I’m 50 years old today. I thought that it might freak me out but either it hasn’t registered or I really don’t care. But I’m not one to pass up a good excuse to go somewhere new! So when Southwest had a fare sale one night when we had opened the “never a good idea” second bottle of wine, tickets to New Orleans somehow were purchased! Since neither of us had ever been, it seemed like a good idea to spend a big birthday in the Big Easy. 

So today we took the day off and headed south from KC. A short hour and a half flight and we were out of wind chills and into palm trees. Much to Frank’s dismay, we did not rent a car but hopped in a cab and headed to a b&b in the lower garden district. (Someone in the tourist board is a marketing genius. “Lower garden district” sounds way more civilized than some of the streets nearby!). The place is quite entertaining: all primary colors and ceiling fans with the palm trees. 

We dropped off our stuff and did what we always do- set out walking. We headed to the French Quarter for what we understood to be the quintiscential Nola destination: Bourbon Street. And what a disappointment. At 4pm on a Friday afternoon, the streets were crowded with people determined to “party hard” and well on their way to oblivion. We couldn’t decide of the street smelled more of horse shit or vomit. {sigh}

We found our way south towards the river to Decatur Street which seemed much more our style. We looked over the river  and wandered around Jackson Square. 

 
By this time we were getting pretty hungry so we found ourselves in The French Market grill – mostly because they had a menu posted with the magic GF notation. So I was able to have red beans, jambalaya, and shrimp maque choix. And a Hurricane. And a Voodoo lemonade. :-). Frank had a combo that involved étouffée and alligator. Blech. 

The waiter was fabulous and gave us great tips on where to go. He also told me about the tradition of pinning a dollar to your shirt on your birthday. Supposedly then people give you dollars or buy you drinks. He even found a pin for me. While neither thing happened, many of the locals did wish me a happy birthday. Tourists were clueless. In fact, one helpful couple felt the need to point out that I had a dollar bill on my shirt. Once I explained they blushed and wished me a happy birthday. 

After dinner, we headed to Frenchman Street, apparently another obligatory stop when visiting the city. First stop, Maison where we got to hear the Swamp Donkeys, a fabulous Dixieland jazz band.  

 
We wandered a bit more making a stop at the Spotted Cat but the smoky crowd made it difficult to enjoy the blues so it was time to move on. We wandered back down Bourbon Street on the way back to the B&B, thereby convincing ourselves that it wasn’t our thing. And decided to call it a night after several cocktails and about 12 miles clocked on the fitbit. Not bad for an old broad, eh?

Although St. Patrick’s day is not quite here yet, we went to the Brookside St. Patrick’s day “Warm Up” parade yesterday.  It is ostensibly a neighborhood event covering about 2 miles of local streets through the middle of Brookside. We live on the border of Brookside and Waldo and so had to walk about 3/4 mile north to get to the parade route. I wasn’t sure what to expect, I had seen neighborhood parades before – our old St. Andrew’s used to do one on the 4th of July – but this was something else.  There were thousands of people lining the streets, lots of little kids with front row seats and shopping bags.  Lots of parents in lawn chairs with keg cups and cans in koozies.  Police shut down the streets along the parade route.  Our new St. Andrew’s was at the start of the route and they had a lawn party for kids with face painting and a bouncy castle.

We picked a spot between St. Andrew’s and the Baptist church across the street and waited for the festivities.  At 2 p.m. the Grand Marshall came marching by  and the parade began.  Every local politician, every candidate, everyone
who had ever believed they had Irish ancestry was marching in the parade.  The local businesses had floats, as did all the local charity groups, the car clubs, the dog breed clubs, the mom’s groups, and so on.

And the candy!  It became apparent early on why all the children had shopping bags – every float, group, dog, car, entity of any type had bags and bags of candy to give to the kids on the curb (or not on the curb – the police had to keep moving the line back out of the street as the urchins tried to be the first ones to get to the outstretched hands.)  The grownups weren’t completely ignored: there were wooden nickels for free pizza being throw to the taller folks along with hot dogs (Yup, the Knights of Columbus launched frankfurts, buns, and all), can koozies, vegetable and flower seeds, plastic beads, and heaven only knows what else.  I can now get started on my zinnias and bush beans (I wasn’t going to plant zinnias but I have the seeds) and I have a coupon for free cheesy bread from the local pizzeria!

