4th of July - in Kansas City

"Everythin's up to date in Kansas City...

We went about as fer as we could go..."

I'm goofy enough to have even played this song from my ipod through the pickup's speakers as we drove into the city. (Nope, none of the other passengers enjoyed it as much as I did, and yep, I'm back to talking about our trip to Nauvoo again, one day at a time, and out of order.) We planned our trip to have a long hard day of driving the first day, which put us in Great Bend, KS sometime well after midnight. The benefit of that was we only had a four hour drive from there to Kansas City on July 4th, thus giving us time to have some Independence Day fun.

We stopped by my aunt and uncle's house in Shawnee first.

After getting some good ideas from them about where to go and

what to do - we did. Go, that is. First, we were all starving by then and we wanted to try out Kansas City barbeque. (We'd heard good things on the Food Channel!) The recommended restaurant

was Jack Stack's Barbeque.

Oh my gosh. I'll just say now - that's one of the reasons I'll be returning to Kansas City someday. It was so good and I'll never be able to look at a 4th of July barbeque the same way again. Here's just a "few" pics...it's hard for me to choose just a few when there's so many.

Jeffrey and Camille, Dakota and Darren all look happy to be there...Jamie doesn't. He's upset we made him order from the kids' menu. (He likes to order the biggest thing on the menu, but experience has taught us he can't finish it.)

We promised him he'd get the same thing but just a little less; he wasn't convinced.

"Come on Jamie...smile, even if it's fake!" :) And he did.

We all had a combination of pork ribs and/or short burnt ends (KC specialty) with a side of cheesy corn bake. So yummy.

(And Jamie ended up well satisfied and happy too.)

Kansas City is apparently famous for all the fountains all over the city. After dinner we took a walking tour of some of the fountains in the downtown area. We took lots of photos and even that was only a tiny fraction of what's out there. What we saw was cool,

and Justice took the

opportunity to raid of few of their coins, adding to his meager funds (until a bum chased him off). The best one was a in a courtyard with fountains shooting up which the kids could run through. We were actually a little surprised at how easily Dakota took to the water. He was drenched in two seconds flat and had the time of his life.

We happened to see some magnificent wildlife in the area...

I'm kidding! The huge elk statue at the Cabella's was pretty cool though. Also the ducks were real, and I thought they made a nice photo.

It was evening by then and we drove to Corporate Woods in Overland Park for the fireworks show. After making our way through a huge crowd of people we found one of the few spots of grass left and sat down to wait for the show to start. It wasn't dark yet but we passed the time pleasantly enough eating cracker jacks and funnel cake (again, yum!), and telling jokes from the Laffy Taffy wrappers. The fireworks started and we saw we couldn't have picked a better place to sit. Our view was up close and awesome - just the way we like it.

I could conclude by saying our day was a blast and it ended with a bang. I could, but I want to also mention that previously I wasn't looking

forward to spending the 4th of July away from home. It's my favorite holiday; I love the parade, going to the various activities, and ending with a cookout and watching the fireworks in our own backyard with friends and family. I figured I'd miss it. Instead, we had a wonderful day together as a family (except for Jeremy and Jonny), enjoying the 4th in a different city . We also enjoyed the fireworks even in spite of the hour plus wait to be able to leave the parking lot afterwards. I guess that gave me understanding of what everyone else goes through on the 4th when they come over to my house. So next year...my sympathies all, - come over anyway and the watermelon is on me! ;)