July 4th weekend we headed up to Kansas City with Oma and grandma Agnes. We dropped Grandma Agnes off at Clayton and Phylis' house, and Oma at the Hilger's.

Friday night we went to a Kansas City Royals baseball game at the new Kauffman stadium. We arrived about 1 1/2 hours early so we could walk around. They had a neat kids area with a playground, miniature golf, base run race, batting cage, arcade and a mini baseball field where you could partake in a mini baseball game. Adam and Zach both wanted to do the base run, a game where you choose a Royals player to "race" against. You run from third base to home base racing against the players' time. Both boys did that twice, and then the third time, Scott joined them too.
Scott even slid into home, and then later regretted the decision.
After the game we watched the fireworks show from the back of our van. Good thing too, because it started raining during the show!

Saturday afternoon, the Hilger's came out to Bates City. Some of the group (Sherry, Oma, Katie, Jake, Adam, Zach, Pam and I) went out to Powell Gardens to see their new gardening exhibit, Heartland Harvest Garden. The boys pretty much ran through the garden and were ready to go after about 10 minutes. I noted that the onions growing at the Heartland Garden looked much better than my dinky little onions growing back home, as did the lettuce and tomatoes.

The fireworks began after a dinner. Favorites were ladybugs (spinning fireworks who then shot up in the air with a shriek), parachutes (shot up straight in the air and popped sending a "skydiver" down to the ground) and fountains.

Smoke bombs are always fun too...
Do not be fooled by these two little innocent faces...this is one of my favorite pictures from the weekend.
On Sunday, we took Katie back to Wichita with us to spend some time with Oma and Papa. There wasn't an empty seat in the van. Katie entertained Adam and Zach by taking pictures on her camera phone and playing the alphabet sign game.