What was missing?  High school marching bands!  Although we were but a block from a local high school, and there are others not far away, there was not a single marching band.  Nope, not one.  There were two pipe bands – including one that started the route with the stirring tune “Scotland the Brave”.  (I’d post the video but I haven’t paid WordPress for the Premium plan so no videos here.) Not very Irish…  And there were marching drill teams.  At least 6 of them, all African American dancers and drummers, all hugely talented and entertaining.

And our favorite float?  Why KC Bier of course! They had their mascot pulling a keg in front of the float, and many kegs on the actual float.  In fact, one lucky person standing just next to us got a keg cup of pilsner delivered!

For nearly two hours, we watched our neighbors march by and we could hear the drums long after we got home.  My biggest regret?  Our spot for viewing was fabulous except for the fact that the ugliest condo complex in all of KC is in the background of every photo.  😦  Frank hates the blue monstrosity but it’s a handy landmark to know when you are almost at our house.

While it is true that I don’t consider myself having lived in San Diego, that doesn’t mean I don’t have fond memories of the time I spent there or in Southern California in general. I spent three of my four college years here and some of it I actually remember.

Yesterday I went for a run around Mission Bay.   I never spent much time in this part of San Diego when I was here – my parents lived 20 miles north of here just barely inside the city limits. Yet about halfway through my run I came upon the Catamaran Resort where we had stayed when we first moved to San Diego from Massachusetts.  Even though we drove across country on “vacation” (with all the flotsam and jetsam that didn’t make it into the moving van stuffed in the back seat with me and my brother), the moving van took longer and we ended up spending about 2 weeks in the hotel just waiting.  We’ve stayed there since then as well and my clearest memory is of the plastic balls that floated on top of the jacuzzi to keep the heat in. They made awesome projectiles for bored teenagers back in the day.

The resort I’m staying at for the next few days while attending a conference is nice enough but they consider it a “destination resort” which means they really don’t think you should need to leave. Which is good because it’s on an island in the middle of the bay and THERE IS NO WHERE TO GO. At least, no where to go without a car – which is really true for all of San Diego.  So I am stuck with the hotel restaurants (which I am sure are very good) or I have to take taxis everywhere.  I have nothing against the resident bistros but on this day of remembrances, I wanted to turn back the clock and have a favorite dish that I haven’t had in years and can’t readily get where I am.

And so I hopped into a taxi and headed for the Gaslamp Quarter.  There are really no memories for me here – I don’t think I ever set foot in this part of town other than to wander around nearby Horton Plaza which was my dad’s favorite mall.  (Ugh.) We got stuck in beach traffic as it was a lovely sunny Sunday and $30 later, we pulled up to the desired destination:  The Old Spaghetti Factory!  Yes, it’s a chain of family restaurants.  No, it will never get any recognition by James Beard or Michelin (but maybe by AAA). I walked past gastro pubs, farm to fork establishments, and every kind of upscale ethnic cuisine you could think of.  But they didn’t have what I was after:  Spaghetti with Mizithra cheese and browned butter.  No redeeming nutritional value and probably no where close to authentic italian but….

It brought back memories.  Of heading to the OSF in Newport Beach when I was in college.  Liz and I with assorted roommates and other friends would sometimes go there and since I wasn’t a fan of tomato sauces at the time, it was heaven to have spaghetti with butter and cheese. Now I had never been to this particular establishment and I did have to fight past all the parked strollers to get upstairs and take a seat at the bar – neither of which were part of my remembrance but that seemed to matter little.  What might have stood in the way was the fact that as I have been diagnosed with Celiac disease, pasta in restaurants is generally off limits.  But wait!  They have gluten free pasta!  Okay, we are now deviating even farther from the memory but who cares.  The big question was:  would it taste as good as I remember?

YES!  I had no illusions going in.  The plate of iceberg lettuce with “creamy pesto dressing” reminiscent of Bob’s Big Boy was just as expected. The curly GF pasta instead of spaghetti was optically jarring for a moment but it was still everything I remembered. Right down to little bowl of spumoni at the end. Never mind that my glass of wine cost nearly as much as the “3 course dinner”.  Never mind that the entire dinner bill cost less than the cab ride to get there.  I had my nostalgia.  And I ate every last corkscrew, drop of browned butter, and shred of cheese on the plate.  And I was happy.

