Road Trip to Amish Town

Friday after our trip downtown I decided that I was tired of being tired and stressed from work and home stuff and wanted to get away from it all. I asked my sister if she wanted to go do something totally random. We decided to take a mini road trip. Here I am gasing up for the trip

We drove about an hour and 1/2 up north to Chilicothe, MO and stayed over night at a hotel. We got dinner and brought it back to our room and got in our pjs and watched "What not to Wear" and movies. It was so relaxing and wonderful! We slept in the next morning and then headed out to Jamesport, MO. Jamesport is an amish town. It was so crazy driving into town because it seemed like we had taken a step back in time. There were horses and buggies everywhere. There was a festival going on in town and we did some shopping and get fresh kettle corn...amazing! Before leaving down we stopped in one of the bakeries and bought fresh baked rolls. They were to die for! Those amish folks sure can bake!

Ok so I couldn't walk past this sign without taking a picture! It was this totally random RV park in the middle of amish town. It lived up to it's name cause it looked pretty shady!After our many adventures in amish town we packed up and headed back to KC. It was so much fun to get away and go to a new place. This past weekend was one of the best I've had in a long time!! Here we all are getting ready to say goodbye to Beth before she headed back to St. Louie on Sunday.

City Market

I felt like such a tourist this weekend! I've now lived in the Kansas City area for almost 6 years and have never done anything downtown! I met my brother and sister downtown for lunch and we headed to the River Market area. It was so fun to walk around and smell all the fresh produce and see all the cute little shops. Here's me with this corn couple. They were so cute I had to take a picture with them!

Here's Bill and Beth picking out fruit at the market. It was so fresh and very inexpensive!

We also went into the library downtown...which is amazing! It is one of the most beautiful buildings I have ever been in. It is huge and has an open roof top that you can go out on when the weather is nice. Here I am standing outside by the giant chess set!

Tour of Downtown KC

My sister (Bethany) is in town this week and so last night her and I headed downtown to my brother's (Bill) house for supper. I was very impressed with his cooking skills! He made us a delicious stuffed pasta dish with salad and bread on the side...very gourmet! After supper we headed out for a walk which was awesome because he lives right in the heart of downtown! We got to see all the main areas of the city and even catch a few minutes of a free concert by Jason Alden at the Power and Light District. One of the areas we walked by was the Library District. Downtown KC has a huge library and the parking garage is painted to look like books. Here is my sister standing in front of one of the titles. She lives in Hannibal, MO, the home of Mark Twain, so I made her stand by this book.
After our tour of downtown we enjoyed some ice cream and tried to take a group photo. It was hard to squeeze all our heads into one picture...good thing Bill has long arms! We will have to find someone to take a better picture of us all before Beth heads home.
This last picture is of me in front of the Dwight building. I have no idea what is in this building, but I had to have my picture in front of it in tribute of Dwight from The Office. We have nicknamed Mike at my office Dwight and this was just a priceless moment.

Raise the Blaze 2008

Raise the Blaze was the name of our camp this past week. I had a blast and was truly blessed by the girls who I had in my room and the messages that were presented at camp. I was a little nervous about going to camp mainly because I didn't really know any of the youth that were going but as soon as we got on the road to camp I started bonding with the girls and it proved to be an awesome week!

We had a slight detour on the way to camp. The exit we needed to take was poorly marked and before we knew it we were about an hour too far down south. We turned around and got back on the right track. The detour ended up being a blessing cause we were going to be at camp way before check in and we weren't quite sure what we were going to do to that fill time.

Once we got to camp we all got checked in and unloaded and headed to supper. This camp was very well organized and had fairly decent food. From that point on we were busy non-stop. We had two chapel session each day, one in the morning and then again at night. We were blessed to have the group Shachah lead us in worship at chapel as well as play a concert one night. We had games, pool time, and free time each day and some of us from our group headed into Osage Beach one day to do some shopping at the outlet malls. Of course we had to pull a few pranks on the guys and they for sure pulled some on us girls...however we way out did them!! ;-)

Camp was awesome and I am so glad that I went!! I have a whole group of new friends now and was so blessed by the group of youth that came from our church.

