"What's for dinner, Ma?" Kansas restaurants - January

Today is Kansas Day. It is Kansas' 151st birthday.
Happy Birthday, Kansas!!
Last year we decided to take a trip each month to someplace in Kansas that we had never been to before. What a great time we had traveling this beautiful state! We will probably go and see more things that we missed. 12 months was not enough to see it all!
This year what we intend to do monthly is to visit a restaurant we have never been to before. We are creatures of habit and tend to go to the same ones we know we really like! The young marrieds introduced us to Cheddars. They had told us how good it was and inexpensive too. One day while shopping in Wichita, we decided to try out that restaurant but couldn't recall the name. We knew the approximate location and came upon Chester's. Thinking that was the spot, we went in. Well, the price tag on the food is quite substantially different!! Since then, we have gone often to Cheddars and LOVE it!

We contacted some dear old friends; not that they are old - they are our age - but we go way back.


Allen met Dave and Becky at Hutch Juco. We became friends. We went to their wedding - they didn't come to ours though. But I guess we can excuse them because they got married the day before we did and they were on their honeymoon. We both moved to Stauffer Place, the newly married apartments at KU and hung around together those 2 years there.

They moved to Wichita and we followed the following year when Al was doing his residency at Wesley. We both had boys, 4 1/2 months apart.

And girls are just a few weeks apart. We used to get together often!
Then they moved to Derby and we moved to Newton. Not so far apart in distance, but we both got involved in our churches and children's activities. We always kept in touch through Christmas letters and going to our kids' weddings.
Allen and I decided we would invite them to our very first restaurant adventure. We had them pick out the restaurant that we have never been to.



We ordered the Baby Back Combo with seasoned fries and sweet and smoky beans. Oh my goodness!!!
So delicious!! (if you know I am highly allergic to brocolli, you will realize this is not my plate; it was Dave's. Al and I almost always split our dinner and I forgot to get a photo before we did that.)
We spent 5 hours non-stop talking and catching up. We just picked up where we left off years ago. What a delightful evening with dear friends! And very good food - HIGHLY recommend the restaurant! Located on Rock in Derby if you want to know.
Al had fully intended to pick up the tab for us both, but Dave insisted.

We will be looking for another couple to take out in the months to come (you want to pick up the tab too??? Ha ha!!) and other restaurants to try out for the first time!

Kansas restaurants rock!!

With the other grandma and also great grandparents

The girls spent Tuesday with their other grandma. They moved here from Wisconsin back in the spring and now live only 15 minutes away! She helps teach school to them each week.

On Wednesday morning, my parents took care of the girls. I was doing the lesson for Berean's preschool chapel followed by Bible study so they were willing to help out. My parents are in their 80's but are so young at heart! The girls love to go to their place!
My mom taught the girls the art of tea.


They had left over cake from Adam's graduation. The frosting is black and so are their mouths!


Thanks Dad and Mom! I'm so glad you are such loving great grandparents!!

The zoo

We have a season pass to the zoo and with the nice days we are having, that was a must to go take an afternoon to go.
If you ever go, be sure to check the times when you can watch them feed the animals and also interact with zoo keepers to learn more about the animals! We were told when we checked into the zoo that the zoo keeper would be with the elephants in 15 minutes so that was the 1st place we went. They animal trainers have the animals follow commands (did you know elephants can skip??) so they can check their health.

You can ask questions like what are their names, or how long have you had them? This pair came from South Africa and are almost 20 years old. Not expected to live too much longer I guess.

The kids always like to stop at the Nganda park at the zoo to play. We had taken along some of our chocolately chocolate chip cookies for a snack. We fed the little birdies a few crumbs too.



The girls are not fond of the gorillas and would NOT go into the exhibit. But we did look at them from a safe distance.

They are not afraid of the tigers though. (I think if I had to choose, I would rather meet up with a gorilla than a tiger in real life!)
We went to the tigers when the zookeeper was there also. The tiger learns commands so they can check his overall health. He even jumped up on the screen and also growled on command. When he would do what they wanted, they would feed him some raw hamburger on this stick. Amazing to watch.
They are looking into a breeding program for these tigers soon.






After leaving the zoo, we went around the corner to the county park. It is a fun park!

I took the tired kids and (a tuckered out old grandma) home!

The grandchildren

Our grandchildren spent the last 4 nights with us while dad and mom were at a pastor's conference in Oregon.
The kids brought several stuffed animals with them to sleep with.
And mommy got them each a Bravery Ballerina Bear. It isn't easy having mommy and daddy gone for several days!
But we had lots of fun! The weather was great! Hurray for January in Kansas! Although usually we do have snow, we haven't this year. It has been in the 40's and 50's.
The kids said they would be our personal GPS (Sophie said "VBS") and guided us to the park in their neck of the woods.



It has been warm enough that the Canada geese are not going south. They are congregating here! And boy are they ever congregating! Like a mega-church! Thousands!!



They are beautiful to watch.
The ice was breaking up around the edge of the lake and was making tinkling sounds like wind chimes. It was so pretty!!
We spent one morning making cookies.

I let them put sprinkles on one pan of chocolatey chocolate chip cookies.
Will post more about what we did another time! Grandchildren are so fun!