Sunny Buffalo

The last week of our big summer adventure was spent in Buffalo.  The weather was gorgeous, the company was amazing, and the days were filled with fun.  We did so many things that it's almost hard to remember: playground with Granny, new Legos at Dorothy's house, wonderful barbecue with Marcie and Marvin and Janet (and a special appearance by Glenn and Adam and the kids, all the way from South Africa), beach day on Lake Erie, Planes with Deirdre, Sally, Jack, and Charlie, fun party at Jean, Bob, and John's house with the whole family, the zoo, delicious Indian restaurant with Deirdre, John, and Joshua, and the science museum on our last morning.

Whew!  I apologize if I left out anyone or anything.  After the relative quiet of Kansas and Oklahoma, Buffalo is always guaranteed to be a whirlwind, but in the best possible sense of the word.  After our five days there, I have no doubt that the kids and I are loved and missed.  We can't wait to be back at Christmas, this time with Zach leading the way!

Tanganyika

On our last full day in Wichita, my mom and I took the kids to Tanganyika, a privately-owned wildlife park about 5 miles from our house.  None of us had ever been before so it was time to rectify that.  It's much smaller than the Sedgwick County Zoo but a lot more interactive.  The kids got a chance to feed giraffes, lemurs, turtles, lorikeets, and rabbits.  The kids also got to pet kangaroos and Dan and Ben rode a camel.  It was a really fun (and chilly) day!

Hangin' with the MO Rashmans

After the Fourth of July weekend, we packed up and headed to Missouri to see Zach's brother and his family, aka the Missouri Rashmans.  Corinne is 6, Davis is 5, and Miles just turned 2, so Dan and Ben and Hannah had a great time with their counterparts.  They live outside of St. Louis, so we broke up the long drive with an overnight stop at Great Wolf Lodge outside Kansas City.  We went there when we lived in Leavenworth.  I was 38 weeks pregnant for that trip, so this one was a lot more fun.  Especially since my parents came with us so we had a 1:1 adult to kid ratio.  So we only lost each kid twice.  Kidding!

My parents caravanned with us for the whole drive.  They stayed in Hannibal (the hometown of Mark Twain) for the weekend and had a great time.  

On Saturday, Lee and Cassandra and I took the kids, all six of them, to the Soulard Farmer's Market, a market dating back to 1779.  It was pretty cool, if a bit hectic!  After that, we went to an amazing place called City Museum.  It's really hard to describe--it's in an old building in downtown St. Louis, it's this crazy welded-together maze of tunnels and hiding places and slides and things to climb and basically a child's dream come true.  If we did it all again, we probably would have left Miles and Hannah with a sitter and just taken the bigger kids.  But I highly recommend it for 5 to 10-year-olds.  Dan and Ben are still talking about it.  

We also spent a lot of time just playing in the backyard and in the basement.  The kids all get along really well and hopefully someday we'll live closer so we can see each other more than once a year.