Epilogue:  for those frugal types who worry about the price of my adventure, let me add this slightly redeeming postscript.  Instead of having a second high priced glass of wine in the restaurant, I opted to head to the nearest Ralph’s where I obtained the finest French red with a screw top that $10 would buy.  On hearing that I didn’t have a loyalty card because I was from Missouri, the cashier scanned her store card saving me $3 on my $10 bottle.  And the return cab fare was only 2/3 of the outgoing trip because the beach traffic had cleared.  Sometimes, nostalgia is priceless.

Note:  the photo above was blatantly borrowed from another website because I did not think to take a picture of my actual plate.  Not because I was embarrassed but because I wasn’t willing to wait any longer.  I certainly don’t get embarrassed about randomly photographing items in retail establishments or I wouldn’t have taken pictures of half a dozen screw top wines to run through my wine app for ratings before deciding that a 3.4/5 was all I was going to get for $10.  Oh well.

Yet another note:  I have subsequently learned that there are actually two Old Spaghetti Factory restaurants in Missouri – in Chesterfield and St. Louis.  {sigh}

Today I visited my parents’ graves. I don’t get to do it often as they are so far away. They are buried in Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery in San Diego, a city that they both loved but where I never found a home.   They moved there after I graduated from high school and while I spent a summer or two at their house, I never thought of it as “home.”  I would never tell anyone I have lived in San Diego because I haven’t; I suspect that Kansas City will be the same for my kids – it’s where mom and dad live but they don’t. And that’s okay.

 

 

 

 

 

I think back on when I was growing up.  We were in Massachusetts.  One set of grandparents (no cousins) was in Pennsylvania.  Another grandmother (with a few cousins) was in New Jersey.  It was always a major production to go visit family because they never lived close.  That was how I thought it was supposed to be. Distance doesn’t matter if you are family.

So when I  got married and had kids, we lived on the east coast of the US. We never questioned that one set of grandparents (no cousins) lived on the west coast and the other grandparents (with a few cousins) lived in Scotland.  We used to joke that we had it great because we each were 3000 miles from our in-laws.  It is quite a distance and continued the trend that visiting family was a major production.  But distance doesn’t matter because they are family.

Then my dad died.  My mom moved closer to us and for 10 years, my kids and I discovered what it means to have family nearby.  Frustrating. Exhausting. Comforting.  When she first moved to Virginia, mom used to come to our house for Sunday dinner – on Friday.  Yup, she spent every weekend of those first two years with us. My kids were little (3 and 5) and got to build a relationship with her that I never had with either of my grandmothers.  I got a sense that distance might matter, even with family.

And now both my parents are gone as is Frank’s dad.  My kids have one grandmother who still lives 3000 miles from them (with the cousins).  They have other cousins now – still on the west coast, still 3000 miles from them.  Mom and dad have moved 1000 miles from where they go to college.  And they are 600 miles apart. They have made sure they have a bond that crosses miles though:  they now have matching tattoos designed by a friend of Jesse’s representing how close they are regardless of the distance. [I think it’s a little crazy but love the fact that they are so close.]

 

When we moved to Kansas City, everyone asked if the kids – especially Jesse – would transfer schools to be closer to us.  That never occurred to any of us. She loves Vermont and we never had any expectation that she would go anywhere else.  Now Duncan is graduating and applying for jobs everywhere.  Again, people have asked me if he’s looking to move closer to us.  And again, we would never consider that a requirement. That’s not to say it wouldn’t be nice.  I would love to be able to have them over for dinner and spend time with them that doesn’t involve airports and TSA screenings. But I still believe that distance doesn’t matter – even if I feel it more now.

The weather forecast today held little promise: slightly warmer but with a chance of snow. We were glad we had a full day scheduled that was mostly indoor activities – especially when the forecast turned out to be optimistic. I don’t care if the official temperature was higher today than yesterday; it was WAY colder and the winds were absolutely cutting. We made it through the bitter cold to brunch at Magnolia – another favorite. Lots of GF options and we enjoyed a fabulous meal. The table across from us held several members of the UVM hockey team which we found interesting since we had tickets for tonight’s game. 

