Days 6 and 7

We are in Kansas City visiting with my Grandfather these past few days. Normally we try to fit in at least a few historical / educational sights. So far though we have been resting and visiting.

The girls have been coming to see thier Great Grandfather... (Grand dad) at least once a year since they've been born. They absolutly love him and as you can see that is mutual. He discovered thier love for Musicals and has been shamelessly indulgent (but great grand dads are allowed). Yesterday was OKALAHOMA! Which if you have met my kids you know that is their favorite. They sang all the songs for him and even showed him how they ballroom dance. Today he got to spend some time alone with them and they watched SOUTH PACIFIC. The girls are in the bath right now singing "gonna wash that man right outta my hair". :)

This morning we took a short tour of Grandview Mo. and visitied an old friend of my mothers. The girls had so much fun!!! Gwamma's friend had soooo many toys to play with!!! Then since mommy (me) needed to do some laundry they girls got to go WITHOUT mommy to see Grand dad!!! This was the highlight until they found out tomorrow thier cousin was coming over for dinner and then to swim!!!!!! THEN we all went to Red lobster for supper. They were in 7th heaven!!!

Now of course it's bedtime and I am back to being thier LEAST favorite person!

Day 5

Today has been a long, hot, busy day. I am exhausted. I took lots of pictures and FINALLY uploaded them on to the computer so today will be mostly those. (sorry)

First stop: the old State building where we took pics with Honest Abe.

then to Oak Ridge

Cemetary.. to visit family and Rub Lincoln's nose and visit his tomb

We visited our past.

Then drove to Hannible Mo. To see Mark Twain's home and where he wrote Tom Sawyer...

The girls got Huckleberry Ice cream!!!

We got to walk right up to the Mighty Mississippi!

We went to Becky Thatcher (unless you are my kids who insist its Becky BAtcher) house!

AND!!!

We got to pretend we were white washing the fence!!!

Then we drove ACROSS Missouri to Kansas City (Blue Springs) where we will spend a few days visiting with my Grand dad and then ... well who knows :)

Day 4

Day # 4




We had a rough night last night so we just took it easy this morning.

We hit up the local walmart for some yummy poweded sugar doughnuts

cause who can pass those up?

Then we hit the local park and let the girls run and play for an hour or so,

they LOVED LOVED LOVED it!

We then headed to my great Aunt and Uncles house. We had soo much fun!

We enjoyed getting to spend time with family that we hadn't seen in a long time.

After supper we headed to Springfield Il.  (updated: I forgot when i wrote this yesterday that we saw Wind Turbines!!!
. Tomorrow we will be going to the Cemetetary to visit

relatives and see where President Lincoln is "buried" and rub his nose. THEN we will head to Hannible

Mo. To see the Tom Sawyer landarks!!!! I am so excited!! The last time I went we were all young kiddos

and I was really sick so i dont remember much about it other than throwing up all over my

daddy. As for now.. i am falling asleep wirting this.

Day 3 of Gwamma's trip

Day #3


As I said earlier we had to delay our post due do weather issues.

We started our day by packing up and heading out to Allendale Ill.

for our Breen family reunion. As we drove and tried to convince our GPS

that dirt roads do not qualify as a proper road; we came to a wooden bridge.

My mother and I HATE bridges. It was sooooooooo scarey!!!

We ended up driving over two others further up the road.

These are historic landmarks. And they seemed like it. All three were built in 1906!

I got out of the car to take some pictures of the biggest and you could see the water

through the planks.

We found the reception hall where the reunion was to take place but we still had some

time to spare so we drove back to St. Francisville and went to the two cemetarys to find

old relatives. Specifically Sarah Breen. We really enjoyed reading some of the headstones. Mom

and I were able to show the girls why they are such an important part of our history.

In one of the cemetrys we noticed a van stopping at places we had stopped at so we pulled over

and discovered that they were relatives of ours in town for the reunion as well!

There was about 50 people at the reunion ( inclding Grand dad ) some had come from down the street others from places like California, Wisconsin,

Texas, and of course Alabama! :) The girls enjoyed making new friends.

After the renuion we hit the road and headed toward Morton Ill. It was a good drive, fairly uneventful. We

got to our hotel checked in and... two story hotel we were on the top floor, no elevator, no pool. That okay right?

we can deal.. so we haul everything upstairs and get settled in. and head over to Ruby Tuesday for supper

because we needed HAMBURGERS! Got our tea... strong enough to strip paint, Got our hamburgers.. mine was raw.. we back

to the room get in our jammies and they break into the programing.. tornado watch. Back into clothes.. go downstairs to see

what the emergency plan is..go up stairs get mom and the girls go downstairs, sit in a hallway because now sirens are going off

after the front clears we go back up stairs... cue the next front... go back downstairs... go back up after getting more information

then I was just to dang tired to care anymore. Mom had put the girls to bed on the floor between our beds and all three were

dead to the world so I just put the pillow over my head and passed out.

Gwamma trip day # 3

Well... it has been a day.
There was wooden bridges
Sassy GPS who thinks that dirt roads are AWESOME!!
Tude-y kids
and tornados
 more later

Gwamma trip day # 2

Today was pretty much a burn off energy day for the girls before the reunion and more traveling.

We went shopping well... we tried to finTom Sawyer for the little girls since we are going to Hannibel MO. Well where we are at has NO bookstores. NONE okay like a college bookstore. So we asked around.. one lady older than me with teenagers asked me if it was a MOVIE. serious.

So we gave up and bought the audio MP3. In between all this we went to Sugar Loaf indian mound (see above) This is the short blurb about it from the local visitors center.

Two large mounds stand on the heights overlooking Vincennes to the south and about a mile apart. Originally they were named Upper Sugarloaf and Lower Sugarloaf, from their resemblance to large conical loaves of sugar used in pioneer times. The Upper Sugarloaf has been renamed Son of Tabac Mound in honor of a local Piankeshaw Indian chief. The Buffalo Trace road from Louisville passed near the mound and early travelers climbed to its top for a view - or `prospect,` as they called it - of Vincennes on the prairie below. In 1872 a 46 feet deep shaft through the center of the mound revealed layers of bone fragments, ashes and clay. In 1897 the Lower Sugarloaf, now called Pyramid Mound, was dug into.

It was supercool and the girls enjoyed running up it and then back down. After all that fun we went SWIMMY!!!! SWIMMY SWIMMY SWIMMY!!! We love swimmy time!!!

Tomorrow we will be heading to the Breen Family reunion and then on toward Morton Ill.

Gwamma trip day #1

This morning after much deleberation (sp) we hit the road! For where.. well thats where it gets tricky.  We FINALLY decided to leave on Thursday instead of Friday.. However until we got half way through Kentucky We were not sure if we were going to go to St. Louis first or Allensburg Ill. *sigh* We eventually decided to go to Allensburg... or that general direction... we'll stop eventually.. right????
 
It was a great day!! We should have had super crappy possibly severe weather all day. I don't think we even got a sprinkle. We learned soo much about each state we went to. Middlest has learned that Abe Lincon was our 16th President, He was born in Ky. but lived in and is "allegedly" buried in Springfield Ill.
The girls were sooooo well behaved!! I dont think the girls have EVER been this well behaved on a road trip!!! I was stunned! Thier reward will be swimming most of the day tomorrow and lazing around the hotel!!!
You all have an amazingly blessed day!!