It’s wild to say but our kiddo turned 12 last week. It’s hard to believe that time has gone this quickly, but here we are. As his birthday approached, we were struggling trying to figure out what to do to celebrate him big. He doesn’t really need anything (other than some summer clothes) and he’s not the kind of kid who asks for things. He makes you get creative every Christmas and on his birthday. 😂
We landed on taking him away for a surprise birthday weekend. We decided on Kansas City and off we went.
Our first surprise was stopping at Yaya’s Alpaca Farm outside of Kansas City. What an absolute perfect way to start the weekend! Our animal-loving kiddo was so excited to get to spend some time with these gentle beauties. We learned about Alpacas, we got to spend some time feeding and petting about 50 of them and then we learned how to weave their fiber into textiles. If you’re going to Kansas City, I would highly recommend the farm! We loved our time there.
The next day, we went skydiving! Well, kind of.
We went to iFly in Overland Park, Kansas and did indoor skydiving. I was a little worried this might be too intense for the nugget, or that he might be a little scared. I was wrong. 😂 He took the training class super serious and, when his turn came, he dove into the flight tunnel. He was a natural.
By the time his flights were over, he had decided that he wanted to get certified as an instructor.
Later that night, we were in REI buying the kiddo some summer clothes. Out of the blue, he said “4 hours in the car is worth it for some air time”. He’s already planning his next trip to the flight tunnel (luckily there’s an iFly in OKC, which is just a couple hours away from us).
Throughout the trip, we had delicious meals all over KC as we explored and saw the sights. These are just a few pics of the food we enjoyed.
We spent our last full day in Kansas City at Worlds of Fun amusement park. This was the kiddo’s first time in a real amusement park where he was old enough (and tall enough) to start riding the bigger rides. Again, I was worried that he might be scared of the rollercoasters.
And he proved me wrong again. We immediately hopped on a coaster and I could see that he was overwhelmed and not sure what to make of it. He was definitely afraid. But the second the coaster came to a stop, he yelled “THAT WAS AMAZING!” and got back in line to go again.
We spent 6 hours at the park, walked over 7 miles and he rode every. single. ride he could — most of them 2-3 times. I was so proud of him. He was fearless and made the most of every experience we planned for him,
“I’m not sleepy.”
- The Nugget, 5 minutes before falling asleep in a restaurant
When we headed home after 4 days of fun, we were all beat. Kansas City treated us right. Our hotel, Hotel Kansas City, was super nice and the location was amazing. It was in the middle of the Power and Light District and was an easy walk to bunches of delicious restaurants, grocery stores and other activities.