A Birthday Week

I use my weekly calendar to remember what I've been doing with my life and what was of interest to tell you all. Yes, I have one of those fancy droids and do use Google calendar (which I think is fantastic) but I guess I just like pen & paper for some things:

Apparently, the little reminder in my phone calendar isn't nearly as exciting as my own  handwritten calendar. 

Work went well this week. My new boss is big on mentoring and making sure that his team is happy and growing/learning - that makes me super happy. My first two bosses (at my internship & my first job) were BIG on mentoring. I thank my lucky stars (okay, I think God!) for these ladies and the things they taught me during the time I worked with them. What a blessing. I hope I'm able to grow as much here as I did in those two positions.

I had a lovely weekday lunch at Mildred's Coffeehouse in the Crossroads with Audrey and Liane, two wonderful med student wives. Mildred's is literally up the block from where I work, and Audrey and Liane braved the street parking to have lunch with me. We had great fellowship and I am so blessed by these women's friendship! And, because you've got to know, I had the Classic BLT on wheat toast and added avocado. So delicious. I had a half sandwich with a cup of Roasted Red Pepper bisque. Yum. It was $10 with the tip, and I'd recommend this little gem to anyone.

Friday night our group of friends went out to Jack Stack BBQ in the plaza, we waited an hour for a table, I had my first-ever cosmopolitan, and we found out just how blessed we are to have a great group of friends this early in the med-school game! All 4 guys are in school together, and Audrey, Liane and I work, and Preston's girlfriend lives in TN...but we're hoping that someday she gets to move here and join the us every time we go out! We all go to Redeemer Fellowship together, but this was the first time ALL of us were able to go out. Such a fun evening.

So thankful for our friends from all over! L to R: Tennessee, Colorado, Texas, South Dakota - WOW!

Jordan and I splurged on a full slab of Beef Back Ribs ($26.75) that are described as 8 Dinosaur-sized Ribs for those who crave the taste of Beef. Served with Creamy Coleslaw, Hickory Pit Beans, and French Fries. The were not kidding about the dinosaur-size. I ate 2 of the small ones, Jordan ate 4 and he had the other 2 for lunch yesterday. Ridiculous.

Dad, Mom and Lucas arrived around 9pm Friday evening...and we kept them waiting in the car for an hour in our parking lot (OOPS!) as we finished up dinner at Jack Stack. We were SO happy to have them visit, and of course, couldn't fit all the fun into a few days. They'll definitely need to come back:

City Market - bought a few groceries for the week and showed mom & dad how CHEAP everything is!

Ixtapa Mexican - a birthday lunch with dad, mom and Jordan. I enjoyed Tacos Chidos with shrimp ($15.49) which had five mini soft corn tortillas topped with shrimp, caramelized onion, guacamole and fresh cilantro. So delicious.

KCUMB Tour - Jordan showed us around campus, since mom and dad had never seen it before.

WWI Museum - Mom, dad and I spent 3-4hrs exploring this museum, and even though I'd already spent hours here in July, I read new and different things that I hadn't had a chance to read the time before. Such a good museum.

Fort Leavenworth - We visited my mom's sister and her family (AND my cousin Matt from Texas and his wife were staying with them, so we got to caught up after not seeing each other for probably 6 years! A great bonus. Plus, it was the first time I'd met his wife!), enjoyed fabulous beef stew made by my cousin Beth's boyfriend (and biscuits by my momma!), enjoyed amazing cheesecake made by my aunt Kathy, and took a walking tour of base.

Weston, MO - On the way home from Ft. Leavenworth, mom, dad and I met Jordan in Weston so they could experience the underground bar for themselves. Jordan taught us to play Texas Hold'em and mom beat us all!

We also spent an even at our apartment making zucchini, onions, yellow squash and kielbasa...one of my very favs (zucchini and squash courtesy of mom's garden!). We played Up and Down the River for over an hour and laughed hysterically. A wonderful evening.

Mom and Dad brought me my very fav Sioux Falls Oh My Cupcakes! for my birthday. To say I was thrilled would be an understatement. So. Delicious. 

Beautiful flowers from hubby for my birthday!

 I'll leave you with a challenging quote that was in our bulletin this past Sunday (blog post dedicated to our fab - and challenging - church is forthcoming...):

"Idolatry need not entail a statue of Buddha or genuflecting in a pagan temple. Idolatry is any tendency in the human heart to dethrone God for the sake of something else, whether that be money, sex, ambition, power, pride, or some thing as seemingly innocuous as respectability. To the extent that we give our affections to anything other than God on the assumption that it can do for our souls what He can't, we are guilty of idolatry." 

~ Sam Storms ~

If There's Treasure Here, We'll Find it!