After brunch, we tried to walk downtown and pick up a few more things on Jesse’s list but the cold was too much and we hopped into the car and headed to campus. First to the bookstore for a few UVM Catamount items. Then a sojourn in the coffee shop where Frank proceeded to spank us at cards. After two games of Crazy Eights, it was time for the main attraction of the day: Much Ado About Nothing ala Downton Abbey. Jesse had assisted the set designer and merited mention in the program for it. The show was very well done with some very entertaining moments. My favorite was when one character was asked to read something he had just written down and proceeded with “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a man in possession of a fortune…” This tickled many Jane Austen fans in the audience. I was even impressed by the English accents although the broad Yorkshire twang sported by Barrachio convinces me that Downton Abbey has led people to believe all downstairs staff speak thusly. (You can tell I was exposed to Shakespeare today!)

After the matinee, we ventured out to find the chance of snow had materialized and it was pretty white and windy. We headed downtown for an early dinner at Leunigs, a French bistro with an extensive GF menu and fabulous food. I would like to say we behaved with some class as one would at a nice meal in Paris, yet by the end of dinner Frank and Jesse were trying to toss pats of butter into each other’s mouths. Oh well. While we were dining, a parade commemorating the 150th anniversary of the founding of Burlington marched up Church street, jazz band playing in the snow. 

We finished our lovely meal and then back to campus for the evening event: men’s hockey, UVM vs Merrimack. We were sitting in what was usually the visitor section and the row in front of us was populated by some jovial retired fans of the visiting team. The game was good but ended in a disappointing 0-0 draw even though Vermont out shot their opponent 49-17. Apparently it was the first scoreless draw in UVM history. I did find out that UVM has the second best pep band after Providence according to our neighbors so maybe that’s some consolation. We wandered back out into the wind and accumulating snow and decided to call it a night. 

The Midland Theater is an interesting place to see a show.  We were in the very front rows for Paula Poundstone and Frank was in the second balcony for BB King.  The theater is ornate with baroque style decorations. (I’m totally making that up.  I don’t know anything about architecture but there is a lot of guilt and paint so it seems like it should be baroque to me.)  It was entertaining watching the crowd prior to the start of the show: the majority of the attendees were dressed like they were going to a rock concert – or Farm Aid – and a handful were obviously on a Valentine’s Night out.  There were leather jackets with chains and sequined dresses with 4 inch heels – sometimes they were together.

We had great seats about 24 rows back just off center.  Surrounded by other “see, we aren’t too old to go to a rock concert” aged people like us, we tried to enjoy the opening act.  It’s not the Carlene Carter isn’t talented, it just wasn’t the kind of music I was in the mood for.  I also realized that I really am not a fan of Tennessee accents.  Or at least hers.  There were far too many “y’alls” for my taste and the twangier country music was a harsh contrast to the bluesy music Mellencamp would play for just over 90 minutes.  But apparently they have some project together (a musical he wrote with Stephen King that’s about to open in London?) so she did join him for a couple of songs during his set.  I listened politely and watched the footwear of people walking by.  We had seats on the aisle and there was only floor lighting so as people passed, I could only see their shoes.  I estimate that about 90% of the women in attendance were wearing boots of some sort.  The men were split 50-50 between sneakers and some sort of casual desert boot style. There’s your useless data point for the day.

When the former John Cougar took the stage to great applause, it was to open with 3 songs that I (and apparently most of the crowd) didn’t know.  Very bluesy instead of the bluegrass style on the most recent album of his we bought – “No Better Than This” which came out in 2010.  This was the tour for his “Plain Spoken” CD so I may have to check that on out as it’s much more my style.  His voice wasn’t in top form and he admitted that they considered canceling the concert but the performance was enjoyable nonetheless.  Especially considering that for his biggest hits, he didn’t need to sing at all; the crowd did that for him.

His musicians were excellent.  The violinist (Miriam Sturm) was outstanding and the duet she did with one of the guitarists on the accordion (including strains of “I Need a Lover”) was a highlight of the show. As was the acoustic solo of “Jack and Diane”.  You could tell that the audience was full of fans of the older music:  as soon as familiar notes came from the stage, the entire crowd was on its feet.  If three bars went by with no recognition, everyone was back in their seats.

All in all, an enjoyable show.  Two regrets: that I didn’t listen to the new album first.  I think I’ll like it and I would have appreciated the live performance a bit more. And that he didn’t play “Lonely Ol’ Night” – everybody has that one song they want to see live and I didn’t get to see mine.  I don’t know if I’ll get a chance to see him in the future (he is 63 after all) but I’m glad I got to see him last night.

