February Kansas Trip

Aaron and I had gotten all of our shifts done early in the month in February, which meant that we had a week off at the end of the month! We decided to go to Kansas to visit Aaron's family. The week before we came, they'd gotten had a winter storm with a record breaking 15 inches of snow, much of which was still on the ground. We were supposed to head up on Monday, but when forecasters began predicting another blizzard was going to hit the area on Sunday night, we canceled our evening plans and hit the road Sunday afternoon to make sure we beat the weather.

Wearing Aunt Jessica's scarf :-)

The forecasters were a little off, because the weather didn't start until Monday. We were out and about Monday morning and early afternoon, stopping by Grandpa Mark's office, mailing packages, getting some lunch at Aaron's favorite Italian fast food restaurant, and buying Julia some snow boots at the mall. The snow began falling at the beginning of our outing, but it really picked up and by the time we finished and headed back to the house, the snow was coming down crazy hard.

We hunkered down in the house, and watched out the windows as the snow continued falling all day. We ventured out with the dogs for a bit, enjoying the magically large snowflakes and tossing snowballs at each other.

I love this photo! So sweet!

The next morning, the snowfall had finally ceased. The storm had added another five or six inches of snow onto the fifteen from the week before, meaning that there was nearly 2 feet of snow on the ground!

That day, we went outside to play. We were so grateful Gee Mary had bought some snow boots for Julia to keep her feet warm in the crazy deep snow! The snow was SO deep, actually, that Julia had trouble walking in it and kept falling! I worked up a sweat building a huge snowman (snowballs that huge are heavy to roll!) that Julia named Frosty (of course).

Note the fudge stripe cookie eyes and mouth :-)

Later in the week, when the roads were better, we went out to lunch, followed by a trip to the mall to enjoy the quarter rides and indoor playground.

Julia also built her own teddy bear at a store in the mall. She chose a black bear, watched as he was stuffed, put a heart inside him with a kiss and a wish (her wish was for a new bear! Done! Haha!), watched him get stitched closed, brushed any stuffing off his fur, and then picked an outfit for him. Despite being presented with lots of different options for clothing... she only had eyes for a black tuxedo! Ha! So fancy!

Stuffing the heart inside.

Giving the bear an air bath and brush.

After dressing her black bear in a tuxedo, we asked Julia what his name should be.
 
"Sally!" she said.

Umm... no. We looked through a book of names, and gave her some fancy sounding male names to go with her fancy looking, tuxedo wearing bear. The winning name was Baxter.

We didn't notice until after we left the mall that Julia couldn't quite enunciate Baxter. She made his name sound more like an illegitimate child. Whoops.

That night, we went out for sushi with Aunt Jessica, which is becoming a tradition of sorts (a delicious one).

I had a fun time this trip looking through Aaron's memory box that his mom put together for him through the years. It has little keepsakes like his baptismal candle, and lots of papers from school with drawings and essays. It was neat to get a glimpse into his early life! One of the best gems I found that I had to take a picture of:

It so warms my heart that in 1991, Aaron's dream job was becoming a dad. How many little boys would ever say that? What a sweetie! So glad his dream job has been fulfilled! Aaron is such a wonderful dad! Now, if only he'd start doing the cooking part of the job... ha! ;-)

We headed home Thursday, since Aaron had to start his next rotation on Friday.

We had a wonderful time, as always, visiting Aaron's family! It was extra special to get to enjoy so much snow with them!