Family Fun Time at the Bar

 

One of the things I had a hard time coming to terms with when we first moved to Kansas was the fact that anyone, any age could go to the town bar. What?? Why would I want to take my kids to a bar???

 

Growing up in Indiana, our town's bar had a seedy reputation. And there was never any bar in Indiana you could get into (legally) under the age of 21. So the idea of kids in the town bar was totally foreign to me. I just couldn't imagine a bar as an environment good for kids.

 

But over the last few years we've come to frequent the bar more often. I don't even think of it as a bar really. Yeah, they serve alcohol but so does Applebee's and there are plenty of kids in that restaurant. The Main Street Bar (pictured here) is more like a small town restaurant or cafe than a bar. They serve great food (except calf fries....sorry Mel but nothing can make those taste good!) The kids love their smiley fries and as you can see they really enjoy learning to play pool!

 

DR and the boys started going to the bar on Friday nights after practice for double cheeseburgers and more pool. Every Christmas we go to see Santa at the town Legion and then go next door to the bar to get something to eat...often served by Santa though the kids don't realize it.

 

The night I took pics of the kids playing pool we were at the bar for a Super Bowl Party. We did leave at halftime though, I couldn't bear too much more than that of the game. We all go to the bar and we see farmers, teachers, truck drivers, friends...all the same people that my kids see out and about in the community.

 

"Going to the bar" in Kansas is so much different than in Indiana. A Kansas bar is much less about drinking and partying than it is a place in the community, in the great expanse of the high desert/prairie, where people can gather. Sure I wouldn't want to take my kids out to the bar at 10:00 at night or anything but going to the bar for dinner once a month or so is a little treat for us all. So if you come out to Kansas to visit me I'll take you, and your kids, to the bar. Just don't blame me if you don't like the calf fries...I warned you!

Orphan Train Museum, Concordia, KS

Over Christmas vacation DR, the kids and I took a little road trip and we found ourselves in the little town of Concordia, KS where we visited the National Orphan Train Museum. Before we visited the museum I had heard of the Orphan Train and I knew that it brought orphans from New York City and brought out west. I thought the train had only ran for a few years and only brought children to a few states out west.

 

 

In fact I learned the Orphan Train ran between 1854 to 1929. There were two main institutions in New York City that helped the children; The New York Foundling Hospital and The Children's Aid Society.

 

The relocation of these children was the beginning of organized foster care in America and many of children who were relocated were never formally adopted.

 

Over 250,000 children were relocated to all the 48 continental states. In fact it's estimated that 1 in 25 people in this country are related to an orphan train child.

 

With the large influx of immigrants to New York City in the late 19th and early 20th century homes were crowded and sickness and disease left many children orphans and many children on the streets while both parents worked.

 

Although the Orphan Train Museum was small it was set up in a way that was easy for children, who don't want to sit and read signs, to understand the concept of the orphan train. Large photos were mounted on the walls chronologically so that as we walked around the boys and I could discuss what was happening in each photograph and how the great poverty led children in need of help.

 

Though the Children's Aid Society did send many children out west on the trains they endeavored to teach children domestic skills and a trade as well.

 

What I found most interesting was that babies and older boys were the most popular children to be chosen from the trains and in fact children could be "ordered". Parents who were looking for a child could fill out a request form specifying gender, age, hair and eye color and organizations such as the Foundling Hospital who took in a large number of infants (foundlings) would do their very best to match children with parents.

 

It was interesting to find the National Center for the Orphan Train to be in such a little town of Concordia, Kansas but they received the records since Concordia was one of stops along the Orphan Train route.

So, I have to ask....can any of my readers say that they are a related to an orphan trian child?

 

Train of Blades

Tonight we had football practice at 6pm and the field is right next a train tracks. During a normal practice a train will go by a couple times. But tonight we got quite a surprise, a train load of windmill blades were going by. 

There were well over a hundred blades, and nothing but blades, on this train. They were heading to Garden City, KS to a windmill staging area. 

Those blades aren't small are they? Even though I've been around a lot of these blades the size never seems to amaze me! 

The Reason You Can't Go Barefoot in Kansas.

Since little Miss Yahoo is in preschool every morning now I've been enjoying running outside again rather than on a treadmill all the time. I really enjoy running in Kansas. There may not be hills or trees to enjoy but the sense of incredible spaciousness (and wind) can be exhilarating! 

I finished a morning run just the other day where I had ran through town, through a few ditches and dirt roads....overall a great run. But then I went to untie my shoes. 