Set list (from an earlier show but pretty darn close to what he did in KC):

• Lawless Times
• Troubled Man
• Minutes to Memories
• Small Town
• Stones in My Passway (Robert Johnson cover)
• Human Wheels
• The Isolation of Mister
• Check It Out
• Longest Days
• Jack and Diane (solo acoustic)
• The Full Catastrophe
• Away From This World (with Carlene Carter)
• Tear This Cabin Down (with Carlene Carter)
• New Hymn (Miriam Sturm on violin)
• Rain on the Scarecrow
• Paper in Fire
• If I Die Sudden
• Crumblin’ Down
• Authority Song / Land of 1000 Dances
• Pink Houses
• Cherry Bomb

For a brief update from the Heartland. (Also known as “how San looks busy while waiting for the Twitter API to come back online so she can finish mining tweets.”)

February is really the cruelest month – it has the fewest days but they are potentially the hardest to get through.  I have been sitting watching the weather reports over the last few weeks thinking “Thank goodness I didn’t get a job at the Boston Fed!”  What a winter they are having in my childhood home!  And people thought we were crazy for moving to the midwest – “how will you stand the winters?” they asked.  Now we can answer: quite easily actually.  I have run outside in shorts more times (4) than I have shoveled my driveway (0). I have probably doomed the state to massive March ice storms with that statement but there you go.

The other thing that has been occupying my time is trying to budget for all the shows and concerts that are coming to town.  And to think there was some question at some point about what we might do for fun?  Granted, I am an old lady with old lady taste in entertainment but right now we either have (or are planning to purchase) tickets for:

• John Mellencamp
• Rush
• Billy Joel
• Weird Al
• Mark Knopfler
• Carmen (yes, the opera)
• Book of Mormon
• Camelot

Plus a couple of symphony performances. And it’s only February!  Most of the summer concerts haven’t even been announced yet! And then there’s baseball season – could it be that I have finally become a big enough fan to buy tickets to more than one game? Shock! The other wonderful thing is that we live so close to all the venues that it doesn’t require an entire evening to just get to a show.  Now I have to figure out not just how to pay for the tickets but how to make sure that travel doesn’t get in the way.

And not just my work travel – although there has been, and will continue to be, plenty of that.  Another of the joy of being empty nesters is that we can take off whenever we like – or whenever we don’t have tickets to some event!  In fact, the last time Southwest had a fare sale, we decided to go away for my birthday weekend.  We picked the warmest place we could go without changing planes (or spending stupid money) so for my Big Birthday, we’re headed to the Big Easy!  Yup, flying to New Orleans for the weekend.  Because we can.  Of course, as always my birthday is during Lent so I need to be very careful about how I plan my 40 days of “simple living, prayer, and fasting.”  I’m hoping God continues to be understanding when I decide to give up [fill in the blank] “except for my birthday, of course.” 🙂

Even as we are halfway through winter (no matter what some overhyped rodent says), I can’t help but think that time is again ticking more quickly.  In just a few short months, another school year will have passed and although Frank no longer gauges his time by that calendar, the adult kids do.  One will stop doing so upon graduating in May; the other one is trying desperately to not spend the summer in KC with her parents.  (We understand – we know we aren’t that much fun.) And then we will mark one year since our new adventure began.  It seems like it’s far away – as does the end of February for those with 60+ inches of snow – but it’s really right around the corner!

And now, feel free to return to your favorite midwinter activity.  You really don’t have that much longer to do it.

Now that the distraction of illness, work travel and football are past for a while, I can spend a few minutes wrapping up the Christmas visit from the adult kiddies.  We did lots of family stuff that we could have done anywhere, but we also indulged in some Kansas City-specific fun.

  First:  a little Christmas music.  The annual Christmas show put on by the Kansas City Symphony was wonderful. Christmas carols, Santa, a sing along, all of it.  We heard the Carol of the Bells played on handbells and a full choir do the Hallelujah Chorus.  We had great seats in the beautiful Kaufman Center. Complete with hot chocolate with peppermint schnapps! I was feeling a little under the weather with what would turn out to be a sinus infection and a touch of bronchitis but we didn’t let that stand in our way.

More Christmas themed fun was the drive through Longview Lake park.  For those in NoVA, Bull Run has nothing on this display – and it’s free.  We were big fans of the top-hat wearing snow man and NASCAR santa.

