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Visiting Kansas City!

 Garrett invited us to come visit him before his family moves overseas, so over spring break we did just that! We set off on Tuesday at 12:30pm after Scott taught his class and arrived in Denver 11 hours later. It's usually an 8-hour trip but we forgot Camille's meds after 25 minutes of driving and then ran into pretty bad weather on I-70 through the Rocky Mountains. We white-knuckled our way over the pass where trucks were required to put on chains and it was dark and snowy with almost no one on the road but we finally arrived safely in Denver.  Here is a picture of our car on Wednesday morning, totally filthy (Scott washed it that night in Kansas):

After that, the weather was much better. Kansas' spring was way ahead of ours with blossoming trees and flowers. On Wednesday, we had dinner with my brother Neil's family. His wife was gone helping her brother with a high-maintenance new baby so my niece Anna made a yummy dinner for us. I'm sad that I have zero pictures from our time seeing them! Major choke!

On Thursday, we did baptisms at the Kansas City temple, then drove to Liberty Jail for a tour. 







Right after that, we got to work at one of my brother's Crumbl stores in Liberty. Anna was so kind to help us do that. We were given the red carpet treatment. And Camille has decided on her new career choice. Mindy stayed in the car because she didn't want the experience.




After Crumbl, we stopped by the Eight Witnesses' Monument which is pretty close to Liberty. It is not well-known and not frequently visited but it's a nice little monument. Here's some info on it: https://ensignpeakfoundation.org/monument-to-the-eight-witnesses-liberty-missouri/




We dropped off the girls at the Airbnb where we were staying so Camille could work on her online school (which was not on spring break) and then went to Garrett's house. It was great to see their very nice house which they've worked hard to fix up in the short time they've been there. They sold it very quickly last month in preparation for their move. We enjoyed taking a walk with them, then Garrett and AnnaSue took off for their night out while we babysat.





On Friday morning, we picked up our two grandchildren so Garrett and AnnaSue could get some work done and took them to the Visitor's Center in Independence:










After the Visitor's Center, we dropped off the kids, then dropped off our girls--to do some schoolwork, and drove to the temple so Scott and I could do a session there. As we walked in, a young family with 3 cute little boys all dressed up, also walked in. They were getting sealed and I was hoping to get invited to watch! But we went to our session and also felt the Spirit there. It was almost completely full and we were grateful they had room for us.


That night Garrett and AnnaSue fed us a yummy dinner of smoked pork shoulder that Garrett had cooked all day long. 





On Saturday, we visited the zoo with Garrett and the two children while AnnaSue worked on selling some of their stuff. The weather was beautiful and some of the animals were out. I especially enjoyed taking a ski lift ride over the African savanna.



















After the zoo, we went back to Garrett's neighborhood which was sponsoring an Easter egg hunt. I'm very impressed with their neighborhood which has formed its own little organization to sponsor social events.







On Easter Sunday, we went to Garrett and AnnaSue's ward. It turns out that it is the same building that my brother Kurt and his deceased wife Alice used to attend many years ago. The coach of the Kansas City Chiefs also attends church there and was sitting behind me but I totally missed him. I was so impressed with the volume of singing--it turns out they have two opera singers (husband and wife) who really boost the volume. But I think they also have a lot of enthusiastic singers as I noticed in the ward choir. The Primary also sang, accompanied by AnnaSue, and Scott took a covert picture of our grandson:


He sat with me a lot of the meeting and we took a few selfies--one of my favorite things to do with my grandchildren. He also enjoyed emptying my purse a couple of times which is always entertaining.








After church we went to a nearby park for a little while to see them one last time before we left:




Right after that, we drove to Neil and Kristie's house and had a delicious Easter dinner. It was really fun to visit and catch up a little. I wish I had gotten a picture of their whole family but I did take one picture of the cousins when we played Wits and Wagers.


We stayed at their house that night, then left at 4:50am Monday morning to make the long drive back. We got home at 7:20 that evening. It was a great trip!

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