This dear friends is the reason no one ever goes barefoot in SW Kansas. This is the reason why so many people out here wear boots. Burrs. Folks, these aren't anything like those sweet little burrs you'll find in Illinois or Indiana. Those little burrs that grab onto your clothes after walking in the Indiana woods, you know, the ones you easily brush off.  Nope, Kansas burrs are downright NASTY!! 

They are big and their spikes are HARD and painful.They sting even if you try to pull them off gently. So much so that I won't touch them with my bare fingers. I pulled these off my shoes with toilet paper. They stick to everything! 

I even found some securely stuck onto the sole hard soles of my running shoes. 

I've heard these called "goat burrs" and "sand burrs". I'm not sure if there's a difference between those two names or exactly which burrs were stuck all over my shoes. I have my own special name for these burrs "*#$&*@@# BURRS!!!!!" 

Burrs are also the reason you don't sit or lay down on the ground either. Yip learned that the hard way the first year we were here. We were out in the country at a friend's house and he lay down in their yard and came up with his back covered in these burrs!! He's never forgotten it either! 

I haven't fallen off the edge of the Earth, I swear!

I really am alive. Honestly. 

Life has just gotten so darn busy that blogging is on the back burner. 

It's Holy Week and that's been keeping me busy with church stuff. We had an Easter egg hunt this afternoon and had over 60 kids show up! 60!! That's more than our average Sunday attendance. I have another couple of church projects coming up that hopefully I'll get to blog about. 

I've began the huge project of painting the interior of my house...every room but the bathrooms. I hope I don't get bored before I get everything painted. 

Check out the 7 ft. shelves I built for all of my photo frames! Isn't that so much better than a hundred new nail holes in the wall? I found the plans here.  Dang, they were so quick and easy to build that now I'm seeing places all over the house where I could put shelves like this. I could use them for books, toys, kitchen stuff...endless possibilities! 

One room painted, seven to go. 

It's been a couple weeks since our family spent a few days in Kansas City and I still had a few more photos to share of our trip. I know, I'm way behind. 

Kansas City has a Legoland and it was a big hit with our kids. We were there for three hours and we were exhausted by the time we were done! Check out the Lego Wizard of Oz land! 

The Emerald City. 

Dorothy's house raised up and spun around. 

Munchkin land and the yellow brick road. 

Yahoo was never too interested in Legos until she found that there were pink Friends Legos. She's been building with her new Legos all week. I've found though, that even though Yahoo (a girl) and her brother Yap both play with Legos they play very differently! Boys build lego cars, towers, wars but little girls build backdrops so their Lego figures can have conversations. 

Lego land had a big section where the kids built cars and rolled them down a variety of ramps. I'm not sure if  Yap barely left this section! He LOVED building bigger and better cars. 

Walking on a pit of Legos? That looks tortuous to me...how do kids do it? 

Lego land was a bit pricy but considering how crazy our kids are for Legos and, we were there for three hours, I think it was worth it. 

I'm still alive, just really busy with all kinds of different projects. But I'll blog when I can!! 

We Are Truly Blessed.

I was substitute teaching down the road this week at an elementary with 52 children. That is, 52 students in the whole elementary, and that included a preschool class. As I was standing in the noon sun on a gorgeous November day, I was struck anew by just how blessed my family and I are to live in Southwest Kansas. 

Of course living in the middle of no where isn't without it's annoyances. It's too dray and too warm. I'm too far from family. I miss trees and leaves and humidity (a little humidity anyway). But these things seem like trivial complaints when I look around and really appreciate the fantastic community my family and I live in. 

We live in a town of 900 people. Maybe my kids and I don't personally know all 900 of them but there are a large chunk of faces we recognize and who recognize us. One of my boys' best friends lives right across the street from us, the main street of town by the way, and he's often found playing at our house. The other day he crossed the street without looking for cars. Granted traffic is rarely busy in town and most people are VERY good at watching out for darting kids. But a truck was coming and the driver, who knew the neighbor boy, stopped in the middle of the street and warmed him about not looking before he crossed the road. It's nice to know people here not only look out for children who aren't their own, but will discipline them as well; I appreciate that. 

