KC

 Here's Grant with his new best friend and my birthday present from my brother...Alexa.  It's an Amazon Echo...a little like Siri but 'more of a homebody'....and that's a direct quote from Alexa herself.  Grant talks to Alexa more than anyone in the house.

"Alexa, how cold is it in Las Vegas?"
"Alexa, knock knock" (she tells jokes)
"Alexa can I have a snack?"

A lot of Alexa's responses to Grant are "I don't know what you're asking" and "I'm unable to find the answer to that."  Doesn't seem to impede their friendship though.  We WERE able to tear them apart for a little weekend away though.

We left Friday morning at 8:00....the goal was to shoot for 7:00 so we would leave by 8:00.  Do I know how we operate or what?  Impressive right?  (smirk....uh..not really)  And it got worse whenever we made it to Jacksonville and Grant grabbed his headphones off his ears from the backseat and said, "Dad!  Did you remember my new jersey?!"  And Chad said, "What??!  No!  I thought you got it!" in a joking voice, and I said, "Chad!  Did you remember the tickets to the game?!" and he said "No!  I really DIDN'T remember those.  (explicitive)" 

And then we turned the bus around and drove home.  One more chance to use the bathroom, kids! (and Mom.....who am I kidding)

So we made it to the hotel, Chad checked in, but we didn't unload, and we drove straight to the Schlitterbahn water park.  It was pretty cool....and the weather was too.  :/  Luckily the family area we set up camp in had super warm water.  Landon was a little hesitant to try anything.  I thought it was him being self conscience of not being able to swim, but even when I pointed out there were way bigger kids than him playing in this pirate ship area, he still balked.  He finally warmed up once we drug him off of the picnic table and made him get in the water.  The boys both had a great time.  Landon and Chad even did the lazy river a couple of times with intertubes and Landon loved it.  

 We had dinner at the YardHouse....where Chad beat Grant in tic tac toe...under protest....and where he got his meal for free because our waitress failed to bring the broccoli with his ribs.  

 After our first breakfast at the Country Inn and Suites where a lovely lady who appears to have run the show there for awhile, greeted me with a 'hellooooo mama!  how's that baby?  that baby is a boy!' and when I said, actually no....she replied with a 'well then....she's already dropped then!' and I agreed, we headed to LegoLand.  Here are my (blurry) master builders peering in the Master Builder window.  There were so many things to see in there it took a bit!

 Then we hit the Lego Ninjago training area...testing our speed, accuracy and agility.

 Same ride from Chicago LegoLand.  And dejavu....Grant didn't want to ride, and neither did Chad but he did it without throwing up.  VICTORY!

 Grant:  being a wonderful supporter and waving on every lap they came around.

 MiniLand!  Our favorite from Chicago and I think our favorite here too.  Here's Kauffman stadium (the only one he saw during the weekend).  We're going to have to make another trip over sometime soon just so the kid can see the actual field.  He talked about it non-stop.

 Here's the soccer stadium, too.  They also had a really cool display of the different settings of the Wizard of Oz....complete with house that turned and witch that melted.  I kid you not.

 Here are the boys playing in one of the play areas where they built the Kansas City Speedway, while we relaxed and I put my feet up.

 Yoda made completely out of Legos.  This stuff blows my mind.

 ...and speaking of blowing minds....we went to the World War I museum and memorial after LegoLand, and I didn't count the steps that we walked up, but there were a LOT.  On our way, we walked past a fountain and the boys each got three pennies.  Grant was dying to tell me his wishes, so I told him he could whisper them to me....they were gems too.
1.  That sissy would have a name (still a topic of conversation at our house)
2.  That Albert Pujols would come back to the Cardinals.
3.  That Auggie would have a good time with Zelda while we were gone.

We stopped a couple of times on our climb up and one of the stops I shared my water with Grant.  Grant asked me if I had wiped off the bottle, and I laughed at him.  He said, 'well...mom is sick!' and Landon immediately chimed in, "Grant.  Pregnancy isn't contagious."  (also....a gem)

 Here are the boys at the top, overlooking the city.

 ...and a couple of up close shots of the memorial.  It had an elevator that went to the top, but we didn't wait in line for it.

 We grabbed a snack at the little museum eatery, where Chad was giving Landon a run down on WWI history....photobombed by Grant....the not so attentive student.

 Learning about trench war fare....crazy stuff!

 And of course the Red Baron!  The REAL one, not the Snoopy one.

 Cool interactive exhibit where you could design your own War propoganda and email it to yourself.  The boys loved that.

Matching the patches to their divisions in their museum booklets.

 Grant and I waited for Chad and Landon to get the car and come pick us up so we didn't have to do as much walking.  I was toast by then and very appreciative of our chauffeurs.  Out of the blue on the drive back to the hotel, Grant sighs and says, "I miss Alexa."  (yet another GEM)

 We did dinner at the mall again, this time at Granite City Brewery and then the boys did Dave and Buster's for a little while while I did a little bit of shopping.  The boys cleaned up at Dave and Buster's and walked out of there with a table top foosball table, mini basketball, Star Wars stationery and random candies....thanks to a faulty game or two that just kept adding tickets and adding tickets until the manager had to come and unplug it!  Chad said when we walked out that he felt like he was robbing the place, but we both quickly decided that it was okay since every other time we've been in a Dave and Buster's it's always gone the other way.

Sunday we did a little shopping and had a late lunch at the T-Rex Cafe....where you pay for the atmosphere and not the food.

We went back to the hotel for just a bit and then headed over to the soccer game. We got there early because we had bought general admission seats which were open seating.  Our seats were awesome, too.....until they started warming up and Chad had to move between me and the boys and have his cat like reflexes ready as the players started SMOKING balls into the stands as they missed the goal.  No one got nailed...so victory there.

The boys got sno-cones and all was right with the world, until they brought out fireworks for the  starting line up.  Grant was not happy about that.  Sporting KC ended up winning the game 3-2 on a goal in the last few minutes.  

Chad and Landon went to get the car again...while Grant and I waited and waited while playing some I Spy.  My patient but starting to lose his patience I-Spy-er.   

 After we got back to the hotel, Chad walked Grant over to the T-Bone baseball game.  Their stadium was right across the parking lot from our hotel.  The team they were playing over the weekend actually was staying at our hotel and we would see them at breakfast.  Grant switched his pretending games to being the T-Bones as soon as we checked in the hotel.  <3 a="" and="" at="" baseball="" best="" chad="" chance="" e="" ever="" for="" go="" he="" i="" innings="" it="" jumped="" kid="" loves="" more="" nbsp="" need="" night="" of="" p="" see="" so="" stadiums.="" stayed="" take="" the="" them.="" them="" they="" think.="" think="" this="" to="" told="" total="" two="" was="" we="">
The next morning we got up and headed back home...and good news, no turning around and backtracking because we forgot anything.  And even better news:  I didn't go into labor!!!
Vacation=Success!!!!