Road Trip

Last weekend, we hopped in our van and headed to Kansas City for LTC (Leadership Training for Christ), which is a great big event for kids in third grade on up. Asa, our oldest, participated in several events…and did great!!!

Then, we stayed the remaining Easter weekend with some friends there close to KC. SO fun!

Here are some highlights of our trip: 

1. I got to have a few conversations with Matt while we were on the road and all the kids were busy with other things…or asleep…at the same time. Now that’s something that doesn’t happen all the time…

2. I was reminded again that I’m not a fan of big cities…and I was REALLY glad that Matt was driving us around in downtown KC…with all the unfamiliar one way streets and construction. (And I was also amazed that at one point…he was using his electric razor to shave before we got there…and looking at the map at the same time. Now, here is a guy who will never have an ulcer.)  (I’m not saying he was being unsafe…he just wasn’t frazzled, that’s all.)

3. While watching the skits and puppet shows at LTC, I was surprised by the creativity and talent of young people. And I also got a really big kick out of watching lots of puppets with their mouths hanging open for long periods of time. (Hey, when you’re eight years old, you can only hold that  puppet mouth closed for so long.)

4. Asa participated in the Bible Bowl while at LTC. He studied A LOT…and out of 70 questions…he only missed eight. (I’m not trying to brag or anything…) (Okay, yes, actually, yes I am.)

5. The LTC convention was held at this HUGE hotel…in which there were many, many escalators that you must take in order to get to where you need to be. For some reason, I always get all freaked out getting onto them, and kept checking the little guy’s shoe laces (which are actually velcro…duh). As we were constantly herding our kids on and off the silly things, I was reminded of how much I am not a fan of escalators. (And I also don’t like them very much.)

6. The friends who housed us for the weekend had Captain Crunch cereal. Partaking in this was one of the boy’s greatest joys of the entire trip. ;)

7. There were two dogs in the house where we were staying. (My kids have now decided that they like dogs.)

8. I let the boys pack their clothes on their own. When we were getting out our church clothes for Sunday, we realized that Justus had forgotten to pack his church pants. So, he had the choice between sweat pants…or sweat pants. He chose the sweat pants. ( Now that’s an Easter picture to remember.)

9. While on our way home, we found gas for $2.99 a gallon and were talking about how great it was to find it so “cheap”. And then we realized what we were saying. I guess it’s all relative.

10. The boys pretty much ate the entire way there…and the entire way home. And the entire time we were there. (Oh wait, that’s not unique to this trip…)

11. We have two Game Boys and three boys who know how to play them….and the batteries died in one of them (Uh, one of the Game Boys that is.). You do the math.  Thankfully they sort of figured out a system of taking turns…sort of.

12. I realized how much I don’t like the hand held game of 20 Questions. While it’s impressive in that it does usually get the answers right…it often asks difficult questions that the boys can’t answer without help. Such as, “Does it bring joy to people?” or “Can you give this object as a gift?” I suppose you could give just about anything as a gift and it could bring joy to someone…but not everyone likes artichokes or telephone poles as much as the next guy… We finally had to tell the boys to just make a good guess and to stop hollering out the questions to us. (Wonder if the batteries in that game will ever die?)

13. When we pulled back into the driveway of our home…one of the boys started crying (and wouldn’t stop), one of them started asking about a dog…one of them asked if we could have Captain Crunch for breakfast…and one of them asked if we could go back to our friends’ house. 

Welcome home… :)