Labor Day Weekend Family Fun

Happy happy happy Hump Day. 🙂

I’m actually typing this up real time (my computer reads 5:59 a.m.) because I woke up about an hour ago craving coffee and quiet time. Jamie is downstairs working out (what I should be doing… ha!) and is going into work late today so that we can all go together to drop Hadley off for her first day of preschool! We also have Sadie’s open house and will send her off for her first day next week.

We pulled up yesterday for Hadley’s open house, and she started screaming “Yay yay yay yay my schooooool!” This will be her third year at this particular Child’s Day Out/Preschool, and we’re all excited to kick off the school year.

I hope you had a nice Labor Day weekend. We really did. I think it’s so funny to see the differences in what goes on Memorial Day weekend versus Labor Day weekend. During Memorial Day everybody is off to the lake, out on their boats, BBQing with a load of friends, etc. During Labor Day weekend, it seems most people treat it as exactly what it should be – a simple day off. People are tired from summer and first day of school stuff and usually welcome a day to chill. Amen. 🙂

Because the Army is so generous in turning three-day weekends into four-day weekends, we enjoyed a good chunk of family time. Here are a few pictures and stories from an enjoyable few days.

On Friday morning we woke up and kicked off the weekend at our favorite breakfast spot in town, The Chef.

We finished up around 10 and decided to go let the girls run around a playground for a while before heading home for the day, but instead we spontaneously decided to go to our local Sunset Zoo.

We hadn’t been all summer, so Hadley was beside herself with excitement. Sadie was also a happy camper because this was her first trip where she could walk and actually care a little more than she used to as an infant. 😉

We love this little zoo so much because it’s inexpensive ($13 for the four of us at the ages the girls are) and is small enough to walk around leisurely in about 90 minutes. The biggest animals are the cheetahs and tigers, so no elephants or giraffes or anything. So great, especially for having young kiddos who need a quick, stimulating activity.

Look at that brand new baby and it’s protective parents. So sweet!

On Saturday we bopped over to Kansas City to run around the World Series of BBQ for a couple hours.

Look at those faces! Cracks me up. Came for the swine, eventually left because of their whines. 😉

On our way home we whipped by Grinter’s Farm to finally see the spectacle that is their rolling hills of sunflower fields. So beautiful.

 

Hadley especially loves when the sunflower fields bloom each year, so her awe was really sweet when we pulled up to this field that is 100 times bigger than our fields in Manhattan.

Jamie and I weren’t quite in our “Sunday best” (it was gameday after all!), and for a second I was all “Darn it… I actually have my DSLR camera and wish we could take some nice family pictures” and then I was all WHO CARES! We were totally enjoying this spontaneous trip as a family and don’t have to always take pictures pretty enough to go on the wall. 🙂 #21stcenturyprobs

Lo and behold the first ever picture of all four DeSpains looking at the camera and smiling. 🙂 A nice man offered to take our picture, and his wife was next to him jumping around like crazy making the silliest faces and noises to make Sadie crack a smile. It worked. 🙂

Sunday was such an awesome day, and because we were having so much fun, I didn’t take any pictures but the quick one below.

Some relatives from Omaha came down to visit us for the day, and we just had the very best time.  We ate a big meal, had great conversation, drove around Manhattan, made a pit stop at our gorgeous local winery, had another big meal, and then said our goodbyes after nearly seven hours of togetherness. Reconnecting with these relatives (second cousins) of mine has been such a treat and leaves Jamie and I wishing we could spend more time with their family. Having relatives that feel way more like friends is so great!

And finally… a nice family weekend can only be topped with a visit to my favorite Konza Prairie. We did the 2.6 mile loop Monday morning and then did a heck of a lot of relaxing the rest of the day. One of the best parts about hosting people over to our house is that it always makes us a do a semi-deep clean, so since we’d already knocked that out before our company came the day prior, we felt totally guilt-free about kicking our feet up and watching movies the rest of the day Monday.

Thanks for reading! Off to get everybody together for a big day for our preschooler. 🙂 xo