We've been exploring, exploring and exploring. Hence no blogging. Here's the highlights (the bold headings will bring you to the websites of those places...they didn't underline like before):

A Pampered Chef Friend!
I ventured out on the many KC interstates by myself for the first time to visit a new friend and talk PC at her house. It was great to visit with another consultant and I'm really looking forward to getting to know Chandra better. So thankful that we've found a "couple" friend this early - that was one thing I told Jordan when we got down here: "Try to make friends with people who have a wife so I can have friends, too!"

Nelson-Atkins Museum
This is a free museum in KC and it really is wonderful. We were there for only a few hours, but knew we could come back and explore again, so we didn't feel we had to see absolutely everything this time. The coolest thing we saw was this backpack:

Leather, right? Nope - it's clay! Amazing, eh?

Here's us outside the museum...it was so bright, I couldn't even keep my eyes open! For real!

Bear's BBQ

Amazing little hole-in-the-wall bbq joint we found about 5-10 mins from our apartment. It's owned by a tall, big, biker-looking older dude (with a long grey beard and a bald head...whose nickname is, of course, Bear) and they just opened 15 months ago. The food was delicious, and NOW if you come to KC, we're definitely taking you here for bbq instead of Oklahoma Joe's (unless you want to drive 30mins and then wait in line for an hour). We ordered the Little Bears Toothpicks ($14.99), which was a 1/2 slab of ribs and two sides. It was advertised as enough for two people, and they weren't kidding. There was no fat on these bones. And there was TONS of meat. (Okay, not literally, but you get the picture. So. Much. Meat.) They use a dry rub and have sauce at the table for you to add to your liking - Jordan prefers lots, I prefer little...he prefers hot hot hot, I prefer mild...so this was perfect for us. We ordered steak fries and Bears smoked beans for our sides. I'm not much for baked beans, but Jordan thought they were delicious. Instead of being made with pork, they use beef brisket with their beans. I'm a big fan of fries and these didn't disappoint - they were the large style...almost wedge-like (but not potato wedges) and came with a big bottle of Bear's own jalapeno ranch sauce. I was pleasantly surprised to find it wasn't spicy and was great with the fries. Overall, it was fab. We'll be returning here for sure.

Puzzle!
We started working on a puzzle...and we opted not to use the picture. It came in a big box with 10 or so other puzzles, so we're not even sure which one we're working on. Here's our progress:

City Market
I'd been told how wonderful the Saturday and Sunday Farmer's Market at City Market was, but you have to see it to believe it. They start at 6am on Saturday morning, and we heard that the crowd gets amazingly big, so we left our apartment at 6:30am and at 6:45 there was already a big crowd there! Unlike SF farmer's markets, where the prices are way higher than the grocery store, this was all SUPER cheap. Here's what we walked away with for $15:

• huge bag of carrots - $1
• 3 mangos, the size of my hand - $1
• 2 lemons
• 3 organges
• bunch of cilantro - $0.50
• bunch of mint - $1
• box of strawberries
• 4 smallish onions
• head of broccoli
• head of cabbage
• 4 plums
• 1 large tomato
• 1 1/2 cup scoop of chili powder

Glore Psychiatric Museum
Their website summarizes this museum as "The Glore Psychiatric Museum chronicles the 130-year history of what was once known as the “State Lunatic Asylum No. 2.”" It was interesting and creepy - they had life-size old mannequins in different scenes. There were boxes that they kept people locked up in, a boxed in "hamster wheel", "prison" cells and other remedies that they used to try to bring people back to sanity. It was really sad, thinking about how scared everyone was of people with mental illness and disabilities and the different things they tried to do. Must have been very frightening for both parties....it makes me super thankful for places like SD Achieve and the vast steps we've made in understand those illnesses/disabilities since that time.

KC Command Game
Free tickets? Yes, please. We're not much for sports, but give us something free and we're there. It was a one-point game (we lost, ugh), so it was fun to watch...although we saw a lot of this during the game:

These teenage boys were VERY passionate about arena football.

Our apartment is the "home" of the KC Command team and coaches (literally, they live here) and last week we met one of the Command players. Get this: his last team was...the SF Storm. Small world - even here in KC.

Power & Light District: Nightlife with KCUMB Students
Saturday night we met up with a bunch of other med students again for drinks - it is WILD in downtown KC at night. I'd never seen anything like this before. Between a cluster of bars there's an outdoor courtyard that connects them all, the music is blaring inside and outside, there's a HUGE flatscreen TV (playing sports at the time), outside there's stairs that take you up to the next level that has more bars. It was interesting to see, but the spendy drinks, loud music (couldn't even talk to the person across the table without leaning towards each other and yelling), and...interesting...outfit choices told us this wasn't really our scene. (at least not Jordan's and mine, a bunch of the students went out again on Sunday night.)