This is me with my girls that I had in my room for the week:

Maddie, Bailey, and Me:

Camp Here I Come!

Today I am working a long 2 hour shift at work and then I'm off for the rest of the week!! I am headed to Windermere Conference Center at the Lake of the Ozarks for youth camp with my church. I am really excited to get away and get to know the youth better...plus 4 days off work is pretty exciting as well ;-) We will be leaving Wednesday morning and returning Saturday afternoon. I'm hoping to get some good lake time in and try not too get sunburnt...I'm still peeling from the last burn! I also hear we are going to make a trip into Osage Beach to do some outlet shopping!! I will post an update along with pictures, when I return, of all our fun adventures.

Just a Trim...

The title of this post were my words to my hair sylist yesterday. I went into a salon that I've gone to a handful of times and told my usually lady that I was just wanting a trim to shape up my current style and cut my bangs. I am headed to camp this week with church and just wanted a fresh cut so my hair would behave and be easier to style, etc. Things started off rather normal...nice washing of the hair and general trimming of the front portion.

Well...things began to take a turn for the worse when she moved to the back of my head. I started seeing longer pieces of hair falling into my lap and started getting a sick feeling in my gut. I again told her I really didn't want much length off in back just a trim of my layers. She said oh I know I'm just doing some texturizing. I was still rather nervous cause of the hair that was in my lap and not on my head!! So thankfully the salon phone rang and she went to answer it and I started feeling my hair or as I found out the lack there of! I realized the back felt rather short and os when she came back I told her it was getting much shorter then I wanted and that I thought she should just even things out and be done!

I could tell she felt bad cause she took an eternity styling it which I didn't like how she styled it anyways! I just wanted her to let me out of there so I could go home and try to figure out what the heck she had done!! I got home and had a few moments of panic as I realized my simple trim had turned into cutting off almost 2 inches and creating a new style. Once my panic attack was over and I had styled it how I wanted I actually liked it ok. It's still taking some getting used to but it's not terrible and hair grows so in a couples months I'll be back were I started again.

A Fabulous 4th

This weekend was great time of relaxation, fun, and food!! I went out to MacPherson, KS on Thursday after work to meet up with my good friend Sara and her husband and adorable baby, Leah. Friday we got up and headed into Salina, also know as S-town! We of course had to do some shopping and hit the mall. Old Navy was having a tremendous sale and so I came home with a few new shirts ;) After our morning of shopping, we loaded up the cars and headed an hour down the road to Cottonwood Falls, KS. Sara's in-laws live in Cottonwood and we had a great time of watching them spoil little Leah and were able to partake of some homemade ice cream.....yummy!!

Friday evening we headed into Peabody, KS to watch the fireworks! It was an awesome display!! I was surprised that such a little town could put on such an amazing show!Friday night we all stayed out at Sara's parents house. They live way out in the beautiful Flint Hills of Kansas on a huge ranch. It is the most beautiful place in Kansas I am sure of it! We spent all day being lazy and helping Sandie, Sara's mom, get food ready for our feast at the lake. There is a lake on their land that we went to that evening. We all rode the jet ski and swam! It was so much fun!! I think throughout the course of the weekend I ate my weight in homemade ice cream...not joking! I had a couple bowls each day I was out there...mercy I hope my work clothes still fit this week! All in all it was a wondeful weekend and I was dreading coming back to reality!

Sara, David, and Leah:

Han, Sara, and Leah:

Jet Sking at the Lake:

Music Makes Me Happy!

Today was the most amazing day ever at the office! We got Sirius satellite radio!! That may not seem like a huge deal and the most amazing day ever, but if you knew what we have been listening to for the past 2 yrs it would be. Let me try to discribe it for you...it was all instrumental, mainly flute solos, organ solos, and some other very terrible instruments that really should only be used for putting people to sleep. The best was the opera version of Amazing Grace! We now get to listen to the most amazing music ever...modern, upbeat, has words, no opera, no instrumental solos!! Best day ever!