Our little family takes road trips very seriously. When we hit the road we like to make every stop count…either by seeing people we know, being touristy or eating a good meal. Our trip over Labor Day weekend to the Midwest would prove to not disappoint in any of these categories. In the span of over 2000 miles and 6 days, we saw old friends, lots of family, took a trip down Sean’s memory lane, attended a wedding, ate fabulous meals, walked on a couple college campuses and caught a view from 630 feet up. We got back to Arlington exhausted but so thankful for an amazing trip.
Our first stop was in Overland Park, KS to see a bunch of my Theta sisters from TCU (Abbey, Amanda, Jamie & Kendra). It was such a treat to finally get to meet all of their kids and eat some pizza in a great “Midwest basement”! Thanks for hosting us Kendra! We stayed with Abbey and Brandon overnight and feasted on some awesome Kansas City barbeque before we headed out of town the next day. Bree even got to have her very own sleepover with Abbey and Brandon’s daughter, Parker. Bauer and Meyer got along famously as well. What a fun stop!
The Theta Girls…
Attempting to get a pic of all the kiddos…
Pizza Party!
Sleepover in Parker’s Room
Bree, Meyer and Bauer chillin’ out!
Our next stop was in Quincy, IL to see some precious family members on Sean’s side. We were greeted by Aunt Loretta (“Mee-Maw” to the kiddos), Uncle Neil, Beth, Brian, Ian, and Skylar. We had not seen them since our wedding five years ago and obviously Bree and Bauer had not met any of them. We had such a great time catching up and watching the kids play together.
Beth and Bauer.
Bauer may seem little but he took Ian down!
Chillin’ on the couch after a great night!
The next day Sean and I headed to St. Louis for Craig’s wedding (another TCU buddy). The kiddos stayed with Mee-Maw for another action packed Quincy day. Sean and I stopped in Troy, MO on our way to try out the famous Imo’s Pizza. It was fabulous. So fabulous that we took the kids back later in the trip.
Our buddies, Brandon and Abbey, that we stayed with in KC.
All the Horned Frogs in attendance!
Breaking it down with the groom…
We spent the night in St. Louis and then headed back to Quincy around lunchtime. We came back to find our son had been turned into a Cardinal fan…
We spent the afternoon in Quincy seeing Beth’s Dance Studio, playing in the neighboring gymnasium, and then eating another great home-cooked meal. We played until the sun went down in the Heinze’s backyard.
There is a display in the studio of Beth’s first tutu and shoes…so fun!
Bree and Skylar hangin’ out! Bree actually got put in “time out” today at dance because she was hanging on the bars…lol. But all the other kids were too!
More hanging in the gym….we would fall into foam blocks!
A Murphy sandwich on the trampoline.
Ian in the “cheerio”.
You can never outgrow the fun of the foam pit!
Bauer loved the trampoline.
Bree loved Skylar’s bike, scooter and anything else she could find.
Mee-Maw and Bauer loved to hang out!
We ended a great day swinging and eating ice-cream.
Labor Day was our last day in Quincy and we lived it up. We started at Bonkers (an indoor playplace that has huge climbing nets). After we were done there, we headed out to take in some local putt-putt and paddle boats. One of the best Labor Days ever…
Me and my new sidekick.
Bree and Skylar were superstars on the balance beam.
Bauer sliding with Daddy.
Bree using Daddy to climb to the top…
Golfing…
Cuties…
Not my finest golfing outing…
The boys got drenched on purpose…
Brian and Beth proving this wasn’t their first paddle boat adventure….
Skylar loves her some lilypads.
We left Quincy for more adventures on Tuesday and after such a fabulous weekend, it was so hard to say goodbye!
We took a tour of Sean’s hometown, Macomb, IL. We saw the hospital in which he was born, his elementary school, and got to see the original Diary Queen where Sean feel in love with Mister Freeze’s.
After Macomb and one final goodbye to Mee-Maw, Sean and I took the kids to Hannibal, MO (home of Mark Twain -see below) to meet Sean’s Aunt Dottie who passed away in 2000.
Rock formation of Mark Twain on the side of the highway…
Aunt Dottie meeting her niece and nephew!
We spent that night in St. Louis and visited the Arch before we headed back to Texas.
Bree and Mark Twain again…
Bauer livin’ in the Old West…
In the “egg” headed to the top…
Cardinal country from way up…
We made one last impromtu stop at Sean’s dad’s alma mater, University of Missouri-Rolla (now known as Missouri Science and Technology). We walked around campus and bought some new shirts and hats to remember our trip!
Stonehenge type display at Missouri S&T
A future engineer…most likely!
And that about wraps it up!!! 2000 miles and we were back in Texas! I’m tired all over again just recapping our trip in this blog! But the kids did great and we proved once again, we are one mean green road trippin’ machine! But I don’t mind staying put for a few days, weeks or months…
