Falling Leaves and the Return of the Family

I put it off long enough since the weather was so good, the leaves weren't falling, but I finally had to rake leaves. Sandy had to get into the middle of things.

Sara couldn't let Sandy out-fun her.

And some exclusive video of Sara taking the big leap.

Sara keeps losing teeth. Here she is showing off her gap.

Once again, we had Mom & Dad and Karen & Steve (and their pack of dogs) in for Thanksgiving. Mom & Dad came in by train. Pretty cool. The girls put Mom & Dad through their paces while they were here. Sara got Mom to play video games for probably the first time in her life. Here she's 100 pin bowling on the Wii (I think Sara won the battle).

We also got to celebrate Dad's birthday. We decided against the one candle for each year thing. I don't think our insurance covered that situation.

The day after Thanksgiving was gorgeous (mid 60's, clear, and no wind). We all went to the Liberty Memorial and the National World War I Museum. If you're a history buff, it's a really cool place to visit. Very professionally done, with lots of cool artifacts. Here's the Liberty Memorial, with the entrance to the Museum below.

I told you there were cool artifacts. An actual French tank from World War I!!

And for a couple of extra bucks, you can take an elevator to the top of the Liberty Memorial and climb around on the outside observation deck. Not a bad view of Downtown. The building n the foreground is Union Station. The silver colored dome like structure is the Sprint Center (the Downtown arena).

Since Karen and Steve were here, we had to take the dogs to the dog park inside Shawnee Mission Park. 65 acres of open ground, woods, and of course access to the lake, all off-leash. Doggy nirvana. Sandy starts going nuts as we drive into the park. She knows that she'll be in the lake chasing sticks.