Kansas City

We packed a lot in today!  I was thinking we would try to leave by around 9am, but when I woke up and looked at the clock, it was already after 9am, and everyone else was still asleep!  We're all still on Mountain timezone!  It then took us an hour an a half to eat breakfast, pack lunch, and get on our way - it's like herding cats sometimes!  :-)  Our first stop was City Hall - no we weren't planning on fighting city hall - they have an observation deck that you can go up in.  It's one of the tallest City Halls in the nation.  Here are a couple of shots from there (sorry for the blurry picture of us - we had a guard take it and didn't want to impose on him for another one).  :-)

Then it was on to Science City (courtesy of our MOSI passes!)  at Union Station.  The building itself is incredibly impressive.  And right before the entrance to Science City was a gift shop (we commented that it is exactly opposite of Disney who empties you into a gift shop AFTER the ride - here the gift shop was first).  But one of the employees quickly engaged Nathan in a sword fight to show off the attributes of their swords - it was pretty cool.  Then Science City itself is very unique.  It has a few things we've seen at many of the museums, but the first thing to greet us that I haven't seen at others was a little music making area, where the barrell drums each had 2 different sounding drums you played with your hands, so we could all get into the act of creating drum beats together.  And then there was a piano in a u-shape on the floor that you played with your feet.  And then there were these plastic looking rectangles that you could put your had over and it played a note.  Nicole and I played "heart and soul" waving our hands over these plastic things - it was pretty cool!  Here are a couple pictures of the sword fight and the drums:

They even had a little nature center with some of the most unique creatures - the bearded dragon, a turtle with a tail that made it look like a 2-headed turtle!  And this bunny you see below - isn't he the cutest thing?... along with a chinchilla - never seen one of those before!  (sorry we only got a picture of his back - long story - but you can see how soft his fur looks):

Nathan has always loved to build things, so it is hard for him to pass up an opportunity to create some type of structure.  And here he was able to make a device with a gutter system to roll a ball down.  Once he was done with that and we took some pictures we really needed to get going because there were still a couple more places we wanted to see.  So, after leaving Science City, instead of finding a picnic table to have our lunch at we opted for a tailgate party in the parking garage!  Here's a picture of that along with Nathan and his contraption:

Next it was on to the Hallmark Visitor's Center.   That place was pretty cool.  They had a lot of history of the Hallmark legacy, and then they had an area that showed how they made bows - even had a button you could push and then watch your own bow being made and delivered through a door to you.  It also had this video screen that would digitally put a crown on you, take your picture, and then you could email to yourself.  The boys tried it, but it evidently only does a max of 2 crowns that it randomly puts on, so Nicholas wasn't too happy about getting left out of that one.  But in our family picture the machine picked him and Nathan for the crowns, he's much happier there:

They also have a creative area where they have scraps from other cards, along with string and scissors and markers and cardboard and all kinds of things that you can use to create practically anything.  The cardboard can be used to color your own picture, and then they have a machine you can run it through that creates a puzzle from your picture (Nicholas did one of those).  Very cool stuff.
But we still had another stop to make, so we hopped in the car and drove over to the Federal Reserve and the Money Museum.  That place is amazing.  It has coins from every era of our history on display.  There is an area where you can see how the money is transported (but they don't let you take pictures), but they have these 3 robot vehicles called Huey, Dewey, and Louie, who pick up stacks of money and transport them to their warehouse area.   Then they also have a computer thing where you can digitally create your own money with your picture on it.  So we all had to take a turn at that:

We packed a lot in the 5 hours we had to spend there!  One thing I noticed going into the city was the lack of congested traffic!  It seems like every other big city we have been to, no matter what time we have been there, traffic was a headache!  But Kansas City seemed so easy to get around in - I loved that!  Even coming home in 5:00 traffic was a breeze compared to pretty much any other big city I've been in.   Anyway, that's my 2 cents, whatever that's worth!  Hope everyone is having a great week!  Blessings!