Birthday Celebration/Babymoon

Last year when we went to Disney World, we were planning that it would be our last big vacation for at least a little while because we were hoping to have a little one coming in the next year or so and knew it would impact our traveling plans. However, I always hoped to take a small babymoon during my pregnancy to get one last vacation in before our family grew. With Matt's frequent traveling, we had difficulty finding a long weekend that would work for our mini vacation and decided to postpone it, and I was worried we wouldn't be able to come up with a time that worked. But Matt came through and for Christmas gave me a coupon for a long weekend getaway to Kansas City. We decided to combine celebrations and head to Kansas City for the weekend of my birthday. One of the benefits of Matt's traveling was that we were able to use his hotel points to pay for our hotel so we ended up not having to spend a lot of money. We both took off work last Friday and drove up to Kansas City that morning. We arrived just in time for lunch. I had gotten several recommendations for good restaurants in the area, and one of them was this place:

It is called the Webster House and used to be a school building that they have transformed into a restaurant/store. One of the great things about vacations is trying new restaurants (and getting a break from cooking). The food was pretty good. Matt had a burger and I had a chicken sandwich.

After lunch, we decided to check into our hotel. Matt splurged with his points (he has a lot) and booked reservations at the Embassy Suites. We were on the top floor.




We unpacked, relaxed and then took a walk down to the plaza and walked around for a few hours. We browsed several stores, spent some time in Barnes and Noble and stopped for ice cream on the way back to the hotel. One of our requirements for vacations is they always include large amounts of ice cream :). That evening we went back to the plaza for dinner and walked around some more until the stores starting closing down.

The next morning was my birthday, and I woke up to Matt giving me a sweet card from him and Nathan. We enjoyed breakfast at the hotel and then drove out to Legends, a big outlet mall in Kansas City. We found some good deals. I got a few maternity clothes, Matt found a jacket, and Nathan got a couple of cute outfits. Matt reigns me in a lot when I'm shopping for Nathan. I would go wild if it weren't for him reminding me that we will most likely gets lots of adorable baby clothes at my showers. After spending a couple of hours at the outlets, we ventured off to the WWI museum in the city. We toured the museum for a little while. I don't have a huge tolerance for museums, and I'm usually done after an hour or two. I never learned much about WWI in high school or college, so I enjoyed learning some new things, although I almost think I learned more from talking to Matt about the war during and after we visited the museum than I learned from the museum itself.

One neat thing about the museum was the liberty tower. From the top we had a great view of the city





Union Station was just across the street from the museum so we stopped there on the way back to the hotel. We just spent a few minutes there since we were both very ready for lunch by that point, but Matt wanted me to see the architecture of the building.

The ceiling at the train station was really cool.

From the museum we drove back to the plaza for a late birthday lunch. We ate at Brio, a great Italian place that was recommended by a friend. It was delicious and since we ate about 3:00, it was practically empty. We had some great conversations and splurged on dessert since it was my birthday. Lunch that day was one of my favorite memories of the trip. After lunch we walked around the rest of the plaza that we hadn't seen. It started raining during the afternoon which cut our day out a little short, but thankfully we had seen most everything on the plaza before the rain started. That evening after spending a couple of hours relaxing at the hotel (This momma was ready for a break after a long day of walking and being 7 1/2 months pregnant), we decided to catch a movie. We saw The King's Speech and we both really enjoyed it. I hope it wins some Oscars. I thought Colin Firth was excellent in it. Ever since a new theater opened in Broken Arrow, and our favorite go to theater no longer has new movies or $2.00 Tuesdays, we rarely go to the movies. It's hard for us to justify spending almost $20 to see a movie especially when we have Netflix, so going to the movies is a fun treat for us.

The next morning we enjoyed a lazy morning and then hit the road to head back to Oklahoma. Matt was a little mopey that our vacation was ending. He kept making me reassure him that we would still be able to take vacations once Nathan is born, and that this wasn't our last vacation as a couple. We're definitely not planning anything big this year, but I told him that by our 6th anniversary, Nathan would be weaned, and I would probably feel comfortable enough to leave him for four or five days for a vacation. I'm so glad we got a chance to get away even if it was just for a couple of days. Matt and I had a chance to reconnect and spend lots of quality time together. We had some great conversations on the car ride and during the whole trip. A certain little guy frequently becomes the center of our conversations these days, but we also talked a lot about vacation memories, current events, history (the WWI museum and the movie sparked those conversations), and life in general. Living life with my husband everyday is great, but having the opportunity to get out of our normal routine and experience new things together is one of my all time favorite things.