A mini-vacation in Kansas

Last week, Curtis, his brothers, and his dad took a hunting trip to Texas.  Apparently they have all wanted to go hog hunting for a long time (lol) so they took five days to follow their dream.  I knew that five days by myself with 3 kids would be hard to handle, so I talked my mom into heading to my grandparent's house in Buhler for a couple of days.

We tried to plan a few fun activities so the kids wouldn't get bored.  Lane still loves anything space related, so I knew that he would love the Cosmosphere in Hutchinson.  When a friend posted pictures from the Ramada in Hutch, I knew where we had to stay!

We left Thursday morning and ended up in Buhler sometime between 1:30 and 2.  Grandma and Grandpa were waiting for us and were really excited to see us!  Lane pretty much went right for the Lego firetruck and police truck that he knew they had :)  We hung out at their house for a couple of hours, then headed into Hutch to do some shopping.  Grandma wanted to buy the kids each a toy - Lane picked a Lego police helicopter, and Katy picked out a couple of puzzles.  I needed to find Scarlett some 6-9 month clothes and had a really hard time finding stuff!  Grandma ended up buying her some jammies :)

Then it was off to the hotel - Lane and Katy were really excited about swimming!

I knew the kids would love this pool - it was only about 6 inches deep and had space-themed slides and pictures on the wall.  The hotel wasn't the greatest - it was pretty old - but the setup couldn't be beat!

We got Chili's takeout instead of trying to corral these kids at a restaurant.  I didn't realize that it was Kansas state basketball, so every place was really busy!

Lane and Katy LOVED the bunkbeds in their own little room!  It was really nice to have them separate from the main hotel room - I could feed Scarlett in the middle of the night and not worry about them waking up!

After a not-so-restful nights sleep (seriously, can't the hotel turn the a/c on??), we headed to the Cosmosphere the next morning.  Lane thought it was the coolest place - he kept telling me "I'm glad it's all space stuff and no airplanes!"  (Apparently the SAC Museum in Omaha had too many airplanes!)

We were there for about an hour and a half and the kids were pretty interested the whole time.  The museum wasn't very busy, so they had room to run around and look at all the exhibits.

After the museum, we went back to Grandma and Grandpa's house to hang out with them for awhile. Lane had fun playing with his new space shuttle.

Katy really enjoyed rearranging Grandma's pictures on the fridge!

Scarlett was so tired that she took a 2-hour nap on the bed!  I didn't want to wake her up, so we left for home a little later than we had planned.  We passed the time by putting together Katy's new puzzles...

...and playing Sneaky, Snacky Squirrel.

Grandpa really liked the new step stool that Curtis made him!  He made it to match an old Reimer's Inc. sign that we have in our basement - it turned out pretty cool!

Scarlett was good on the trip - she liked rolling around on the floor the best :)  Grandma gave all the kids these little bunnies - Katy and Lane immediately named them Little Bunny Foo-Foo.

It was a good, although tiring, trip.  Lane said that he was glad that his Grandma went with us so that he didn't miss Daddy too much.  It was fun to see the kids having so much fun, and of course, it was good to see my grandparents again!  Lane's already planning the next time we go down!