Weekend Trip - Part Two

Another fun FREE activity we did with the kids was also at the Crown Center. The place is called Kaleidoscope and it is basically a big art studio for kids. All of Hallmarks leftover materials go there for kids to make their creations. The whole place had a Dr. Seuss kind of appearance and had different stations set up all over the room. The pictures didn't turn out so well because it was kind of dark in there. Two favorites of Jaylyn's was the puzzle maker and the painting station! The puzzle maker was pretty fun. You designed your puzzle on a square thick cardboard piece. Then you put it in the machine, turned the crank and it cut it into puzzle pieces. Fun, fun! All the kids got a bag to put all of their creations in. Adley loves to color!

More coloring, cutting and taping!

Jaylyn painting a fish.

Adley also enjoyed the painting. They even had a drying machine for your painting projects.

One evening while TJ went out to get some drinks to go with our pizza in the hotel room, we had a little girl time and painted fingernails and toe nails.

Pretty Pink!

This is a picture of the girls in front of the alligator at the Rainforest Cafe. Adley didn't really want to stand there. We weren't sure that Jaylyn would even want to go to this restaurant. She is not fond of animals being close to her. Of course, these are fake animals, but look and sound pretty real. One night after we were home, she said this was her favorite part. If you haven't been there, it looks like a rainforest in the restaurant and the elephants and gorillas make noices and movements sometimes. Then all of the animals make noise during a thunderstorm. Pretty fun.

This is a picture of a really neat water park that was in our hotel. This is NOT free! :) And, it was probably not the greatest way for us to spend our money with our girls who are not that into swimming. But, it was really neat and we did have fun.

Here is Adley on our way out. She loved all of the fountains.

Jaylyn and Adley spent most of their time in this area for the smaller children. It had a Zero depth entrance with fountains, a FAST slide and small buckets up high that dumped water. It also had a screen on the pirate ship sail showing kid shows. Jaylyn did go down the slide a few times, but she had a look of sheer fright each time. The slide went sooo fast and she was always afraid of going under the water at the bottom. One of us HAD to be at the bottom to help keep her up. So, if you want an indoor water park in KC, just check out CoCo Key Water Park! It even has a Pizza Hut and A&W restaurant inside!

Ok, one of my favorite parts was our last day when we went all the way out to Overland Park, Kansas to the Deanna Rose Children's Farmstead. Once again, FREE! (Donations highly appreciated - Concession sales to help support them.) But, it was absolutely beautiful. For, St. Louisans, you could compare it to a Grant's Farm, Suson Park, Eckerts Fun Farm all in one with more added! Everything was landscaped so beautifully with flowers everywhere. And, it was fall so all of the pumpkins and corn stalks were a nice touch. There were many animals to see like buffalo, chickens, LOTS of goats, pigs, bobcats, horses, rabbits, etc. You could buy feed from the quarter machines for many of the animals. They had some fun playground equipment and several tractor type things to get on. There is an old schoolhouse where they do activities through the year, a dairy barn where you can watch cow milking, an indian encampment with indian artifacts, a farmhouse is coming soon. You could even pay to do mining for gems and go fishing. There was a lot of great stuff. A perfect field trip location! Anyway, the girls loved it too.

The girls on the "kid-sized" benches in front of the waterfall.
(They also have kid-sized toilets and sinks!)

In the fort!

The Indian Encampment

Riding the tractor bikes

Riding the BIG tractor

The Silo slide

My two little flowers!

So, now we are home and everything is back to normal. . . dirty dishes, toys everywhere . . .
I need Room Service!!!!!!!!!!