miles from where we were. Thanks guys!
We arrived home tired at about 11 and hit the sack.

This trip is definitely one worth remembering. As much of a wreck as it sounds we had a great time.

Next road trip is to St. Louis in October, for another baseball game, might load the trunk with spare tires!