Other entertaining things one can do:  visit the Roasterie coffee roasters.  A Kansas City original, it has an airplane on the roof and lots of great coffee being roasted inside. (And of course, goofy photo ops for my “just pretending-pretending-to-be-adult” children.)  The tour was informative and according to my son, the self-proclaimed coffee nerd, very well done.

We also visited the World War I museum that is just across the street from my work.  No goofy photos from there.  It is an amazing exhibit that shamed me when I realized how little I knew about that war.  Being from New England, our history stopped after the Constitution was signed.  In Virginia, history is all about the Civil War (or the War of Northern Aggression if you go far enough south).  Frank was much better versed in the details of “the Great War” from his school days in Scotland.  Needless to say, Downton Abbey couldn’t possibly convey the magnitude of what was faced in those days.  I highly recommend a visit when you come to see us.  🙂

And last but certainly not least, we took advantage of the Chiefs all-but-mathematical elimination from the playoffs to pick up some tickets to Arrowhead Stadium for the chidlers to see their first live NFL game. It wasn’t too cold and the seats were great.  They learned all the not-politically-correct cheers that go with a Native American themed team and stadium and got to see the Chiefs pull out a win, knocking the San Diego Chargers out of the playoffs.  Small consolation.

So now we have some experience playing tour guide over the holidays. That will come in handy when my brother and his family come for Christmas next year. Anybody want to come visit another time of year? We could use the practice!

While we were very excited to have both the “kids” home for Christmas, it was not without some trepidation that we faced having four of us in our small house for two and a half weeks.  Frank and I did lots of prep work getting ready for their arrival and once here they did their typical college student thing: they slept.  A lot.  Like more that I would think was possible.  But what do I know?  I haven’t been able to sleep past 8:30 am since they were born.

So we settled into something that resembled a family pattern.  The big difference this Christmas is that they were coming “home” to a place where they don’t live and they don’t know anyone.  If we were still in NoVA, we would never see them because they would either be asleep or out with their friends.  Now their choice was to be asleep or hangout out with family.  Not quite the same thing.

But so far we are making things work.  Except for those morning where all four of us need to shower at roughly the same time (and our little water heater just can’t keep up), we are doing just fine.  Yes they sleep a lot but they also run errands for us, help keep the house tidy and generally try to be pleasant and helpful.  And it is a plus that we actually kinda like each other.  I spent the better part of the week before Christmas laid out with a nasty sinus infection and a touch of bronchitis so I wasn’t a ton of laughs to be around.  But that meant that they got some shopping done, learned their way around KC (they *love* Westport) and spend some time with dad.

Christmas itself was pretty quiet:  a fabulous Christmas eve dinner followed by 11pm service at our new St. Andrews.  This one is a little more high church than the one we attended in Virginia – we joked about the smells and bells but there was incense galore on Christmas eve.  The service was lovely and for the final carol of Silent Night, everyone had a candle that was lit during communion and the lights were dimmed for a candlelight sing.  It was really lovely.  Then home for cake, champagne and presents.  We were very clear that this year there would be few actual “things” for Christmas since both of them had to pack everything to take home on a plane and we pretty much stuck to that.  Their big gift from us was hotel rooms and spending money for the two of them to spend a few days together in Burlington and Montreal before coming to KC.  I understand it was a much enjoyed an appreciated gift.  And that’s where they found my awesome Christmas gift:   And they now have more room in their cases since this is staying right here in KC! Hopefully they won’t need to check a second bag to go home.

Partly because I wasn’t feeling well and party because we put the “fun” in dysfunctional, we spent much of the holiday so far working our way through 80’s movies: Raiders of the Lost Ark, Back to the Future, Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Strange Brew, Princess Bride, …. We have way too many such DVDs. We even borrowed some Jewish “traditions” and got some Chinese takeout on Boxing Day to have with our 80s adventure movies: the first two Terminator films.
Yes, I know that T2 came out in the 90s but it has some classic lines that they needed to see in context to make sure that their cultural education was complete.

And so we are through the first 10 days and have about a week left to go.  We’ve eaten, drank, joked, laughed, Yahtzeed and Scrabbled our way through a wonderful first half of the visit.  We’ve managed to take in some of the KC sites as well.  But that will have to be another post…. part 2….