Fellowship of Grace
Another wonderful, little church. There were about 30-35 people at this church, and they were so friendly. Lots of people made a point to welcome us and thank us for coming and invite us back again - it was nice to be noticed and welcomed. The music was very similar to E. Free and I knew all the songs, so that was great little reminder of home. We enjoyed the sermon, but it wasn't as deep/thought-provoking/challenging as we'd like.

A Family Afternoon
We spent Sunday lunch and afternoon on base with my aunt, uncle and cousin. My uncle Pat made us a fabulous chicken curry for lunch and the followed it up with a berry cobbler. Fan-tastic. We were so spoiled. Jordan, cousin Greta and Pat played Empire Builder (twice...Jordan lost by ONE POINT the second game) and aunt Kathy and I looked at her scrapbooks (she makes digital scrapbooks and has the printed up and has 9 done so far of different trips from the past few years...I think I'm feeling inspired!), sat outside and talked, and watered plants. It was a wonderful, restful afternoon.

Boats, Beverages & the Blasted Heat!

On Monday, Jordan and I ventured to small-town MO for a wine tasting and discovered lots of other things to do as well. It reminded me a little of Deadwood...with no #10 Saloon or any gambling ;)

Church converted to winery!

Pirtle Winery is located in what used to be a church and we sampled wines such as Effervescent Blueberry Wine and some different grape blends. The Effervescent wine is bubbly, like champagne. It was good, but not good enough that we wanted to buy any. (Plus, after Jordan's last wine purchase, I think we've got enough to last us at least 2 years!)

We wandered in and out of a few little shops and antique stores, but not many were open on Mondays. We had a good time and it was nice to get out of the heat - it's stinkin' hot down here! Unlike SD, it doesn't cool off in the evenings. It stays right up there in the 90s. Ridiculous.

A happy hubby with his beer samples.
(Sorry for the window glare!)

Scotch eggs!

Weston also has a brewery (O'Malley's 1842 Irish Pub), where Jordan enjoyed a beer flight  and we shared an order of the waitress-recommended Scotch Eggs - hard-boiled eggs wrapped in ground sausage and then deep fried. I normally enjoy my hard-boiled eggs plain, but I thought I'd give these a shot - afterall, July is our "adventure" month!

I was pleasantly surprised to find that they weren't as bad as I thought they'd be (isn't everything that's deep friend always better?), even good. It was kind of like having your entire breakfast or brunch all wrapped up into one bite. There was a little dipping sauce that reminded me of Hollandaise sauce and Jordan thought it tasted like honey mustard. Either way, it was a nice complement.

The best part of Jordan's day was getting a case of O'Malley's beer for $20 (24 bottles) and visiting Weston Tobacco, a little cigar shop that rolls their own cigars. He's planning to return sometime with some other med students that enjoy cigars (because that person isn't me).

~*~

Tuesday brought us to The Steamboat Arabia in City Market (downtown KC). I'd already been to this museum a few years ago when I was in KC for a work conference, but I thought it was really cool and that Jordan would enjoy it, too. In 1856 a steamboat on its way to a port a few miles from KC hit a partial tree and sunk. In the past, going up the Missouri used to be very dangerous because the steamboatmen would cut trees off and use them as fuel - the cut trees bent with the river and became very hazardous for anyone travelling up the river. The Arabia's cargo was all lost (everyone escaped safely) and in the '80's, a group of adventure seekers dug up the Arabia and opened a museum to show what a typical steamboat's cargo was made up of.

  

 

I am under no illusions that my formatting of multiple pictures is grand. I know it needs a bit of work...but right now I'm more interested in getting things out there :) Here's a pic of us, in case you've forgotten our midwestern good looks already. Typical self-portrait style. Maybe next time we'll ask someone to take a pic of us (and maybe next time we won't be in such a dark room!).

After the museum, we checked out City Market. One word: FABULOUS. Fresh veggies for WAY cheaper than the grocery store (farmer's market style). I'll definitely be returning here. We snagged 3 avocados for $2 - the cheapest I've ever seen them in the grocery store is $1 apiece. Other things were similarly priced - 5 peaches for $2, a flat of strawberries for $4 (yes, an entire flat). And the list goes on (but I don't remember any other prices right now).

We also checked out a few shops. One was WONDERFUL. You walked in the door to have your nose assaulted with a powerful mixture of spices. And, each half-cup scoop was only $1! I'll also be returning here - I told J that I wanted to have spices in mind that I wanted and not just buy willy-nilly. Although I kind of wanted to buy willy-nilly...they looked so good and smelled amazing.

That's enough for now. I hope you're enjoying your cities as much as we're enjoying ours!