Just a few evenings ago I was doing some work on the computer in the living room. It was well past 9:00 and DR had already gone to bed when there was a knock at the door. I was rather surprised considering our town "rolls up the sidewalks" at dark. Of course, I wasn't nervous about answering the door either. I just can't imagine anyone wishing to cause me harm would bother knocking first. I answered the door to find another of my neighbors, a woman about my age, crying on my doorstep. She's a single mother and had some bad family news that day. All day she'd been upset, she couldn't calm down and had seen my light on and had come over to ask me to pray with and for her. I was a bit flustered, no one has ever asked me to pray for or with them before. My neighbor doesn't attend church but know I do...it's a small town after all. So we sat and talked and prayed. It warms my heart that this woman felt comfortable enough to come over and ask for help though we've known one another less than a year. I can name at least 5 people who live only a block away from me that I wouldn't hesitate asking for help, day or night, if I needed it. I've lived in other towns where I barely knew my neighbors even after more than a year of living beside one another. 

But really the thing I appreciate the most about living in rural Kansas are the SMALL schools. In 1994 I graduated from an Indiana high school in a class of about 130. While in college, still in Indiana, I did my student teaching at a school of a thousand students. While in Kentucky I substitute taught with police officers and racial fights in the hallways. A small school is a nice change of pace. That's not to say a super small school is perfect; we still deal with a lot of the same issues as big schools (behavior, bullies, cliques). But for the most part there isn't much of that kind of stuff to deal with and rarely any major issue. The teachers in Yip and Yap's school knows every one's names, not just in their classroom...everyone. The 5th grade teacher knows all the elementary students though they haven't bee in his class yet. In our small school we are lucky with the individual attention students receive. The staff isn't stretched thing meeting the needs of 30 plus students, rather the largest class I've see in the elementary is 19. A little school might not have the tax base or resources for lots of computers or the most modern facilities, but I'd much rather have the time and attention of their teachers over a fancy school any day. 

I asked my mom recently if the fact that DR and I have moved so often really bothered her and my dad. But she said , no id didn't. Of course they'd like it if their grand kids lived closer. (I'm hoping she'd like to have DR and I live closer as well but you can never be too sure about the priorities of grandparents) but if we couldn't live back home in Indiana she and Dad are awfully happy their grand kids are growing up in such a wonderful little community. I'd have to agree. 

Of all the states and communities that DR and I have moved into in the last 9 years, this community has by far been the most welcoming, the most like home and family and for that I am very, VERY thankful! 

Sternberg Museum of Natural History

Over the weekend the whole family loaded up for a little day trip to Hays, KS. Hays is knows as the "German Capital of Kansas". Of course I didn't realize this until we were already there or we would have made different plans for the day. (DR and I have a LOT of German ancestry.) Instead we visited the Sternberg Museum of Natural History which is part of Ft. Hays State University. Sternberg is a great little museum! 

We were greeted on our way in by this "little" guy. Right under this life size prehistoric critter there are fish tanks with an alligator, an alligator gar and an alligator tortoise.

The museum was full of fossils and skeletons but my kids were definitely drawn to the life size models. 

The T-Rex was by far the favorite! It was mechanized and every few minutes it's head would turn, it's mouth would open and it would roar! 

Yahoo loved this baby dinosaur because it was "chewing grass" and she kept wanting to come check to see if it were still eating it's lunch. 

Dig like an archaeologist!! 

But this is where we spent the most time, the.... 

There were tons of toy animals, drawers full of specimens...

...specimens in acrylic that we studied under magnifying glasses....

...LOTS of live specimens; snakes, turtles, toads...

...and tons of books to look through....

....and....

Ellis County? Yeah, that's the county we were currently standing in. 

I much prefer this spider! 

Sternberg was a great museum! I only wished we lived closer; it was a 3 hour drive to get there but it was well worth it. 

We also visited the Old Ft. Hays which was right next to the railroad and served as a supply depot for the other forts in Kansas. But I'll share more about that later! 

The Tumbleweed Menace

When we first moved to Kansas the tumbleweeds were kind of cool. They blew and rolled so quickly across the road. They were so much bigger than I imagined and there were so many of them. It was like watching a western movie through my windshield.

But the novelty of tumbleweeds have DEFINITELY worn off! 

The stinkin' things are everywhere. For the last week or so we've have some very windy days and the wind brings the tumbleweed in from the country and they get stuck everywhere in town; under bleachers, in fences, under trees. And it doesn't matter how many of them you clean out and get rid of the next stiff wind will just bring more. And more. And MORE!

Tumbleweeds are poky and hard to untangle from stuff. Then if you are driving and see a particularly large tumbleweed you have to worry about it hitting your car and scratching it up like a wildcat. 

All those gruff and grumpy cowboys in all the old time western movies were that grumpy just because of tumbleweeds...and maybe the bad guys shooting at them. 

But mostly it had to be the tumbleweeds. 

They make me grumpy too.